Friday’s top tech news: new iOS emoji just dropped

Microsoft says it’s implementing some conversation limits to its Bing AI just days after the chatbot went off the rails multiple times for users. Bing chats will now be capped at 50 questions per day and five per session after the search engine was seen insulting users, lying to them, and emotionally manipulating people.

“Our data has shown that the vast majority of people find the answers they’re looking for within 5 turns and that only around 1 percent of chat conversations have 50+ messages,” says the Bing team in a blog post. If users hit the five-per-session limit, Bing will prompt them to start a new topic to avoid long back-and-forth chat sessions.

The NBA app is getting a way to overlay yourself on another player in a live game so that it looks like you are that player. Yes, it’s as strange as it sounds.

Here’s how it works — at least, as shown in an on-stage demo with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Ahmad Rashad. With the NBA app, you’ll be able to scan the person you want to drop into an NBA game by walking around that person and pointing your camera at them. (It seems as if the scanning works like Epic Games’ RealityScan app, but for people.) Then, from a menu, you can pick which player to inhabit, and when you do, your scan will be overlaid on top of that player as they move around the court.

Amazon is making its multiroom audio platform more convenient to control with your phone. A recent update to the Alexa mobile app introduced a new capability that lets users manage and move their music between Echo devices (or groups of multiple speakers) within the app itself. (Previously, you needed to use voice commands to perform some of those actions.)

Now, it’s all doable through a menu that lets you move music to any group or Alexa device with a couple of taps — no talking necessary. In our brief time trying it so far, it’s pretty intuitive, and anyone that’s controlled music via AirPlay or Spotify Connect shouldn’t have much trouble figuring this out. Amazon’s current lineup of Echo speakers includes the standard Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Studio, and optional Echo Sub subwoofer. You can play audio across Echo Show and Fire TV devices through the Alexa app as well.

Putting a timetable on the move it announced in September, Google says users will be able to manage all tasks created across various Google apps from Google Tasks starting in March. Beginning May 22nd, Google will automatically move reminders created in the Google Assistant and Calendar apps to Tasks, though users can voluntarily start doing so ahead of time.

Once the process is complete, users will also be able to access and create tasks from Google Workspace web apps like Gmail, Docs, Chat, and Calendar.

Apple has let loose public beta versions of iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS Ventura 13.3 equipped with new emoji, web app push notifications on the mobile operating systems, and more. The release comes a day after developers were given access to the new software.

New Apple software releases are some of the first places to try the latest emoji sets before all other devices adopt them, and iOS 16.4 is no exception. You’re getting new ones from Unicode 15.0, including the “stop right there”-looking hand and a ginger root, so you can finally ask for a juice blend at the gym cafe using only emoji.

Eleven months after Epic Games acquired Bandcamp, it’s getting its first major integration into Fortnite. Fortnite’s new “Radio Underground” station is a collection of songs curated by Bandcamp editors that you can blast while, well, blasting your way around the popular battle royale. The in-game radio station features tunes from independent artists around the world and covers a variety of genres, from pop-punk and indie to ’80s synthwave and smooth soul.

Fortnite’s Radio Underground station is already live and will be available until the end of Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 1 on March 8th. As with the other in-game radio channels, you’ll need to jump into a car or truck during a match to start listening to the new station. A spokesperson for Epic Games has also confirmed to The Verge that all of the songs featured are suitable to be streamed on platforms like Twitch.

Tile says a new anti-theft feature, rolling out starting today, makes its Bluetooth trackers invisible to anti-stalking detection like the Scan and Secure feature in the app. By disabling detection abilities, it could be more effective in recovering something very important: like a briefcase containing a million dollars in cash or a gaming carry case that has a PS4 with P.T. preinstalled.

But that also makes it invisible to everyone, so Tile will require users who want to enable the feature to register their photo ID, consent to Tile working with law enforcement without a subpoena, and agree to get slammed by a $1 million fine if convicted for misusing the tracker criminally.

