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You’ve all missed the best Oculus Quest 2 deal of the year, but please don’t buy a different one until Black Friday
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Sorry folks, you’ve all missed out on Amazon’s best Oculus Quest 2 Black Friday deal – possibly the one of best Black Friday deals in general – that would have got you $ 50/£50 off the 128GB model and a free $ 50/£50 gift card to spend on anything at Amazon. But please don’t panic buy a different Quest 2 deal yet.

The gift card deal is currently sold out at both Amazon US and Amazon UK, but there’s a chance it may rematerialize on Black Friday itself – which is November 24 this year.  It’s not uncommon for deals to appear, disappear then return in the build-up to the biggest sales event of the year; I’m hoping this incredible Quest 2 will continue this trend and show up on Friday.

If it does reappear then you’re in the money; you’ll get a great bargain on Meta’s budget VR headset. If it doesn’t then you’ll still be able to grab one of the other excellent (but not quite as excellent) Quest 2 deals out there. In the US you can get the Oculus Quest 2 (128GB) for $ 249 at Walmart instead of $ 299, while in the UK you can get the Quest 2 (128GB), Elite Strap and case for £249 at Currys, saving you £140. So unless you are absolutely desperate to get a VR headset as soon as possible hold out a few days longer as you might be able to save big.

The best Black Friday Quest 2 deals

Oculus Quest 2 + Amazon Gift Card: was $ 349.99 now $ 249.00 at Amazon
This incredible Black Friday deal on Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 is currently sold out, but it might reappear on November 24 (Black Friday itself). Check this link every so often and worst case you can pick up one of the other great Quest 2 deals on this page.View Deal

Oculus Quest 2 (128GB): was $ 299 now $ 249 at Walmart
Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 was, until recently, our favorite VR headset and this Black Friday you can get it for its lowest-ever price of just $ 249. You’ll then be able to jump into an incredible selection of VR games and apps available on the Quest platform and finally see how much fun VR can be.
You can also find the same deal at Amazon and Best Buy if you’d rather shop somewhere else.View Deal

Meta Quest 2 and £50 gift card: was £349.99 now £249 at Amazon
This deal is sold out at the time of writing but there’s a chance it may return on Black Friday. When November 24 comes around follow this link and see if Amazon has put it live again because this sale hasn’t been beat.View Deal

Oculus Quest 2 (128GB), Elite Strap and case: was £389 now £249 at Currys
Currys’ bundle deal has just got better. Now you’re saving £50 on Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and getting the official Elite Strap and a carry case for free. This is one of the best deals we’ve seen this Black Friday, and one you definitely don’t want to miss out on.

Preferred partner (What does this mean?)View Deal

Admittedly, I think you should just ignore all of the Oculus Quest 2 deals, no matter how good they are. 

I love my Quest 2, it’s a super solid VR gadget that doesn’t break the bank. But the Meta Quest 3 is the new kid on the block, and it’s more than worth the added cost. It’s more powerful, offers better graphics, and has full-color mixed reality. If you’re looking for a VR headset, get this one – for the vast, vast majority of people, you don’t need anything else.

Though at $ 499 / £479 it’s twice (or almost twice) as pricey as a Quest 2 while it’s on sale for Black Friday. If you’re on a tight budget the Quest 2 will definitely serve you well, but those of you who can stretch to the Quest 3 should splash out.

Meta Quest 3: $ 499 & get a free game at Amazon
The Meta Quest 3 isn’t currently discounted, and likely won’t be for Black Friday as it’s so new, but you can get a free digital copy of Asgard’s Wrath 2 when it launches later this year.
If you’d rather not shop at Amazon the same offer is available from Walmart, Best Buy, and Target as well as others. View Deal

Meta Quest 3: £479.99 & get a free game at Amazon
The Meta Quest 3 only just launched so it was extremely unlikely it would see much of a discount for Black Friday. There is still a deal on though; if you order the headset before January 27, 2024, and activate it before February 9, 2024, you’ll get Asgard’s Wrath 2 for free when the game releases.
If you’d rather shop elsewhere the same deal is available at Very, Currys, and Game among others. View Deal

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ChatGPT can now look at pictures and tell you a bedtime story in five different voices
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ChatGPT can now hear, see and speak, opening up a whole new world of possibilities for how we interact with AI chatbots. The new capabilities unlock the ability to have a voice conversation with ChatGPT, or physically show the bot what you’re talking about. 

