Category: Apple Insider

The L40 has a whopping five different ways to unlock it, bringing with it a lot of utility but also a lot of potential weaknesses. With fingerprint unlock, remote unlocking via phone, keycard, passcode, and key unlock, family members, roommates, and guests have plenty of ways to access your home.

With IP54-rated dust and waterproof protection and BHMA certified to endure 1350 pounds of force, the L40 can survive long-term use as an outdoor or indoor lock. Lock data is stored locally, and users receive a notification when more than five incorrect inputs are placed.

The guide for installation is straightforward, coming with step-by-step directions and a blueprint to tape to the door to assist with drilling. This is needed, as the L40 is not the kind of lock that can easily replace your old one without new holes in your door.

With that said, be very sure about this lock before purchasing since going back to a simpler one may be difficult.

Installing the lock requires three different holes in the door, a 54mm (2.13-inch) hole for the deadbolt, a 20mm (0.79-inch) hole underneath, and an about 20mm vertical slot above the deadlock. Drilling in the U.S. with estimated imperial-measurement tools yields slightly imprecise holes, which made the assembly messier than expected.

For the last step of aligning the two sides of the lock, the hole made to fit the upper bolt is difficult to align since it is also made to fit the wiring. We found ourselves having to carefully squeeze the wiring into the hole while also making room for the lock to be secured, which can take a few tries. If you feel comfortable, drilling some extra space in the upper oval-shaped hole may be a good idea.

After you finish putting everything together, position the batteries and install the Proscenic app. If you have the TYGBWBS-01N Proscenic WiFi Gateway, set that up first, connect it to the app, and then have the L40 pair as a “sub-device” of the Gateway. In doing so, you can check the lock’s status and control it if you’re connected to your WiFi.

If you don’t have the Gateway, you’ll just need to connect to the L40 via Bluetooth, which is still fine if you have a medium-sized house, and it only takes a few seconds longer to connect.

The Proscenic app is intuitive, featuring family management, temporary passwords, unlock logs, and other useful functions.

You can set up other app users on the lock and assign them their own fingerprints, passcodes, and keycards. You can do this for “family members” or “non-family members”, where non-family cannot unlock the L40 through Bluetooth or WiFi.

If you’re living with people who aren’t tech-savvy, you can just put all the fingerprints and passcodes under your profile.

You can also set temporary passwords with an effective period, expiration date, and repeat times. This can be very useful for guests or visitors who come by at certain times and maintains overall security. Once made, the passwords are put into “effective,” “to be effective,” and “expired” menus.

The L40 also has an activity log under “Door lock dynamics”. This can tell you when, where, and who opened the door or what times the door alarm went off.

Other menus display general settings and simple tweaks such as adjusting lock volume, how long it takes for the lock to secure itself automatically, and double verification. Double verification utilizes the L40’s many ways to unlock it by requiring two unlocking methods to open, such as a thumbprint and a key code.

We installed the L40 on our garage’s foyer door, and it’s not bad for daily use. The day-to-day interaction was usually putting the thumb to the lock, waiting about a second for it to turn green, and turning the handle before heading to the car.

At first, we noticed that when using your thumb, you should align the front of your finger to avoid the rest of the thumb touching the sensors.

For a house lock, we can see more potential as the app allows plenty of ways to maintain security while letting guests in. Still, we can’t help but feel like Proscenic has put too many unlocking options on the lock since the box gives you two keys and two keycards to potentially lose.

The L40’s advertised anti-peep function is useful, though, and you can put in a few random numbers before and after your real passcode and still have it unlock without a problem. We’re not the type to pick locks, but we can vouch for the sense of security the L40 brings, especially with the unorthodox key shape.

Proscenic advertises the L40 as a great Airbnb or landlord lock, and we can see why. Having a master user with many ways to distribute access securely is incredibly valuable. Still, we can’t see that happening too much for the average homeowner or even smart home enthusiast, especially for the default cost of the L40 being over $300.

In our personal use, we’ve barely used the keycard or key at all. Logic points out that the more access points you have, the less secure something is.

On the other hand, double verification can provide further security, and it depends on the user’s circumstance. For example, some may want more flexibility in their unlocking options, while others may want a simpler and streamlined experience for better peace of mind.

