The Morning After: YouTube’s fight against ad blockers led to ‘sub-optimal’ viewing
Especially if you’re not on Chrome.
YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers earlier this year, but it escalated things this month when it locked out anyone trying to watch YouTube through apps, add-ons and extensions that skip its ads.
It’s even affected a lot of YouTube viewers not using workarounds though, with Firefox or Edge users reportedly having to wait around five seconds every time they load a video. In screen recordings shared on Reddit and other online forums, users show how their screen goes blank for a short period when they click on a YouTube video before the page loads, but we couldn’t replicate this at Engadget.
Based on code found by some Y Combinator and Reddit posters, Google’s anti-ad blocker mechanism may be causing the delays. The company said users with ad blockers installed “may experience suboptimal viewing,” no matter which browser they use.
— Mat Smith
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Teenage Engineering made a toy car that costs $250
Objet d’ork.
Teenage Engineering just revealed a toy car/doodad that costs $250. Yes, it’s $250 for a little (but stylish!) piece of metal with wheels you can roll around a desk for a bit before getting bored. The company tends to release two kinds of products: Expensive, yet pretty darn cool, audio devices and, well, everything else. The toy car falls squarely in the latter camp. The company seems to be readying another announcement for later today too.
Sam Altman reinstated as OpenAI CEO five days after being fired
There’s now a three-person board with one original member.
Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI as CEO after his firing five days ago, the company announced in a post on X. The OpenAI board caused chaos when it fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday and reopened discussions with the former chief executive regarding his possible reinstatement on Tuesday. According to the report, board members “largely refused to engage” with Altman until Monday but faced a revolt from most of the company’s workers, who threatened to walk unless the OpenAI board resigned and reinstated Altman. Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear is interim CEO, but he also threatened to step down, saying Altman’s termination was “handled very badly,” which led to negotiations with Altman.
Sonos’ long-rumored headphones may appear April 2024
The company may be developing a TV streaming box as well.
According to a Bloomberg report, Sonos’ first attempt at headphones would directly compete with Apple’s AirPods Max, as well as devices from Sony and Bose. The company reportedly plans to charge over $400 for its over-the-ear headphones — around the same as Sony’s $400 highly regarded WH-1000MX5, but cheaper than Apple’s $549 AirPods Max.
