As hard as Siri may try, Apple’s digital assistant just can’t get the hang of some names.
As someone with a difficult-to-pronounce last name, I understand. But you can give Siri a helping hand.
If you already know that the iPhone’s AI struggles with certain names you can go straight to their entry in your Contacts list. Or you can filter the request through Siri’s voice commands: “Change how you pronounce [insert contact’s name].”
Once in the Contacts app, click on the person’s entry. From there:
On the top right corner, click “Edit.”
Under the Notes section click “add field.”
From there you can add the phonetic spelling for the first and last name. (This is more for you to remember next time you bump into someone than it is for Siri.)
For training Siri, click “pronunciation spelling” for either the first or last name. (You should use the phonetic spelling of the name for this field, as well.)
Say my name.
Credit: Sasha Lekach / Mashable
Say it right.
Credit: Sasha Lekach / Mashable
To train Siri to stop saying my name the way it’s spelled (it usually comes out sounding like “Le-catch”), I typed in how it sounds: “Lek-itch.” My first name Siri manages to leave unmangled, so I don’t have to give it guidance.
Now that the pronunciation field is part of my contact entry I can change it directly from the “edit” page.
Say it with me now! Credit: Sasha Lekach / Mashable
It’s not always glamorous, but spelling it out for Siri helps the digital assistant pronounce names closer to what they are.
If there’s any future for Marvel’s Defenders, it’s going to unfold somewhere other than on Netflix.
Multiple live-action TV shows that tell stories set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are leaving Netflix at the end of February. The list includes all of the Defenders shows: So, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron First, The Punisher, and The Defenders. But Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the network series whose existence predates the Defenders, is also leaving at the same time.
Pay a visit to any of those series pages on Netflix and you’ll see a note about how they’ll only be available to watch until Feb. 28. What happens to them after that is unclear.
The smart money is on the whole bundle heading over to Disney+, which is the current home for pretty much all things Marvel. Both Agents and the Defenders stories are part of the MCU, and fans who have kept up with recent Marvel movie and TV happenings know that the studio is still thinking about Daredevil and his friends. There’s also some Marvel stuff on Hulu — a Disney subsidiary — but Disney+ seems like a better bet given the MCU connection.
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Disney and Marvel can use all of Netflix’s Defenders now, but should they?
The shows were originally created as part of a deal that made Netflix the distributor of Disney’s MCU-connected serial programming. But all of that came to an end in 2018 when Netflix’s Marvel productions were all canceled as Disney prepped for the 2019 launch of its own streaming Netflix competitor: Disney+. The shows are presumably leaving Netflix now because whatever deal that kept them there is expiring.
Mashable reached out to Disney for more specifics on what’s happening with the content that’s leaving Netflix. Even if these are all surely headed to some Disney-owned platform at some point, we don’t know if that will be an immediate shift or not. We’ll update this story when we get some specifics back.
TikTok has long prohibited hate-speech and violence on its social video platform, but a recent update is getting more specific about what can and can’t be posted on videos.
The China-based tech firm ByteDance, which created and owns TikTok, updated its community guidelines with new ban-worthy offenses on Tuesday. The change targets content that’s aimed at offending LGBTQ users broadly as well as trans users specifically.
Now, content containing anti-LGBTQ commentary including deadnaming (the practice of using a trans person’s birth/former name), misgendering, and support for conversion therapy is banned. Posts that include misogyny, which is hate or prejudice against women, are also banned. In a blog post, TikTok characterized the changes as “adding clarity on the types of hateful ideologies prohibited on our platform.”
TikTok said these types of posts, and others, won’t surface on users’ For You pages, which recommends content based on past views. Ideally, any offending posts will be removed swiftly before circulating. A UK study last year found anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and misogynistic posts and other forms of hate are widely circulating on the platform.
Enforcing these new bans is where it really matters, as TikTok creators have consistently called out. ByteDance has come under scrutiny before as a Chinese company operating under a less-than-tolerant government.