According to the official OpenAI blog post, you’ll soon be able to show the bot pictures of a landmark while on holiday and have a conversation about the history behind the structure. You could also send the bot a photo of your fridge contents and have it whip up a potential recipe.  

The new features will be rolling out to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise users first over the next few weeks. Voice is coming to iOS and Android apps, and images will be available across platforms. As with most ChatGPT features, users who aren’t subscribed to the Plus platform will likely see the features a little later. 

ChatGPT talks back

The blog post notes that you’ll now be able to engage in back-and-forth conversations with your AI assistant on the go via the phone app. From what we can tell it would be a similar experience to how you’d speak to Siri or Amazon Alexa. 

The video example on the blog post shows off a stylish user interface with a voice asking ChatGPT to tell a bedtime story, with the user interrupting every so often to ask questions. 

Regardless of how you might feel about the technology it’s still very impressive. We’ll have to wait to see if real conversations match up with the seamless example in the video, but if they do, Siri and Amazon Alexa have a lot to be worried about. If I can access a talkative, intelligent chatbot like ChatGPT, which looks at pictures and can go into depth about topics without pause, why would I ever use any other virtual assistants? 

If you’re a Plus subscriber, head over to Settings, click ‘New Features’ on the mobile app and opt into voice conversations. You’ll be able to choose your favorite voice out of five different options: Sky, Cove, Ember, Breeze and Juniper, and you can listen to each one over on the official site.

Sight for sore eyes

ChatGPT can also now look at more than one image as well. You can show graphs that need analyzing, get help with homework or just show a rough draft of work you’d like feedback on, but can’t be bothered to type out. 

If you want it to focus on something specific in the photo, you can use the new drawing tool within the ChatGPT app and circle exactly what you want the bot to concentrate on. 

While this is scarily impressive for a generative AI chatbot, there are concerns that immediately spring to mind upon hearing about the new features. 

OpenAI does acknowledge these concerns at the bottom of the announcement, stating that with new features come new challenges, including hallucinations – basically an incorrect response given by an AI bot but delivered with confidence – and the possibility of the voice capabilities that impersonate public figures or commit fraud. 

In order to combat this, OpenAI states that Voice Chat was created with real voice actors, and the image input feature was tested with rosh domains in extremism and scientific proficiency, to “align key features for responsible usage”.  

We’re so incredibly buzzed to try out the new features, especially the ability to chat directly to ChatGPT and probe its mind. We’re also keen to see how this will ripple down to other products like Bing AI, Google Bard and even Meta’s budding AI project. As ChatGPT is an AI trailblazer, introducing new features like this will mean everyone else will have to catch up.

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A load of top Google Workspace programs are about to look a lot different
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Some of the most popular Google Workspace apps are set to look rather different following the rollout of a new design scheme from the company.

Users of the likes of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides will soon start seeing a refresh as the company's “Material You” design expands to its office software.

As well as cosmetic changes, the upgrade will also bring some new features for users, including a redesigned Google Docs toolbar and a streamlined design interface across the apps.

Google Workspace changes

“In the coming weeks, you’ll notice a new look and feel for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web,” a Google Workspace blog post announcing the news noted. “Following the release of Google Material Design 3, the refreshed user interface is purposefully designed to streamline core collaboration journeys across our products.”

“These key visual and interactive design changes will help you get your best work done faster by emphasizing the tools within our products used most frequently.”

The move is part of Google's campaign to make sure its office software remains intuitive and attractive to use as the company looks to keep pace with competitors such as Microsoft 365.

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Inspired by Google’s Material Design 3, the company says the refresh provides some of its most popular tools with a more modern look that will deliver a simpler, more streamlined UI that helps users work more efficiently.

Some of the more obvious changes users will spot include the new Google Docs toolbar, which is now a long “pill” shape that is not just thicker, but also stretches across your browser window. There are more precise options to make your text size bigger or smaller by a single point (rather than by 2x or more) and a number of new dropdown menus that group together similar functions into a single location, such as paragraph formatting.

The ubiquitous “share” button is also a softer, more rounded design, and in a lighter blue/green/yellow shade depending on which program you are using, and the button to start a Google Meet call directly from a document has been simplified from a multi-color option to a basic camera image.

