Mercedes-Benz and ChargePoint are going to install thousands of EV fast chargers in the US

Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz, MN8, and ChargePoint are joining forces to install 400 fast electric vehicle charging hubs across the US in a major bid to boost EV sales and improve the nation’s struggling EV charging infrastructure. The project will cost approximately €1 billion ($1 billion), which will be split 50-50 between Mercedes and MN8.

Starting this year, the companies will begin the work to construct hundreds of new hubs, which will include more than 2,500 DC fast charging plugs. MN8 Energy, an offshoot of Goldman Sachs Asset Management focused on solar power and energy storage, will help finance the project using ChargePoint’s EV charging hardware and software, the companies said.

“This is for us a strategic decision to really put our...

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Top AI conference bans use of ChatGPT and AI language tools to write academic papers

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

One of the world’s most prestigious machine learning conferences has banned authors from using AI tools like ChatGPT to write scientific papers, triggering a debate about the role of AI-generated text in academia.

The International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) announced the policy earlier this week, stating, “Papers that include text generated from a large-scale language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT are prohibited unless the produced text is presented as a part of the paper’s experimental analysis.” The news sparked widespread discussion on social media, with AI academics and researchers both defending and criticizing the policy. The conference’s organizers responded by publishing a longer statement explaining their thinking....

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This new image sensor is here to save your smartphone photos from bad white balance

Even high-end smartphone cameras are notoriously bad at capturing accurate skin tones. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A Belgium-based company is looking beyond the visible light spectrum to put an end to a common problem for smartphone cameras: bad color reproduction. Spectricity is debuting its new S1 multispectral sensor at CES 2023, and it could be headed to smartphones on store shelves sooner than later.

Standard camera sensors are limited to using certain bands of the visible spectrum — red, green, and blue. The S1, which is designed to complement the main camera system, can gather much more data, including in the near-infrared range. The company says this results in better color reproduction and more accurate skin tones, and it has big aspirations for this technology: CEO Vincent Mouret says he expects all smartphones to incorporate it “within the...

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Victrola announces the Victrola Stream Onyx, a cheaper version of its Stream Carbon turntable

Image: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Want the joys of analog audio but the convenience of wireless speakers? Victrola has an option for you: at CES, the company is introducing a new turntable called the Stream Onyx that’s capable of streaming records straight to a Sonos system.

The Stream Onyx is certified for Works With Sonos, meaning it can wirelessly transmit audio to Sonos speakers. As a result, you can easily play vinyl records through your entire Sonos system without needing to install any extra equipment. Instead, you use the Victrola app to connect the turntable to your Wi-Fi and Sonos system.

This is Victrola’s second Works with Sonos turntable, following last year’s $800 Stream Carbon. The Stream Onyx shaves that price down a touch — to $599 — by shaving off some...

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Lenovo’s new Android tablet looks like a really big iPad Pro

The Lenovo Tab Extreme comes with a dual-hinge keyboard that works just like the Magic Keyboard Folio for the iPad. | Image: Lenovo

The 14.5-inch Lenovo Tab Extreme seems like Lenovo’s answer to the iPad Pro, right down to the sleek gray chassis, Magic Keyboard-like keyboard stand, and stylus. It’s just a little bigger.

The $1,199 Tab Extreme has a 14.5-inch 120Hz 3K OLED display and runs Android 13. It comes with a dual-hinge keyboard that serves as a stand, letting you lift the device up and off your desk while you type, as well as a separate magnetic dual-mode stand that lets you position the tablet horizontally or vertically. It also comes with the Lenovo Precision Pen 3.

For comparison, the 12.9-inch M2-equipped iPad Pro starts at $1,099 without the Magic Keyboard Folio or Apple Pencil, which cost $349 and $129, respectively. That all adds up to $1,677, and...