• 5 different unlocking methods
• IP54-rating
• Useful app functions
• Family management and temporary passwords

• Finicky installation
• Potential weaknesses due to too many unlocking options
• Metric drilling preferred for installation
• Expensive and complex for the average homeowner

Emergency SOS via Satellite

Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite has slowly rolled out to more countries since its introduction in 2022. Now, Apple has made the safety feature available to people located in Australia and New Zealand.

Going live from May 15, Emergency SOS via Satellite enables users to send a message to emergency services when they don’t have cellular or Wi-Fi access available. Instead, the iPhone can send a low-bandwidth message via a satellite to specialists at a relay center to get the help they need.

The feature isn’t just helpful for emergencies, as it can also be employed to share the whereabouts of the user with friends and family if they’re going far off the beaten track.

As with other territories, the service is free for two years starting from the time of activation of the handset. It is available on the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Australians know full well the importance of remaining connected in regional, rural, and remote areas, particularly when they need emergency services. The ability to contact Triple Zero with Emergency SOS via satellite when there is no mobile coverage is a strong backup to keep Australians connected in an emergency,” said the Hon Michelle Rowland MP, Minister for Communications.

Rowland insisted Australians should be “encouraged to familiarize themselves with this feature and whether their device supports it.”

The roll-out in Australia and New Zealand follows earlier expansions from North America to the UK, Ireland, France, and Germany, followed by Austria, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

A piece of art can take a room to the next level, but picking out the perfect piece for your space can be daunting.

That’s why digital photo frames are a great alternative. We’re checking out Canvia’s digital art frame, a Wi-Fi-enabled frame that allows you to swap out art as much as you’d like.

Canvia measures 27 inches by 18 inches, including its frame. The screen area is 24 inches on the diagonal, making it fall somewhere between an A2 and A3-sized artwork.

It’s fairly substantial and can make quite an impression when hung above a fireplace or over a piece of furniture. In addition, it can be hung in both portrait and landscape mode, which helps expand the kinds of spaces you would reasonably want to include it in.

Canvia is also available in four finishes. We received white, which blends into most rooms without effort but comes in a black, red, or light wood frame.

Canvia is relatively easy to install and set up, making it a quick project that can be done in under 15 minutes.

At a little under twelve pounds, it’s light enough to hang without any specialized hardware. We could hang it on a lath-and-plaster wall with the included hanging hinge and screws.

However, should you want it, Canvia is VESA mount compatible.

We’d like to note that Canvia includes a 10-foot power cord, which may or may not fit your needs. Canvia’s makers suggest replacing the power cord with a compatible one if you need something longer or shorter.

Getting Canvia to display artwork requires you to download the Canvia app, which we’ll touch on later.

The setup mirrors just about any other Wi-Fi-enabled device. You’ll connect your phone to Canvia’s network and then use the app to bring it into your home network.

This worked, though the app took considerable time to connect Canvia to our home network. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t do much to let you know what progress — if any — is being made, so it would be pretty easy to assume it’s not working.

Canvia has 1920-by-1080 FHD resolution. This means artwork should be either 16:9 or 9:16, depending on whether you’re hanging Canvia in portrait or landscape orientation.

If you have artwork that doesn’t have the correct aspect ratio, Canvia has a pan-and-scan feature that zooms the image in to fill the screen. We suggest turning this on by default, as artwork that doesn’t fill the entire screen takes away from the aesthetic.

Canvia during the daytime

It boasts a 1.8 GHz Quad Core ARM Processor and 2GB DDR3 RAM. According to the manufacturers, its 16GB of memory allows you to store up to 10,000 pieces of artwork.

If you should run over that amount, it does feature a microSD card slot.

If you collect NFT images or videos, you can link your crypto wallet to your Canvia account and use it to display them. We did not try out this feature.

While it’s not the highest resolution, we found that it looked good as long as we used sufficiently sized images.

Canvia also comes equipped with a feature called ArtSense. ArtSense uses a sensor on the edge of Canvia’s frame to sense the ambient lighting and adjusts the color temperature, contrast, and brightness accordingly.

We thought that the ArtSense feature worked well, though if you have color-changing lights anywhere nearby, you’ll probably want to disable this feature.

