Google tries to send Apple an RCS message with Drake’s ‘Texts Go Green’

Since the start of the year, Google has tried to publicly pressure Apple into adopting the GSMA’s RCS messaging protocol. The search giant’s campaign has involved everything from not-so-subtle jabs at I/O 2022 to long Twitter threads from the head of Android. Now the feud has expanded to include Drake.

In a tweet spotted by 9to5Google, the Android Twitter account shared an “unofficial lyric explainer video” for “Texts Go Green,” the third song from the rapper’s latest album. The song features Drake singing about a toxic relationship. Both the title and chorus of “Texts Go Green” refer to what happens when an iPhone user blocks someone from contacting them through iMessage. The service defaults to SMS and the blacklisted individual will lose all the benefits of iMessage, including read receipts if the other person had them enabled previously.

Calling the song “a real banger,” Google says the “phenomenon” of green text bubbles is “pretty rough” for both non-iPhone users and anyone who gets blocked. “If only some super talented engineering team at Apple would fix this,” the company says in the video. “Because this is a problem only Apple can fix. They just have to adopt RCS, actually.”

The irony of Google’s video is that doesn’t accurately explain the meaning of “Texts Go Green.” In the context of the song, iMessage’s incompatibility with RCS is a comfort for Drake. “Texts go green, it hits a little different, don’t it?” he sings. “Know you miss the days when I was grippin’ on it / Know you’re in a house tonight just thinkin’ on it / I moved on so long ago.”

But, hey, whatever it takes for Apple to adopt RCS, right?

FBI warns crypto fraud on LinkedIn is a ‘significant threat’

If you have a tendency to talk to people you don’t know on LinkedIn, you may want to take extra care. According to a CNBC report, the company has acknowledged a “recent uptick of fraud on its platform,” and this time the scams involve persuading users …

Bill Nye’s return to TV debuts August 25th on Peacock

After more than a year, Peacock is finally close to bringing Bill Nye back to TV screens. The NBCUniversal service has revealed that The End is Nye will premiere on August 25th. The six-episode series will have Nye explore disasters (natural and otherwise) while showing how science can help prevent and survive these calamities.

Nye serves as an executive producer in addition to hosting. The production team will seem very familiar if you’re a fan of science documentaries or sci-fi. Brannon Braga (of Cosmos, The Orville and Star Trek fame) serves as director and showrunner, while Seth MacFarlane (also from Cosmos and The Orville) is both making cameo appearances and producing through his Fuzzy Door outfit.

The series comes roughly five years after Netflix’s Bill Nye Saves the World, and follows a similar template. It’s an effort to restore optimism about science, not to mention counter myths and otherwise push for a society where evidence and objectivity matter. This might not recapture the vibe of Bill’s Science Guy days, but it might not have to if it gets the message across.

Epic Games Store will randomly ask users to rate games to prevent review bombing

Epic Games has added a long-awaited feature to its store: user ratings. The company says that only those who have played a game for at least two hours will be able to rate it on a five-star scale. Not everyone will be able to rate a game either. Epic w…

Engadget Podcast: Google’s AI isn’t sentient but we must examine the ethics

This week, Devindra and Cherlynn dig into the story around Google engineer Blake Lemoine’s interview with the Washington Post and his belief that the company’s LaMDA language model is alive. What does it mean for AI (or anything else) to have consciousness? Do people understand AI, and what other areas of concern should we as a society consider as machines become more sophisticated and human-like? Then, we recap some of the biggest gaming news this week, as well as some wacky gadget announcements.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

  • No, Google’s LaMDA AI isn’t sentient – 1:40

  • First look at gameplay from Bethesda’s Starfield RPG at Summer Games Fest – 25:39

  • Capcom announces Street Fighter 6 with a gorgeous trailer – 29:22

  • Hideo Kojima’s next game will be for Xbox – 32:55

  • Overwatch 2 early access coming on October 4th – 33:43

  • US proposes legislation to ban sale of location data – 34:14

  • Sony released a $3,700 Walkman – 38:42

  • Working on – 43:13

  • Pop culture picks – 44:34

Video livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks
Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

Snapchat starts testing a paid subscription tier

Snap has started testing a paid subscription tier for Snapchat that will give users early access to new features, a company spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge. “We’re doing early internal testing of Snapchat Plus, a new subscription service for Snapchatters. We’re excited about the potential to share exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features with our subscribers, and learn more about how we can best serve our community,” the spokesperson said. While they barely revealed anything about the service, reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has found some hidden information in the app that gives us an idea of what Snapchat Plus could offer. 

Apparently, it’ll let users pin one friend as their #1 BFF and will give them access to some exclusive icons. Snapchat Plus users will also get a badge on their profile, will have the means to see their friends’ locations over the past 24 hours — if those friends are sharing their location with the user — and will see how many friends have rewatched their stories. Based on the details Paluzzi has unearthed, the service will cost users €4.59 ($4.83) a month or €45.99 ($48.41) a year. 

Those features and prices could change by the time the feature is ready to launch, if Snap does decide to offer the service. Seeing as other social networks and apps are also offering or working on paid tiers of their own, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if Snapchat Plus does become available. Twitter Blue made its debut in a US last year as a $3 option for users who want additional features, such as the undo button. Telegram also confirmed that it will launch a Premium tier sometime this month to give its most ardent fans access to bigger uploads, as well as more speed and resources.

Instagram is testing a new full-screen TikTok-like feed

Instagram is testing a new full-screen version of Instagram’s feed that would make scrolling through posts look and feel a lot more like TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg shared a preview of the test on his Instagram Story, saying that the new look would be available to some people “soon.”

The app began testing a version of a “full-screen” feed last month, but in that test feed posts didn’t actually take up the entire screen of the app. But with the latest version shared by Zuckerberg, posts extend all the way to the top of the screen, much as they do on TikTok. The new look also tweaks the shortcuts for accessing your inbox and creating new posts.

Though still an experiment, the new look is in-line with Meta’s stated desire to make competing with TikTok a top priority. On instagram, that’s meant inserting more Reels and “suggested” content into users feed, as well as emphasizing video more than static images. “Photos are still an important part of Instagram, and we’re working on ways to improve the way they show up in a full-screen Feed too,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta is also planning a major revamp of Facebook’s app that would insert more “recommended” content in users’ feeds, rather than posts from friends and pages they follow. Zuckerberg has said the changes are part of broader pivot toward AI-driven recommendations rather than simply relying on users existing social graphs.

The Morning After: First look at the transparent Nothing phone

As suspected, the first phone from Nothing — Carl Pei’s new company — is going all in on the transparent gadget look. This seems to be Nothing’s design aesthetic, matching its wireless ear(1) headphones from last year.According to snippets of video fr…