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One account is flipping common misogynistic commentary on its head. Lilly Brown and co-host @kimbersprings present the “Fresh New Tits” mock-podcast on TikTok where the two women playfully and cleverly insult men’s hair, value, genitalia, and ask, “Are men too emotional?” It’s a more subtle take on what is typically seen in podcasts and streamed videos, including blatant misogyny.
Another account, @carefulthefloorismarlava, questions if TikTok will actually do anything about rampant transphobia on its platform even after updating its guidelines.
Tumblr is trying once again to keep creators on the platform — and encourage more bloggers to sign up — by launching its second monetization feature in eight months.
The new tip jar feature allows users to tip their favorite creators on the platform. All you have to do is select the “Tip” tab on a post you want to tip, then choose the amount you want to give — up to $100. You can send it anonymously or add a message and see who else has sent tips on the same post. The tip jar is already available to all users in the U.S., and is going to be extended soon. Tumblr isn’t taking a cut from the payments, which will go through Stripe, although credit card fees will still apply.
This feature comes eight months after the launch of Tumblr’s Post+, a subscription service that allows creators to charge users for some exclusive content. So for the tip jar, fans can tip an individual post and can choose how much to give; Post+, on the other hand, is a recurring payment fans give to creators who provide exclusive content in return.
Post+ starts at $3.99 per month, with additional tiers at $5.99 and $9.99 per month. You can use both Tumblr Tips and Post+ simultaneously.
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It’s not entirely clear how successful Post+ has been, but adding another monetization tool so soon is a fascinating move for the platform.
“We aren’t disclosing our numbers, but we can share that, with the open beta, we opened the funnel to a much broader audience and gleaned more insights, especially from international creators. These newly discovered learnings will help us prepare for a full launch later this year,” Bohdan Kit, Tumblr’s head of product for subscriptions, told TechCrunch.
These tools are likely set up to increase users. The platform lost almost a third of its users after banning porn in 2019, and is still struggling to attract more people. About half of all users on Tumblr are Gen Z and they spend about 26 percent more time on the platform than other users, according to Tumblr. But it’s unclear how many people are on the site every day.
There are a lot of reasons to like actor Sebastian Stan.
Maybe you know him for his role as Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or maybe you’re a fan of his outrageously fun stint as the titular Mötley Crüe drummer in Hulu’s Pam and Tommy. Heck, maybe he’s even “the Hot Tub Time Machine guy” to you.
There’s merit in each of these respective Stan-doms. But in a new episode of Hot Ones, the actor gets a chance to single out one of his most faithful — and longest enduring — fan groups. Yes, I’m talking about those of us who remember him as Upper Easter Sider Carter Baizen from the CW drama Gossip Girl.
“What would you say is the biggest difference between a fan who recognizes you on the street from your Marvel work and a fan who recognizes you from Gossip Girl?” host Sean Evans asks at 6:02.
“Well, Gossip Girl, you know…” Stan replies with a smirk. “They’re very loyal, the Gossip Girl fans. I mean, they really have to be. They love the show. They’ve studied it. They have wild questions about that character. It’s just interesting to me how I still get that once in a while. But you really have to go dig to find out about Gossip Girl. But, their loyalty, yeah. That’s a good one.” (Regrettably, Evans did not ask Stan if he would ever return as Carter for the Gossip Girl revival. But we can dream.)
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Stan’s Hot Ones debut also includes behind-the-scenes tidbits from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, more details on the upcoming horror flick Fresh, and a moment when Stan boldly professes his love for whole milk.
“I haven’t had a lot of spicy food in my life,” he says at the beginning of an episode that’s ultimately pretty tough. “This is probably going to be most of it right now.” I wonder how much spicy food Carter has eaten.
Sometimes, the best part about TikTok is the comment section — and other times it’s a cesspool of trolls. For when you’re faced with the latter, thankfully there’s a fairly simple way to turn comments off on a TikTok video.