Elsewhere, the status information (including last edit and version history) is now gathered in a single clock-face icon in the top-right hand corner, and there is an improved interface for setting rulers and gridlines.

The changes are rolling out now, and will be available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and users with personal Google accounts.

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Bing chatbot just got smarter – and it’s about to get different AI personalities
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Microsoft has deployed a new version of its Bing chatbot (v96) featuring improvements to make the AI smarter in a couple of key areas – and a big change has been flagged up as imminent, too.

Mikhail Parakhin, who heads up the Advertising and Web Services division at Microsoft, shared this info on Twitter (via MS Power User).

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So, what’s new with v96? Parakhin explains that users of the ChatGPT-powered Bing will now experience a ‘significant’ reduction in the number of times that the AI simply refuses to reply to a query.

There will also be “reduced instances of hallucination in answers” apparently, which is industry lingo meaning that the chatbot will produce fewer mistakes and inaccuracies when responding to users. In short, we should see less misinformation being imparted by the chatbot, and there have been some worrying instances of that occuring recently.

The other major news Parakhin delivers is that the so-called tri-toggle, known more formally as the Bing Chat Mode selector – featuring three settings to switch between different personalities of the AI Bing – is set to go live in the “next couple of days” we’re told.

Analysis: Long and winding road ahead

The ability to switch between a trio of personalities is the big change for the Bing chatbot, and to hear that it’s imminent is exciting stuff for those who have been engaging with the AI thus far.

As detailed previously, the trio of personalities available are labeled as Precise, Balanced, and Creative. The latter is set to provide a chattier experience, and Precise will offer a shorter, more typical ‘search result’ delivery, with Balanced being a middle road between the two. So, if you don’t like how the AI is responding to you, at least there will be choices to alter its behavior.

Various different versions of the Chat Mode selector have been tested, as you would imagine, and the final model has just been picked. This is now undergoing honing before release which should happen later this week as noted, but we’re guessing there’ll be plenty of further fine-tuning to be done post-release.

Certainly if the overall Bing AI experience has been anything to go by, as the whole project is, of course, still in its early stages, and Microsoft is chopping and changing things – sometimes in huge ways – seemingly without much caution.

The current tuning for v96 to ensure Bing doesn’t get confused and simply not reply will help make the AI a more pleasant virtual entity to interact with, and the same will hopefully be true for the ability to switch personalities.

At the very least, the Creative personality should inject some much-needed character back into the chatbot, which is what many folks want – because if the AI behaves pretty much like a search engine, then the project seems a bit dry and frankly in danger of being judged as pointless. After all, the entire drive of this initiative is to make Bing something different rather than just a traditional search experience.

It’s going to be a long road of tweaking for the Bing AI no doubt, and the next step after the personalities go live will likely be to lift that chat limit (which was imposed shortly after launch) to something a bit higher to allow for more prolonged conversations. If not the full-on rambles initially witnessed, the ones that got the chatbot into hot water for the oddities it produced…

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New Google Docs feature lets you provide feedback in an entirely different way
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Collaborating with others in Google Docs is about to look a whole lot different especially when it comes to giving and receiving feedback.

While Google’s office software already allows users to highlight sentences and paragraphs to leave comments, the search giant will soon be rolling out reactions to provide a less formal alternative to comments.

According to a new post in the Google Workspace blog, Google is adding emoji reactions to Docs. In practice, this new feature will look and feel similar to how users can react to messages in a group chat, for better or worse.

Emoji reactions

Whether you like it or not, this feature will be on by default and can not be disabled by users according to Google.

To access reactions in Docs, users simply need to select a sentence or even a paragraph they want to react to and they’ll be able to add an emoji reaction from the pop-up menu on the right side of the screen just like adding comments to a document.

If you’re a fan of emojis and use them frequently, you’ll be happy to know that any preferences set in Google Docs will also be shared with Google Chat. These include emoji skin tone and gender preferences and Google has also added gender-neutral options for gender-modifiable emojis.

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Emoji reactions are rolling out now to Rapid Release domains and will roll out to Scheduled Release domains beginning on April 20. All Google Workspace users as well as users with personal Google Accounts will be able to use this feature once it goes live.

While emoji reactions could potentially make using Google’s online collaboration tools more fun, the ability to disable the feature altogether would be a nice touch for more serious organizations and users.

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