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The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola is a collaboration nine years in the making

It’s usually tough to get excited about a rugged phone for enterprise customers, but the ThinkPhone by Motorola is a little different. It’s the first co-branded device since Lenovo bought the mobile company nine years ago and, unsurprisingly, is designed to work with Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops. It’s heavy on security features and ThinkPad integrations, like a shared clipboard and automatic connection over Wi-Fi, along with a durable exterior and a customizable red button that look right at home with the company’s PC line.

The ThinkPhone uses a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset — not the very latest from Qualcomm but still an extremely capable processor. It offers a big 6.6-inch OLED screen and two rear cameras (plus a depth sensor): a...

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Lenovo’s new all-in-one is all screen

If you told me this was a stylish monitor, I might just believe you. | Image: Lenovo

Lenovo’s Yoga AIO 9i doesn’t look like a traditional all-in-one computer: the 31.5-inch 4K screen attached to it has relatively small bezels, giving it an all-screen look; it’s held aloft by what looks like a bent copper tube; and it’s also not that easy to spot the actual computer part, as it’s hidden in a base that could conceivably just be the bottom of a traditional monitor.

The company says the AIO is designed “with creatives in mind” and that, if you connect a laptop to it, you’ll be able to both control your mobile device with the desktop’s keyboard and mouse and charge it as well. It’ll start at $1,799.99 when it becomes available in Q3.

Like many other AIOs that focus on having a nice design, the 9i uses laptop components. In...

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Lenovo’s Project Chronos lets you beam yourself into virtual worlds

See that little silver box under the TV? That’s Chronos. | Image: Lenovo / Intel

Lenovo usually shows up to CES with a bunch of laptops and monitors, but this year, it’s bringing along something quite a bit different: Project Chronos, a device that lets you beam an avatar of yourself into virtual worlds.

The device, a medium-size gray box powered by a 13th Gen Intel core processor, uses an RGB depth camera to capture your movements. In a demo, Lenovo showed the camera being used to create virtual versions of users in real time. One person did some jumping jacks that animated smoothly. Later, they wound up a kick and sent a soccer ball into a goal. The video also showed how Chronos can capture some facial movements, though they looked just a little bit off — one person’s smile was closer to scary than warm.

...

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WhatsApp adds official proxy support to help users circumvent internet blocks

The proxy settings screen on WhatsApp. | Image: Meta

WhatsApp is adding support for connecting to the messaging service via proxy, WhatsApp owner Meta announced today. It’s a move that WhatsApp hopes will allow users to continue to stay connected, even if the service is blocked by governments. Connecting via proxy won’t impact WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, the company says, and the content of messages won’t be visible to the proxy service.

“​​We’re putting the power into people’s hands to maintain access to WhatsApp if their connection is blocked or disrupted,” a WhatsApp blog post reads. “Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely.”

The announcement of the...

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Lenovo’s new ThinkBook has modular accessories that add LTE, a webcam light, and more

Image: Lenovo

The fourth generation of Lenovo’s ThinkBook 16p laptop comes with a unique feature: the ability to add modular accessories. Using the magnetic pin connector at the top of the display, you can attach the devices from Lenovo’s lineup of modular Magic Bay accessories, including the 4K wireless webcam, webcam light, and even an accessory that enables LTE connectivity.

The device, which starts at $1,349 without the accessories, comes with a 16-inch IPS display running at either 120Hz or 60Hz. It also features up to a 13th Gen Intel Core H-series processor and offers an optional discrete graphics chip from Nvidia’s most recent GeForce RTX lineup. There are plenty of storage options, too, with Lenovo providing up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, along with...

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Lenovo’s new Yoga Book 9i laptop has a second screen above its screen

Two screens in landscape orientation make a Yoga Book 9i in portrait orientation, and two screens in portrait orientation make a Yoga Book 9i in landscape orientation. Okay, I think I need to sit down now. | Image: Lenovo

Dual monitor setups are great and all, but how about dual screens in a strangely tall laptop? Lenovo is here to answer that, as it’s announcing the Yoga Book 9i laptop at CES — the first laptop with dual OLED displays.

