Technologies
Smart Cameras Power a Robot Umpire at MLB All-Stars for the First Time. Here’s How the Challenges Went
The auto-umpire system has debuted and is on track for regular season use, but accuracy could be an issue.
If umpires draw your ire for bad calls, you may soon have a new target: Major League Baseball used its ABS, or Automated Ball-Strike System, to call pitches at the July 15 All-Star Game for the first time. If trials this season go well, it will probably be adopted for the 2026 regular season. But challenges against the camera had an unusually high rate of success.
The ABS uses Hawk-Eye cameras, a technology increasingly common in games with high-speed objects. The cameras judge how a ball travels — in this case, over the strike zone — and are equipped to make a preliminary call.
A human umpire, along with batters and pitchers, have a couple of seconds to review the footage and challenge a call if they think the automated system was wrong. It’s a system the MLB has experimented with since 2019 and is finally ready to bring to the national stage.
This approach has caused some controversy, particularly because the Hawk-Eye cameras are programmed to see the strike zone very differently from human umpires. Instead of the standard cube shape that’s underpinned strike zone knowledge for decades, the ABS uses a two-dimensional rectangle standard that’s automatically adjusted to extend between 53.5% and 27% of the batter’s height. Batters are measured before each game.
Those worried about discrepancies now have new fuel for their worries. In the July 15 game, which the National League won in a home run derby after nine innings ended with a tie, four out of five challenges to the ABS and umpire Dan Iassogna’s combined work were successful. That’s much higher than the ABS spring training test, where teams won only around 50% of their challenges.
The MLB hasn’t revealed definitive plans on whether the ABS could replace umpires altogether, but at this time the human-based, real-time reviews from the umpire appear to be an integral part of the system.
The league did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Technologies
The Messenger Reinvented: How Verum Is Expanding the Boundaries of Digital Communication
The Messenger Reinvented: How Verum Is Expanding the Boundaries of Digital Communication
For more than a decade, the global messaging landscape has been defined by a handful of dominant platforms. Despite incremental updates, the core experience has remained largely unchanged: text, media sharing, and voice or video calls layered on centralized infrastructure.
Yet a new category of messaging platforms is beginning to emerge — one that treats communication not as a standalone function, but as part of a broader digital ecosystem.
Verum Messenger is one of the more ambitious entrants in this space. Rather than competing solely on interface or speed, it is positioning itself as an integrated environment that combines communication, privacy infrastructure, connectivity, and financial tools within a single application.
Beyond Messaging: Feature Density as Strategy
At the surface level, Verum includes many of the features now expected in modern messaging platforms, such as an AI assistant embedded directly within conversations, scheduled message delivery, disappearing messages after being read, and the ability to edit sent messages.
But it extends further into behavioral transparency and control. Users can receive notifications when someone takes a screenshot, copies, or forwards their messages, while also having the ability to block screenshots entirely and prevent screen recording. These controls are complemented by granular privacy settings, pinned messages, smart notification prioritization, message reactions and quick replies, customizable chat interfaces, and advanced notification controls.
Privacy as Infrastructure, Not Feature
Where Verum attempts to differentiate more aggressively is in its security architecture. The platform incorporates end-to-end encryption across all communications, including encrypted voice and video calls, along with automatic message deletion timers.
Account-level control is also emphasized through one-tap account deletion, restricted chat access, and active session management. Personal data protection is reinforced by storing security keys exclusively on the user’s device and implementing a multi-layered security model.
Additional safeguards include advanced privacy configuration, biometric authentication such as Face ID or Touch ID, passcode-based app locking, protection against unauthorized access, and dedicated private communication modes.
A Built-In Digital Layer
One of the platform’s more distinctive elements is its attempt to consolidate multiple digital services into a single environment.
This includes an integrated VPN, disposable anonymous email addresses, and built-in eSIM functionality, enabling connectivity across more than 150 countries. The application is designed to unify multiple services while supporting international communication, large file transfers, and group chats of up to 10,000 participants.
These are complemented by broader communication tools and an overarching goal of functioning as a centralized hub for managing digital interactions.
Financial Integration Without Fragmentation
In parallel, Verum incorporates a set of financial utilities that aim to reduce reliance on external applications. These include peer-to-peer transfers in fiat currencies, in-app balance top-ups, and a virtual payment card.
Support for Apple Pay and similar services is intended to streamline transactions, while built-in financial management tools suggest a move toward embedding everyday financial activity directly within the messaging layer.