Start by creating your video and click next. You’ll be taken to a page where you can tag people, add hashtags or links, and, when you’re ready, post it. The easiest way to ensure that no one will comment on it is to set the button that says “allow comments” to the off position. But, if you don’t remember to do this and, instead, allow comments, there’s still a way to fix it.
If you just want to turn the comments off on an individual existing TikTok video that’s already been posted, here’s how.
SEE ALSO:
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Navigate to your profile
Click the bottom right “Profile” icon to head to your profile. There, you’ll be able to see all the videos you’ve posted.
First, head to your profile Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
Choose your options
Click the 3-line icon on the right underneath the comment button. Scroll all the way to the right, and click on “Privacy settings.”
Now, head to privacy settings Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
Turn comments off
Under “Privacy settings,” you’ll see four choices: You can decide who can watch the video, and if comments, duets, and stitches are allowed. If you don’t want anyone to comment on your TikTok video, tap the toggle icon to turn comments off.
Finally, turn off the comments Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
If you decide that you don’t want anyone at all ever commenting on any of your TikTok videos, or if you want to only allow comments from friends on any of your TikTok videos, you can make this choice at the profile level, too.
Navigate to your profile
Click the bottom right “Profile” icon to open up the associated menu. There, you’ll be able to see all the videos you’ve posted.
First, head to your profile Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
Go to your settings
Tap the 3-line “hamburger” icon in the top right of your profile page, which will show you two options: “Creator tools” and “Settings and privacy.” Click “Settings and privacy.” Then, choose “Privacy” once more — it’s the second option underneath “Manage account.”
Navigate to your privacy page Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
Head to your Comments settings
Finally, make your bulk comment decisions Credit: Screenshot/ TikTok/ Mashable
Scroll down the page, and under “Safety,” you’ll see “Comments.” Choose that and you’ll be taken to a list of global settings that you can tweak for all your future videos. You can set it so everyone, just friends, or no one can comment on your videos. You can also create individual word filters, make it so comments don’t post until you approve them, and have TikTok automatically scan for spammy or offensive comments.
If it’s NSFW, it’s not safe for Wordle. Following the sale of Josh Wardle’s popular online puzzle game to the New York Times, certain words have been removed from the game’s dictionary. It’s the first move in a multi-step process to prevent offensive guessing.
“Offensive words will always be omitted from consideration,” a representative for the New York Times told Mashable via email (h/t Polygon). “As we have just started Wordle’s transition to The Times website, we are still in the process of removing those words from the game play.”
Plenty of naughty guesses can be played for now, including obvious classics like “DICKS” and “SHITS.” But some words that can be read as derogatory no longer register as allowable guesses. This includes a slew of sexist insults and/or compliments, such as the commonly used “BITCH.” Try it and Wordle will respond with a screen-shaking “Not in word list” notice, before forcing you to guess again.
Credit: Screenshot: Wordle
It’s unclear how Wordle‘s new management is defining “offensive” and we don’t know when the dirty dictionary audit will be complete. (A representative for the New York Times declined to comment on either matter.) But the decision poses interesting questions about censorship and the gatekeeping of language, especially considering it comes from one of the world’s foremost newsrooms.
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Here’s why we can’t stop playing ‘Wordle’
Those looking for another puzzler to give their “FUCKS” to should try out Lewdle. This variation on Wordle challenges players to guess “rude” five-letter words in six tries or fewer; think “BOOBS” or “BALLS.” Alternatively, there’s the cursing-focused Sweardle, which uses four-letter swear words (e.g.”CRAP”) and gives you up to four guesses.
With bleary eyes, the world’s new giant space telescope has roused from slumber and glimpsed its “first light,” the initial step toward an ultimate goal of seeing some of the universe’s “first light.”
Huh?
When it comes to the profoundly powerful James Webb Space Telescope, the terminology can be downright dizzying, especially when astronomers use the phrase “first light” twice in the same breath to mean two different things. It’s a double entendre unique to this unparalleled observatory.
“First light” means starlight has traveled through the optics of a telescope, bouncing off all its mirrors to reach its detectors for the first time. NASA confirmed Webb achieved that on Feb. 3.