Here’s where things go awry.

When managing your Canvia, you must use the app and website. The major issue is that the app and website don’t offer the same features. Sometimes features are handled exclusively in the app, but more often than not, most require you to visit canvia.art.

For example, say you want to schedule your frame to turn on or off automatically. Unfortunately, this feature is web-exclusive and cannot be done in-app.

This is a strange choice on behalf of the developers and suggests that they may have had issues when creating the app.

In addition to setting schedules, you use the app or the website to upload images. The upload interface is a little clunky, but it gets the job done.

If you want to manage your playlists or image queue, you must do that on the website — it cannot be managed from the app. This is especially frustrating because the interface can be very glitchy.

For example, we would try to remove images from our queue, and it would return errors a not-insignificant amount of time.

This is, by far, the biggest issue we have with Canvia. While we were able to get it to work by sheer brute force, many people may not want to fuss with something like this — especially at this cost.

While you can upload your own images into Canvia, there’s also a large collection of both free and premium art you can use.

This feature was okay, but not without issue.

The biggest issue is that nearly all artwork is incorrectly proportioned for Canvia. This means the artwork winds up centered in the middle of the screen with large black bars across two sides.

We suggest uploading your own high resolution art and photographs to Canvia

And, sure, you could turn on the pan & scan feature in the app. When activated, Canvia zooms in on the artwork to fill the frame correctly.

However, this means that some of the artwork will get cropped. This can lead to images that are cropped poorly, with subjects cut off or missing.

As stated above, Canvia offers both free and premium art. There are 500 “classic” artworks and 50 contemporary artworks available without a subscription.

The premium subscription offers “unlimited access” to contemporary and classic pieces. However, Canvia does not clarify how many pieces that includes.

A complimentary one-year membership is included with the purchase of Canvia.

Once your free year is up, Canvia charges $9.99 per month to access the premium art, which is fairly expensive if you only find one or two pieces you want to keep on rotation.

Canvia is a hard product to recommend. While the hardware is great, and we think it would look good in nearly any space, the app and website functionality are — to be frank — abysmal.

It falls into a gray area. Most users could either spend less to have a perfectly good digital frame with fewer “smart” features or spend more to get a frame with smart features that actually work.

• Easy to install
• ArtSense feature works well
• Clean aesthetic blends in to most types of decor

• App is glitchy
• Constant switching between app and website is frustrating
• Website interface is not easy to navigate
• Fairly expensive
• Premium subscription is expensive

Urtopia Carbon 1s

The Urtopia Carbon 1s is a tech-first e-bike that weighs only 35 pounds. While some of the product choices are odd or even consumer-hostile, we’ve found Urtopia’s vision of the future of e-bikes quite intriguing.

Before we mention anything else, let’s talk about the weirdest omission — the kickstand. That’s right, if you want a kickstand for your fancy new $2,800 e-bike, you’ll need to shell out $30 in a separate purchase.

This e-bike is well-built and acts as an excellent option for paved travel. The tech-first approach could leave some e-bike enthusiasts looking elsewhere, but this is a good option for someone who wants an out-of-the-box bike with little fuss and gadget-heavy flair.

We reviewed the Urtopia Carbon 1s, a slightly different model from the Carbon 1 that’s still for sale. The most significant difference between the two is the Carbon 1s has a 7-gear derailleur and a metal chain versus a carbon belt drive mechanism.

Urtopia Carbon 1s has a curvy, opinionated design

The most notable feature of Urtopia’s Carbon series of e-bikes is their weight. It uses a full carbon body frame similar to the ones used by professional racing bikes — making the entire bike weigh 35 pounds.

This is an incredible difference in weight compared to other e-bikes we’ve reviewed. That’s half or more the weight with almost all of the functionality.

The Carbon 1s design is minimal yet striking in its own way. There are three different color options that are very loud or a more minimalistic monochrome option if that’s your thing.

The wheels are super thin — the thinnest we’ve used on any bike. They’re made with paved roads in mind, and a lack of suspension doubles down on that.

The handlebars can’t be adjusted

The screen is integrated with the handlebars and shows information in a dot-matrix display. Speed is shown in large numbers above a battery level indicator and a numeric value for the current pedal assist mode.