Toward Network Independence
Perhaps the most forward-looking aspect of the platform lies in its recent technical developments.
Verum has introduced messaging capabilities that function without a traditional internet connection, relying instead on direct peer-to-peer communication between devices. This architecture reduces dependence on centralized servers, aligning with a broader industry trend toward decentralization and resilience.
At the same time, the platform incorporates on-device message translation, supporting dozens of languages with local processing. By avoiding cloud-based translation, this approach attempts to preserve user privacy while enabling cross-language communication.
A Broader Industry Signal
Whether Verum itself achieves mainstream adoption remains an open question. Network effects continue to favor established players, and feature breadth alone does not guarantee user migration.
However, the platform illustrates a broader shift in how messaging applications are being conceptualized. Increasingly, they are evolving into multi-functional environments that combine communication, privacy infrastructure, connectivity, and financial interaction.
In that context, Verum is less a direct competitor to existing messengers and more an early example of what a fully integrated digital platform might look like — one where messaging is no longer the product, but the foundation.
Technologies
YouTube Will Let You Turn Off Shorts, but Only on Mobile
You can set a timer for bedtime or breaks, or just get rid of Shorts once and for all.
You can stop scrolling: YouTube just gave iOS and Android users the power to turn YouTube Shorts off completely.
YouTube’s short-form videos are similar to TikTok and Instagram Reels. The videos are designed to be quick bursts of content, but can lead to more screen time than you may have initially intended. YouTube is rolling out a solution, at least for those who use the YouTube mobile app.
The YouTube Shorts Timer lets you set how much time you want to spend watching YouTube Shorts. Or you can set the timer to zero to stop seeing YouTube Shorts altogether. Google has instructions to disable Shorts or enable the timer in the YouTube app. You can limit your Shorts scrolling session to 15, 30 or 45 minutes, or for an hour or two. When the timer is up, you’ll see a message that you’ve reached your set time limit, but you can dismiss it. Google also says you can set reminders for bedtime and breaks.
The ability to set the timer to zero minutes isn’t available for everyone yet. A Google spokesperson told CNET that the feature was made available first to parents linked to supervised accounts. It’s still rolling out to all other users.
As a parent, I’m relieved to know parents now have more control over screen time through Google’s Family Link, an app and website for Google and YouTube parental controls. It also makes me wonder what other screen-time controls could be on the horizon.
YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A recent Pew Research Center study of teens who use TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram found that their screen time on these social media apps affects their sleep and productivity. Meanwhile, teens are using these apps for entertainment and say that the apps help their friendships — which could be important for teens. However, parental controls, app settings and other timers, like Brick, could help if you’re consistent and set schedules to have screen time without impeding on your time to rest or complete other tasks.
Last month, a California jury found YouTube and Instagram’s respective parent companies liable in a landmark civil case brought by a woman who claimed the apps were designed to be addictive to children. YouTube owner Google has said the platform is a streaming service, not a social media site, and plans to appeal.
YouTube says parents can use the timer to control how much time teens spend watching Shorts, including setting reminders for bedtime and breaks. Or parents can turn off Shorts in the YouTube mobile app by setting the timer to 0 minutes.
The feature is only available for mobile, so Shorts can’t yet be disabled on desktop. TikTok rolled out new time-management features last year, including a positive affirmations journal and missions to earn badges for reducing screen time.
Technologies
MacOS Now Has a Native Gemini AI App
Get faster access to some of Gemini’s best features without switching tabs.
Gemini is getting a native MacOS app so that you have a faster way to talk to Google’s AI chatbot, bringing access to some of its best features with just a couple of clicks.
Artificial intelligence is becoming more ingrained in everyday life, and companies are trying to make it easier than ever to access. On smartphones, AI is already just a button press away, but for desktops, LLMs like Google’s Gemini have been restricted to web applications.
With the new app, Gemini is available via a simple keyboard shortcut.
If you’ve got a MacBook, you can access Gemini at any time by pressing Option and Space on the keyboard, without having to switch tabs or open another window.
Gemini’s best features, like Nano Banana image generation, video and music generation, are also just a few clicks away.
Much like you can do with the Gemini mobile app, the new MacOS app will let you share context from a window instantly so you can get insight on the content you’re viewing. Google says this will also work with local files on your computer and isn’t limited to web pages.
The free, native app is available now for all users on MacOS 15 and up. Google says this is just the beginning and that it’s building the foundation for a «personal, proactive and powerful desktop assistant.»
The app can be downloaded at gemini.google/mac.
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