The theatrical version of Universal’s M3gan was already a delightfully deranged romp as is, but Peacock’s just called dibs on an unrated cut that might just make you want to check the movie out again just to see how much wilder it could be.

Universal announced today that both the original version of M3gan and an all-new unrated version with never-before-seen footage are heading to Peacock on February 24th, yet another move that feels like the studio’s trying to get serious about making the streaming platform take off. Back in January, M3gan’s screenwriter Akela Cooper told the Los Angeles Times that her original script was much more gory and featured a higher body count, but once the film’s first trailer became a viral hit that appealed to teenagers especially, the studio wanted to lock in a PG-13 rating.

Amazon employees will be expected to work from the office at least three days per week starting May 1st, according to an email CEO Andy Jassy sent to staff posted on the company’s blog. Previously, it was up to individual teams to decide their in-office policies.

Jassy says the company’s leadership team decided to change the policy after observing that it’s easier to strengthen Amazon’s culture, collaborate on ideas, and learn from others in person. He acknowledges that some roles will be some exceptions to the policy, like some salespeople and customer support, but “that will be a small minority.”

The Marvels — director Nia DaCosta’s follow-up to the first Captain Marvel — was originally slated to touch down right in the thick of summer blockbuster season. Those plans are changing, but Marvel’s released a promising new look at the movie to tide folks over.

The Marvels, starring Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, WandaVision’s Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel’s Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, will now hit theaters on November 10th, rather than July 28th as was previously announced. Along with the new release date, Marvel Studios also released a new poster for the upcoming film featuring its three leads “together” for the first time and highlighting the new duds Kamala and Monica will be sporting during their upcoming adventure.

In behavioral psychology, the mirror test is designed to discover animals’ capacity for self-awareness. There are a few variations of the test, but the essence is always the same: do animals recognize themselves in the mirror or think it’s another being altogether?

Right now, humanity is being presented with its own mirror test thanks to the expanding capabilities of AI — and a lot of otherwise smart people are failing it. 

A new Civilization game, likely to be called Civilization VII, is in development at Firaxis Games, incoming studio head Heather Hazen has announced. 

“I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio’s storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise,” Hazen said in a press release. “I’m lucky to be working with some of the best developers in our industry, and we have plans to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world.”

It’s hard to admit, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in obsessive behavior occasionally, especially when it comes to entertainment. It can be a TV series, a game, a series of novels, a comic book universe... It’s the kind of thing where you look up and suddenly realize that it’s 2AM and you have to get up early for work, and then you think, “Well, one more episode won’t hurt,” or, “If I try one more time, I can survive into the next round.”

We asked the staff of The Verge what their current media obsessions were. Here are the answers we got, divided into four categories: games, TV series, books, and music. Maybe you even share the enthusiasm they have for some of these.

As spotted by XDA-Developers, Nothing is starting to release its first major OS upgrade for its very first mobile device: Phone 1. Remember the phone that goes blink blink blink? That one. Its Android 13 skin, Nothing OS 1.5, has been in beta testing since late 2022. Now, beta testers are reporting on Reddit and Discord that the stable version has arrived in the form of Nothing OS 1.5.2.

There’s a long list of improvements in Nothing’s release notes for the beta, like a Nothing-ified weather app with the company’s signature dot-matrix UI styling. There are other expected Android 13 updates included, including a QR code scanner in the quick settings menu and privacy updates for the photo picker.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the creator of the collapsed Terra blockchain protocol for securities fraud following last year’s meltdown that sent reverberations throughout the cryptocurrency industry. According to the SEC’s complaint, Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon “perpetuated a fraudulent scheme that led to the loss of at least $40 billion of market value.”

Last September, South Korea issued a warrant for Kwon’s arrest, while Interpol reportedly issued a “red notice” for him or a call to international law enforcement agencies to “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” Despite Kwon insisting that he’s “not on the run,” the complaint notes that “his current address is unknown.” South Korean police reportedly traveled to Serbia in an attempt to track him down earlier this month.