The left handlebar has a “gamepad” button, or D-pad, for controlling pedal assist levels or activating turn signals. The right handlebar has a button with an integrated fingerprint reader that summons the voice assistant and a gear shift.

Under the seat are an integrated brake light and projector turn signals. These are connected via a wire in the seat stem.

Unlike other e-bikes, what you see is what you get. You’re buying into the Urtopia technological ecosystem and everything it stands for.

That means you’ll have a handlebar that can’t be exchanged for one with height or tilt adjustment. You’re also stuck with the seat stem, and third-party accessories likely won’t work with the Carbon 1s frame.

Urtopia isn’t the first or the worst offender, but we’d like to note the business model does feel more pointed toward accessory upsell versus other brands. Add racks, fenders, or a water bottle cage for an expected premium.

Kickstand sold separately

However, the greatest sin Urtopia commits is forcing customers to order the $30 kickstand separately. We’re not entirely sure why this part was omitted except to reduce weight, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s an essential part.

Considering the already high price of the e-bike, it seems like a nickel-and-dime move to ask customers to buy such a necessary part separately. Our town doesn’t offer many bike stands or stations to park, so we’d have to order a kickstand or face laying this expensive product in the dirt.

Urtopia also offers an eSIM. Thankfully you won’t need to call Verizon or T-Mobile for an expensive monthly plan — it’s just a single $30 per year in-app purchase, and the first year is free.

That eSIM plan provides many of the smarts to the Urtopia Carbon 1s. Track the bike anywhere with GPS, get directions that show arrows right on the bike, and get notifications when the bike is moved in locked mode.

We’ve tested a few e-bikes, and they’ve all prided themselves on app connectivity and emerging e-bike tech. However, Urtopia takes it a step further and strives for a fully-integrated tech experience.

The dot-matrix display is easily read in direct sunlight

At a glance, you’d never guess that the Urtopia Carbon 1s has motion detection, alarms, a voice assistant, fingerprint unlock, a Bluetooth speaker, automatic lights, and a horn. All of these features are thanks to the integrated processor, 4G modem, and other technologies built into the bike and its Smartbar.

We already mentioned the d-pad control and fingerprint reading button. These interface with the e-bike simply, though there is a learning curve thanks to the minimalistic approach.

The D-pad has a press command and a hold command for each button:

• Press up to increase the pedal assist mode, and hold up to enter turbo mode.
• Press down to decrease the pedal assist mode, and hold down to lock the bike.
• Press left to activate the left turn signal, and hold left to toggle the headlight.
• Press right to activate the right turn signal, or hold right to activate a “walk” mode to help push the bike up slopes.

When the bike is locked, pressing the main button with your thumb, which should be mapped to the fingerprint reader, will unlock the bike. Pressing the button when the bike is unlocked will activate your chosen bell/horn sound.

This ‘gamepad’ controls most of the bike’s functions

There are a few options for bell noise and volume levels. However, these are some very odd options, and we’d have liked a few more natural-sounding ones.

Here are the options as they are listed in Urtopia’s app: Ringing, Dog’s Bark, Horse’s Bark, Horn, and Game. No, none of them sound like a bike bell.

Ringing sounds like a tram bell, Horn is akin to a flat-sounding car horn, and Game is a small 16-bit chirping sound. The horse and dog barks are fun joke noises but useless and likely dangerous distractions on an actual bike lane.

Press and hold on the button to make the Carbon 1s listen for voice commands. It isn’t immediately clear what you can command it to do, and Urtopia doesn’t have a list of commands available.

We’ve managed to get the voice control to toggle the headlights on and off, lock the bike, activate the turn signal, and set the volume level. It’s nice having some control without pulling out the app, but it would be nice to know exactly what to say.

The Smartbar is minimalistic and reduces distractions offered by full LCD screens. However, despite being a tech-first product, we’re not sure it offers much more than other e-bikes.

Sure, Carbon 1s can get over-the-air updates to add functionality. But, that display will likely limit what the e-bike can do long-term. And everything seems dependent on Urtopia’s app, so there is no third-party advantage.

For example, I have to use Urtopia’s navigation system to have turn arrows displayed on the Smartbar. Directions from Apple Maps don’t show anything for the bike — which could admittedly be an Apple issue, though we’re not sure.

