Microsoft Launches ‘Deepfake’ Detector Tool; T-Mobile Promises Faster 5g at Thousands of Locations; Mandalorian Season 2 Date; Battery Free Gameboy Looks to Future

Just in time to assist in detecting fakes before the US election, Microsoft has launched a deep fake detector tool. Techcrunch.com reports that its called Video Authenticator. The tool gives ‘a percentage chance, or confidence score’ that the media has been artificially manipulated. This manipulation score works in real time on each frame as the video plays. Microsoft has partnered with the San Francisco based AI foundation to make the tool available to organizations involved in the democratic process this year — including news outlets and political campaigns.

T-Mobile beat its competitors out of the blocks with 5G, covering more than half the country with low band 600MHz signals early. The problem is, most of that coverage is barely faster than plain ol’ 4G (or LTE, as some call it.) Now, according to venture beat.com, T-Mobile has activated much faster 2.5GHz mid band 5G towers in some 90 cities and towns, and claims they will add thousands more by the end o 2021. Part of the delay was the merger with Sprint…they couldn’t repurpose the 2.5 Gig spectrum until the deal was done.

A brief, but highly awaited announcement from Disney + today….the start date for streaming season two of The Mandalorian! Engadget.com says you can begin enjoying Mando and Baby Yoda’s continuing saga on the most popular show from Disney + October 30th! Disney didn’t tell us if they are going to follow last year’s format of releasing an episode per week, or if they will make them all available at once, so you can binge clear through Halloween. The Mandalorian snagged 15 Emmy nominations for its 1st season. We’ll know what it may have won when the Primetime Emmy Awards airs on September 20th.

It’s not something coming to stores or websites, but a cool proof of concept looking to less battery reliance in the future. Cnet.com reports that a fellow from the Netherlands named Jasper de Winkel has converted Nintendo Gameboys to run battery free. The Dutch computer scientist has powered the rigs with a combination of solar panels and kinetic energy recycled from punching the buttons during gameplay. He and other computer scientists have been working on the concept for over a year. It looks pretty much like a classic Gameboy, but weighs half as much sans battery pack. It isn’t just a Gameboy without battery, though. The scientists are running modern processing power and what you see is really an emulator. This early iteration only runs about 10 seconds on solar, then you have to mash a button, but expect more of this sort of thing in the future.