Month: July 2023

Enlarge / Microsoft's new "Aptos" font family. (credit: Microsoft)

Two years ago, Microsoft announced its plans to move away from using Calibri as the default typeface for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and the other apps in the suite formerly known as Microsoft Office. The company introduced five candidates for replacement fonts, and a winner has emerged: a font family called Aptos, formerly known as Bierstadt.

Microsoft has never laid out in so many words why it feels it needs to move away from Calibri, though today's announcement implies that Aptos was made with high-resolution, high-density displays in mind. Calibri replaced Times New Roman as the suite's default font in Office 2007, at a time before "Retina" displays and when 1024×768 and 1280×800 screens were still the norm—a ClearType font, Calibri itself was a response to the shift from CRT to LCD screens.

Aptos was created by Steve Matteson, who is also responsible for Windows 3.1's original TrueType fonts (including Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New) as well as Segoe, which has been Windows' default system font since Vista and is also used for Microsoft's current logo. Given Matteson's history with Microsoft, choosing Aptos over the others feels like the safest possible choice.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

On Thursday, members of the SAG-AFTRA actors' union (and its president, actor Fran Drescher) announced their decision to go on strike in solidarity with the WGA strike that has been ongoing since May. One of the central issues raised in this conflict is the threat of using artificial intelligence models to replace human labor, a concern echoed in the writers' strike.

As reported by The Verge and Reuters, The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is particularly concerned about the use of AI to create digital likenesses of actors without ongoing consent or appropriate compensation. These digital replicas, powered by advancements in computer graphics techniques and machine learning, are becoming increasingly lifelike, creating new challenges and ethical considerations for the film and television industry. SAG-AFTRA represents over 160,000 film and television actors.

During a press conference on Thursday, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, best known as the star of the 1990s sitcom The Nanny, underscored the union's concerns, warning of a future where AI-powered digital doubles might replace human actors. As she put it, "If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines."

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

This month, Meta's new Twitter-alternative Threads launched in 100 countries, but not in the European Union, due to potential conflicts between the app's vast data collection and the EU's strict data privacy laws. Immediately, reports emerged that some EU users persisted in downloading Threads anyway—by hiding their location and accessing the app via a virtual private network, or VPN.

Now, Meta has confirmed that it has taken measures to block VPN access to Threads in the EU.

"Threads is not currently available in most countries in Europe, and we’ve taken additional steps to prevent people based there from accessing it at this time," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "Europe continues to be an incredibly important market for Meta, and we hope to make Threads available here in the future."

Enlarge / An LVM-3 rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Friday. (credit: R.Satish BABU / AFP)

India took the first step toward its second attempt to land on the Moon on Friday with the launch of its Chandrayaan-3 mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the southeastern part of the country.

The spacecraft launched on the LVM-3 rocket, the heaviest lift vehicle in India's fleet. Liftoff came nearly three years to the date of the launch of the Chandrayaan-2 mission to the Moon. That launch successfully placed a spacecraft into lunar orbit, but a landing attempt was unsuccessful. The Indian space agency, ISRO, lost communication with its Vikram lander at about 2 kilometers above the lunar surface due to a software problem. It subsequently crashed into the Moon.

So the Indian space agency decided to learn from its mistakes and try again. The Chandrayaan-3 mission has eschewed the lunar orbiter, as the Indian spacecraft remains operational after three years. So this launch consisted of a propulsion module, a new Vikram lander, and a small rover named Pragyan.