One update Urtopia has promised, according to its website, is the ability to control the display brightness. Currently, the display is at 100% brightness all the time, which is great in daylight but an eye strain at night.

There’s obviously some demand for e-bike apps with community features, but it isn’t for me. As I’ve said in other reviews, I’m not sure why anyone would want a brand-specific social network for sharing their latest bike ride, map and all.

Control basic functions from Urtopia’s app

Ignoring that, the Urtopia app is well-designed and easy to navigate. Users will likely find themselves visiting this app often as the bike itself lacks any obvious controls.

The home tab provides some weather data and previous riding stats, the community tab contains the inexplicable Urtopia social network, the shield-shaped tab is where bike pairing and controls are, a navigation arrow represents the in-app map tool, and the last tab is your user profile with settings and other data.

We spend all of our time in the bike control section. That’s where you can establish a quick Bluetooth connection for setting the alarm, toggling the light, and changing audio settings.

We still prefer Apple Health and the Fitness app on Apple Watch for tracking metrics. However, the built-in eSIM allows us to ditch the AirTag in favor of built-in tracking.

The navigation tab shows the bike’s current location as long as Carbon 1s still has battery power. That does mean standby times without connected power will suffer because of constant location monitoring.

These notifications are all to regular

Users will be notified if the bike is locked and moved, even out of Bluetooth range. This also means the bike will notify you even if you’re moving it when it’s still locked.

We’ve got a few “unauthorized motion detected” notifications with the Carbon 1s sitting in our living room. These features can be turned off in settings, but that’s a hassle, and they’d need to be turned back on.

Urtopia Carbon 1s ships in the expected mostly assembled flat-lay of many modern e-bikes. Assembly was dead simple since the handlebar is integrated with the frame — all that needed to be attached was the front wheel and seat.

The front tire’s quick release mechanism makes removing the tire simple

The quick-release mechanism for the front tire made assembly even more straightforward. You just slide the wheel into place, push the quick-release stem through, tighten the bolt, and turn the lever over.

The Carbon 1s requires a little more maintenance than its Carbon belted counterpart. Since it has a metal chain and derailleur, users will need to ensure the chain is free of rust and oiled regularly.

More intensive maintenance checks should be done every few months of riding. We’re happy to take the Urtopia to a local shop for help with that.

Everything is different with Urtopia’s e-bike versus others, including getting the bike ready to ride. There’s no need to power the battery on since it’s always providing juice to the Smartbar when connected.

Since a fingerprint reader locks Carbon 1s, you must rest your registered finger on the button and press it to get power flowing and disable security features.

A fingerprint sensor is integrated in the main button

Forget to do this with an alarm set, and get ready to have all eyes on you. This will happen a few times when you’re not used to it, but we wish Urtopia had a way to delay the alarm or vibrate the handlebars when an unauthorized motion is detected before blaring an alarm.

Once everything is unlocked, powered on, and ready to go, Urtopia is like most other e-bikes. Get on and get peddling, set your preferred pedal assist mode, and toggle on the headlight if necessary.

There are five total pedaling modes: pedal, eco, comfort sport, and turbo.

The Carbon 1s can achieve 25mph with turbo enabled, but you’ll kill the battery in around an hour at that setting. Eco mode offers up to 60 miles of range, and pedal leaves all the work to your legs.

Urtopia’s tech-first design won’t be for everyone

We traveled at various pedal assist levels for one test and drained the battery from 70% (surprise, it was drained while sitting there for about a week) to 19% in about 10 miles. The route has some slopes, and we did use turbo a couple of times, but approx 50% drain still feels like a lot.

Like any battery estimates, they were probably taken with track data in perfect conditions. Our hilly ride in 70-degree+ weather likely was likely enough to drain the battery faster than lab testing found.

The battery can be charged 100% from zero in about 2.5 hours. From casual observation, the battery drains 2% to 5% daily when idle.

The bike’s small size, light weight, and thin tires made this bike feel fast. It isn’t unusual to hit 20mph to 25mph on most modern e-bikes, but the stature and shape of this bike made it feel faster, if not more unwieldy.