“First light” is also a term cosmologists use to describe the first generation of stars formed in the universe, thought to be a period just 300 million years after the Big Bang. Once aligned and calibrated this summer, Webb is expected to see some of the oldest galaxies, over 13.5 billion light-years away.
In fact, about two decades ago, when Webb was in its infancy, astronomers dubbed it the “First Light Machine,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera aboard Webb. The nickname came from the telescope’s main purpose: to look back in time and see the origins of the universe.
But scientists decided the name “First Light Machine” was a bit of a stretch, overselling the observatory’s capability.
“We kind of had to get away from that moniker because the very first light would be a star,” Rieke told Mashable. “You need a telescope 20 miles across to detect the first single star.”
NASA surprised the astronomy community by releasing a first-light picture Friday. Its subject HD84406, an isolated sunlike star just 260 light-years away, is a relatively close neighbor to Earth. This was not the awesome, jaw-dropping spectacle the space agency has promised for years. Rather, the frame showed 18 random, blurry golden spots — some stretched and distorted into jelly beans, some ghostly apparitions — each a copy of the same star.
The James Webb Space Telescope sees its first light of HD84406 in each of its 18 mirrors. Credit: NASA
Relax, though. That doesn’t mean the telescope is broken, like a problem discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope, its legendary predecessor. It will take months to tune up Webb’s mirrors and instruments to perfection.
HD84406 can be found in the constellation Ursa Major. The star is a little too faint to see with the naked eye on Earth — a person needs binoculars to catch a glimmer — but it’s a bright object for Webb to fix its gaze on. In about four months, the 18 mirrors should be fully aligned, able to make the star look like one, clear star.
The James Webb Space Telescope focused on HD84406, a sunlike star near the bear’s head in the constellation Ursa Major. Credit: Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group / Getty Images
“The first images are going to be ugly,” said Jane Rigby, a project scientist. “It’s like we have 18 mirrors that are right now little prima donnas, all doing their own thing, singing their own tune in whatever key they’re in, and we have to make them work like a chorus.”
Each mirror segment is functioning like its own telescope now, explained Lee Feinberg, Webb’s optical telescope manager. The team needs to match the images within nanometers. For perspective, if the primary mirror were the size of the United States, each of the 18 segments would be the size of Texas, requiring the team to match them up with an accuracy of about 1.5 inches.
HD84406, an isolated sunlike star found in the constellation Ursa Major, taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey, via Aladin
It’s too early to say there’s definitely not a flaw in Webb’s mirrors, Feinberg said, but so far things look normal.
NASA took a sharp left turn in its plans with Friday’s rollout of the “first light” image. In earlier conversations with reporters, Webb scientists and managers said they would hold back pictures until the summer because the test pictures are notoriously bad. It’s not the first impression they want to make.
The Hubble Space Telescope saw its first light three decades ago. Credit: Left: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile) / Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Right: NASA / ESA / STScI
Perhaps the space agency didn’t want to repeat history: When NASA presented the first Hubble picture 32 years ago, the masses were underwhelmed. A photo of HD96755, a binary star 1,300 light years away, was a pixelated black-and-white smudge, barely better than a picture taken by a telescope on the ground in Chile.
“We want to make sure that the first images that the world sees, that humanity sees from this telescope, do justice to this $10 billion telescope,” and aren’t a “boring” star, Rigby said of Webb.
“For someone who’s worked on a project for 22 years, to see the light come through, it is beautiful.”
Contrary to previous remarks, NASA delivered early. Patrick Lynch, a spokesman for the agency, said NASA never made a formal decision on whether to release alignment images. The first science photos won’t come until the summer, but there will be “more updates” along the way, he noted.
Whether to make the first-light picture public was hotly debated, Rieke told Mashable: Though the space agency wants to be transparent about the fine-tuning process, some feared people would be reasonably crestfallen. Scientists, on the other hand, felt more than mere relief when Webb successfully collected HD84406’s photons.