Urtopia says suspension wasn’t included since the carbon frame was a natural shock absorber. While that might be true, some kind of suspension would have been nice on the local aging bike trails — paved but not smooth.

A bright headlight and taillight keep you visible at night

The headlight is bright at 20 Lux, and the taillight is powered on with a brake press. We appreciate the integrated design of the headlight, though it does mean there is no way to angle it up or down.

The included turn signals are interesting on the Carbon 1s, to say the least. Rather than use bright blinking lights, Urtopia uses projectors to paint arrows on the ground.

These lights are visible in dark areas but aren’t very visible when street lamps or headlights drown them out. The projector lights are cool, and we’re not sure e-bikes always need turn signals, but these don’t feel very useful — especially since other bikers and car drivers won’t be looking for that kind of signal.

Projection turn signals don’t seem practical

The Urtopia Carbon 1s feels designed for a much more outgoing and loud person than us. Press a button to ring a bell, hold it down to yell a command, or even play music through a built-in speaker. All things that are thankfully not required.

The motor is 350W, a far cry from other e-bikes we’ve tested with 500W or larger. This isn’t terrible news for city riders, but when dealing with hills, it presents a challenge.

The motor can propel us forward to the max speed limit, and the torque sensor makes riding more natural. As we said in a previous e-bike review, torque-sensing pedal assist is our preferred way to ride.

The issue with the lower-wattage motor arises when you need more help with hills. We managed to glide up gentle slopes but began to struggle on some of our neighborhood’s steeper inclines.

A 350W motor isn’t quite strong enough for steep hills

One of our default testing areas is a hill near our home. It has a steep incline but only for a few dozen feet, so perfect for testing how well a motor will perform.

We can make it to the top of that hill on e-bikes with a 500W motor or greater, with some huffing and puffing. The Carbon 1s, however, left us at a standstill near the hill’s midpoint.

This isn’t a criticism of the bike (maybe of our fitness), just a reality of using a smaller motor and cutting back for weight. This bike performs perfectly on flat pavement, and we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with varied terrain or steep hills.

One final tiny note: there isn’t a throttle. It’s small, but throttles make starting from a stopped position so much easier and safer that lacking one feels like a big miss.

Urtopia Carbon 1s is an excellent entry from an ambitious company. Their comparison to Tesla is more than apt for their technology push and too-necessary post-purchase add-ons.

Urtopia Carbon 1s is great for paved surfaces and even terrain

Technology lovers with deep pockets will find a lot to love here, but we can’t help but wonder if a full LCD would have been better.

It is a notable bonus to have a less-distracting display showing basic info, but it also limits the potential updates the bike could get later. That said, our Apple Watch is more than enough interface that perhaps Urtopia could find ways to make use of.

• Excellent build, minimal assembly
• Lightweight at 35 pounds
• Turn-by-turn directions are great on Smartbar
• Integrated 4G for tracking, gyroscope for anti-theft notifications
• Minimalist display keeps distractions down, but…

• Dot matrix display limits what the bike can do, or will ever do
• Must use integrated navigation for Smartbar turn arrows
• Low-wattage in motor makes it less ideal for hills
• No throttle makes starting from stops more difficult
• Voice control option seems redundant with physical controls
• Alarm system easily triggered by the owner
• Turn signal projectors are cool but don’t seem practical
• Charging for a kickstand is borderline criminal
• Expensive given the motor spec, though understandable due to materials in use

This is a difficult e-bike to grade. It’s got an amazingly lightweight frame and plenty of tech, but it misses with its limited matrix-dot display and weaker 350W motor. Not to mention some especially odd product decisions — looking at you, kickstand.

Sure, a lot of the decisions were made in the name of thin-and-light design, but what was sacrificed could have rounded out the Carbon 1s. At the least, a stronger motor would have gone a long way.

Get the memories you want with Google ‘AI’ photo editing

Generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) or large language model (LLM) are terms being thrown around as buzzwords, but the most popular one of all is Artificial Intelligence (AI). It’s such an important term for investors and stock market pundits that Google said the phrase “AI” over 100 times during its 2-hour Google I/O keynote.

Google said it shared AI-related updates across fifteen of its major product lines. We won’t debate exactly what AI means for Google, but here’s everything AI and AI-adjacent announced at the keynote.

• Help Me Write: get help writing an email using context clues within an email thread.
• Help Me Write will also appear across Google Workspace apps. Ask for a detailed job description in Docs, a pet roster for a dog walking job in Sheets, or spice up a Slides doc with generated images.
• Other Help Me Write examples showed a prompt helping with writing a fictional story, planning a potluck in a Gmail thread, or generating speaker notes for a slideshow.
• Google Maps Immersive View for Routes: get a 3D preview of a route using stitched-together mapping data. Coming to 15 cities by the end of 2023.
• Google Photos Magic Editor: take control of photos by editing out objects, moving pieces, or even adding in details of objects that didn’t exist in the original photo.
• Generate emoji wallpapers, cinematic wallpapers, or original AI art with generative AI.
• Pixel Call Assist continues to evolve with tools that filter unwanted calls, show phone tree prompts as touch targets, or improve call quality.

Google Bard gets more AI improvements

• Coders can prompt PaLM 2 powered chatbots like Bard with queries around code and ask for notes in different languages.
• Bard has learned over 20 coding languages and can help with code generation, debugging, and explanation.
• Generated code can be fine-tuned with further queries to Bard and even exported to systems like Replit.
• Bard can export responses to Gmail or Google Docs. Available now.
• Bard is gaining “tools,” or API access to Google’s first-party apps and third-party systems. One example showed Bard creating an image caption using Google Lens.
• Bard can also serve as a powerful search tool. An example had Bard explain what classes a person would take with select interests, then showed colleges with those courses nearby on Google Maps. That data could then be transformed into a table and exported into Google Sheets.
• Bard tools will come from many popular services, one shown by Adobe Firefly. Generate images with a prompt using license-free training data.

Enhanced search with generative responses

• Google Search shows an “AI-powered snapshot” built from search queries. It is shown as a clearly separate area with a green highlight.
• Search will also be improved thanks to information from Google’s shopping data, scraped info from the web like review content, and more. Give Google a prompt for needing an e-bike for a city commute in a price range, and it’ll use AI to generate the response.
• Tune Google Search results with follow-up queries.
• Google Search with AI tools is an expansive experience that can help with nearly any query. Google pushed its global dominance in Search as a powerful backend for expanding LLMs and AI.

• Many of the AI tools and prompt integrations are also coming to Google Cloud. Businesses can take advantage of Google’s large models when it rolls out later.
• Project Tailwind will allow Google Cloud users to provide troves of personal notes and data to feed PaLM 2. This will enable a personalized chatbot that knows what you’re working on and output the data you’ve given as useful snippets.
• A universal translator tool will provide users the ability to translate a video into any language and make the speaker’s lips match up with the words.

There are several language models at play within Google’s upcoming features. The primary model is PaLM 2, but non-public models like Gemini with larger data sets, memory, and APIs are expected to become available for public use as they mature.

Don’t worry, Google’s ‘AI’ is here to help with everything

Google also announced it would expand its mission statement of “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” with AI. “Making AI helpful for everyone” will advance that mission.

It seems for Google, that “AI” refers to any computational tool that relies on large models trained on extensive data sets. It is an evolution of machine learning with the power of Google’s collected data sets.

These updates come on the heels of OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft Bing. The major tech players are moving fast for control of the future of “AI,” all except Apple, notably.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is being held in June. While the company will likely avoid using buzzwords like “AI,” it will be very surprising if some level of large language model or transformer isn’t announced for Apple users with a privacy angle.

Apple TV+

It can be difficult to choose what to watch in the streaming era, especially when a show is canceled just when it begins to look promising. This is an ongoing list of shows that have been canceled by Apple TV+ without a conclusion to the story.

There are several kinds of media on Apple TV+, and many are meant to exist as a limited series. This list of canceled shows only contains content that was listed as seasonal and ended without a proper series finale.

Despite being canceled without an official series finale, some of these series may end on a satisfactory note. “Mr. Corman,” for example, works as a single-season narrative while “Truth Be Told” had three complete seasons with full story arcs.

It isn’t easy to determine which shows have a cliffhanger or unsatisfactory ending due to a premature cancellation. Apple has updated its canceled shows to say “series finale” for the final episodes of each season despite the episode not actually serving as the series’ official end.