SEE ALSO:
Looking for new James Webb telescope pictures? You’ll have to wait.
“For someone who’s worked on a project for 22 years, to see the light come through, it is beautiful,” Rieke said.
The fuzzy picture might not be a disappointment after all.
On a subreddit about the telescope, the news that Webb had detected light from the star amazed user @I_love_limey_butts.
Reddit
“So awesome! Just imagine some alien life forms 250 light-years away using our sun for system’s calibration lol.”
There are some bona fide behemoths sailing around the solar system.
In 2021, astronomers identified a gargantuan comet — an ancient mass of ices, dust, and rocks — hurtling through our cosmic neighborhood. Fortunately, it won’t come within a billion miles of Earth. Named Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, it was perhaps the largest comet ever detected, likely some 10 times larger than the 6-mile-wide object that pummeled Earth and triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction.
Now, new research more accurately gauges the comet’s size. It’s even bigger than some astronomers supposed. In the new study, to be published in the science journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, scientists estimate it’s some 85 miles wide.
If stood next to Mount Everest, it would be around 15 times taller.
“It’s huge,” marveled Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at the University of Regina who researches deep objects in our solar system. “It’s by the far the biggest comet that’s ever been discovered.” (Lawler had no role in the new research.)
“It’s huge.”
There are almost certainly other profoundly giant comets out there. We just have to keep looking. After all, Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, Lawler noted, was only barely discovered. It was unknowingly picked up during a survey of galaxies in the deep cosmos in 2014. Then, it took years and the help of intensive computing for scientists to sift through loads of observations and ultimately identify this distant behemoth (as of June 2021, it was 1.8 billion miles from the sun).
“These big things are out there,” she said.
Like many other comets, Bernardinelli-Bernstein came from the Oort cloud, a sphere of ancient, icy objects surrounding the solar system. Out there, perturbations, like another massive object passing by, can send a great ball of ice hurtling through our solar system. The comet Hale-Bopp, another Oort cloud visitor, enthralled skywatchers in 1996 and 1997.
Crucially, Hale-Bopp passed 122 million miles from Earth, which is relatively close in cosmic terms. Bernardinelli-Bernstein, over twice the size of Hale-Bopp, won’t come closer than the orbit of Saturn, about a billion miles away, in 2031.
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Comet ISON photographed in 2013, at some 80 million miles from Earth. Credit: NASA / MSFC / Aaron Kingery
How can astronomers measure the size of such a distant object?
Just looking at its brightness (meaning how much sunlight is reflecting off) won’t cut it, explained Emmanuel Lellouch, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris and one of the study’s authors. From Earth, a large and dark object could have the same brightness as a small but shiny comet.
So the astronomers measured the comet’s “thermal flux,” meaning how much heat the object is emanating. They do this by looking at a type of light called “infrared.” It’s not visible to the human eye, but we feel this light when the sun shines on our skin. A larger object will absorb more sunlight and then radiate this energy out. This information, combined with the object’s distance, gave Lellouch and his team a quality estimate of the comet’s size.
“It was in deep freeze storage for billions of years.”
“This is one way we can find out how big something is in the outer solar system without sending a probe there,” Lawler said.
In the coming years, the giant Bernardinelli-Bernstein will reveal bounties about our solar system. Scientists don’t think the comet has ever traveled near the sun, meaning the sun’s heat hasn’t evaporated its surface and formed an iconic tail of dust and gas (called a coma). Instead, the comet’s existed for eons on the periphery of our solar system. It’s a scientifically prized, frozen artifact from the beginnings of our cosmic home. It’s a glimpse into what happened here, some 4 billion years ago, just as Earth started to form.
“It was in deep-freeze storage for billions of years,” said Lawler.
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As the comet approaches the sun over the coming decade, Lellouch noted that astronomers will observe the dust and gases on this giant, ancient, preserved chunk of ice and rock.
“It hasn’t ever come this close to the sun,” Lawler said.