As of this publication, “Amber Brown” hasn’t been officially canceled and Apple hasn’t updated the show’s information to reflect a “series finale.” Rumors suggest that “Amber Brown” is indeed canceled, so expect that to be updated on Apple’s end at any time.

As Apple TV+ grows, expect more shows to be canceled. While Apple is approaching content with a “quality over quantity” mentality, that doesn’t mean every show will be a hit nor produced to completion.

For security reasons, macOS allows you to lock your Mac’s screen so that others can’t gain access to your Mac while you’re away from it. These options allow you to set a password required to unlock the screen after it locks, turn the display off, start a screen saver, and set options for Fast User Switching.

To access your Mac’s lock screen controls, select “System Settings” from the Apple menu in the main menubar, then scroll down and select “Lock Screen” on the left from the Settings list:

The first four options are:

1. Start Screen Saver when inactive
2. Turn display off when inactive
3. Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off
4. Show message when locked

We’ll discuss each of these briefly:

“Start Screen Saver when inactive” sets the time interval at which the currently selected Screen Saver starts after a period of inactivity. Click the popup menu on the right to set a time interval from one minute to three hours.

You can choose which screen saver to use from the Settings list on the left under “Screen Saver”.

When the set time interval elapses and there has been no activity on your Mac – including no mouse or trackpad movement, and no keyboard activity, the selected screen saver will start automatically.

Screen savers are stored in the /Users/~/Library/Screen Savers folder and for all users on the computer in /Library/Screen Savers.

Screen savers usually have a file type of .saver. You can add new screen savers to your Mac by dropping any .saver file into one of these locations on your Startup Disk.

In the “Turn display off when inactive” popup menu you can also set a time interval from one minute to three hours. When the set time elapses, your Mac’s screen will be turned off both to save power and to secure your computer.

To turn the display back on again you merely need to move your Mac’s mouse, touch its trackpad, or press any key on the keyboard.

Note if the Start Screen Saver interval is set to longer than the Turn display off interval, you might as well turn the Screen Saver option off entirely to save power and load on the system’s GPUs.

If you’ve set the “Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off” popup menu to a time interval, you’ll be prompted to enter the current user’s system password to gain access to the Mac again when you wake it up.

You can set the required password time interval anywhere from “Immediately” to eight hours in this popup menu. Any delay longer than 5 seconds won’t ask for the password when waking unless the specified time interval has elapsed.

In the third option “Show message when locked”, you can set a message to display on your Mac’s screen when it locks. To use this feature, turn the small slider switch to the right on, then click the “Set” button next to it to set the lock screen message:

The next item in the Lock Screen settings pane is “When Switching User”. These options apply when using Fast User Switching located in Settings->Control Center. With Fast User Switching, macOS allows you to stay logged in to multiple users at once and switch between them from an icon in the main menubar, or from in Control Center itself.

• Go to Settings->Control Center in the list on the left.
• Scroll down to “Fast User Switching”.
• Set an option under “Show in Menu Bar” and “Show in Control Center”.

For Fast User Switching in the main menu bar, you can show just an icon, an account name, or a full user name. These are the same account user names and icons as set up in the Settings->Users & Groups pane.

Once enabled, you can switch to another user simply by selecting it from the menu bar or Control Center, and entering the user’s password.

Back in the Lock Screen pane, under When Switching User, you can set what to show on the macOS user login window when switching: a list of users on the computer, or a name and password field. When you switch between users whatever you set here will be displayed for login.

In the next two items, you can also set whether to show the Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down buttons on the login screen, and whether to show password hints.

Password hints are set in each user’s account pane and are optional. Password hints are usually a word or sentence that only the user will remember in case they forget their password.

In the Accessibility Options button in the lower-right corner of the Lock Screen settings pane, you can select which Accessibility options to set, if any. These include Voice Over, screen Zoom, Keyboard, Sticky Keys, and others.

These are the same Accessibility options found in the Settings->Accessibility pane.

Using any combination of the Lock Screen options, you can keep your Mac secure while you’re away from it without having to shut it down completely, and without having to go to great lengths to stay secure.

The screen saver and message options are nice touches. The message option can be especially useful if you want to leave a brief note for a co-worker or family member while you’re away from your computer.