This device is part laptop, part tablet, and all quirks. It comes with a removable keyboard that can be positioned in a few different ways: it can be attached to the front of the laptop with the two screens stacked vertically, attached to the front with the two screens spread open like a book, or placed on top of the lower screen for use like a slightly more typical laptop.

I say slightly because using the keyboard this way either means a keyboard in the front setup like the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED or sliding it...

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Lenovo made a Kindle Scribe

Lenovo says the Smart Paper is built for note-taking. | Image: Lenovo

Lenovo has announced an e-ink tablet called the Smart Paper, which appears to be aimed at Amazon’s writing-focused Kindle Scribe. The Smart Paper features a 10.3-inch display, a pen that doesn’t need to be charged, and the ability to detect when you’re tilting the stylus, as well as 4,096 levels of pressure.

The screen Lenovo’s using, while not as pixel-dense as the Kindle’s, should be high-res enough for both reading and writing at 1872 x 1404. It also features front lighting with adjustable color. Another neat trick is that the Smart Paper can record audio while you’re jotting with a pen, and you’ll have the ability to hear exactly what was being said as you wrote a specific note — a handy feature if you’re keeping track of meetings or...

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The Verge Launches “Command Line,” a Newsletter About the Tech Industry’s Inside Conversation, by Alex Heath

Every Thursday, The Verge’s deputy editor will peel back the curtain on the tech industry’s most influential players for paid subscribers

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The first smart deadbolt with wireless charging is coming this year — minus the wireless charging

Alfred’s new DB2S smart deadbolt will charge via Wi-Charge’s infrared power transmission, though the transmitter will be sold separately. | Image: Alfred

The first wirelessly powered smart deadbolt is launching later this year — without wireless power. The Alfred DB2S is the first DIY-installable smart lock that can charge via infrared power transmission, and Alfred says it’ll be available for $299 at The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers in early Q2.

There’s a slight catch, though: that $299 doesn’t get you wireless charging, at least not yet. For that, you’ll need a Wi-Charge charging kit, which won’t be available through consumer channels until the second half of 2023 at the earliest. Pricing for the kit has not been set.

The charging kit, when it’s available, will consist of a replacement backplate with a built-in Wi-Charge receiver, as well as a transmitter that requires...

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Aqara is bringing a HomeKit Secure Video doorbell and Home Key smart lock to the US

The Aqara Smart Lock U100 is one of the few smart locks compatible with HomeKit’s Home Key feature in Apple Wallet. | Image: The Verge / Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Budget smart home gadget manufacturer Aqara is at CES, where it announced a new LED light strip, presence detection sensor, video doorbell, and smart door lock. Besides being affordably priced, several of these products are compatible with Apple HomeKit and will also support Matter further down the line.

First up is the Aqara Video Doorbell G4. It’s the first battery-powered video doorbell to work with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video in the US and comes with a separate USB-C powered Chime that doubles as a Wi-Fi extender. The G4 supports wired power like its competitors, the Belkin Wemo Video Doorbell and the Logitech Circle View Doorbell.

However, while Belkin and Logitech’s offerings only work with Apple Home ecosystem, the G4 also...

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Amazon is adding Matter-over-Thread support this spring and will fix a major smart home annoyance

Thread support is coming to Amazon's Alexa smart home platform this spring. | Image: Amazon

Playing catchup with Apple, Google, and Samsung, Amazon has announced it’s bringing Matter-over-Thread support to its Echo devices this spring. It will also expand its support of the new smart home standard to more device types — including thermostats, blinds, and sensors — in addition to light bulbs, plugs, and switches. The company also confirmed at CES this week that all of its remaining compatible Echo and Eero devices will be updated to support Matter at the same time.

Amazon is also solving a major annoyance for its smart homes: the Alexa app will remember when you change a device name either in the Alexa app or in the manufacturer’s app and reflect that change everywhere.

Amazon first announced its phased rollout of Matter...

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You can finally buy the Ring Car Cam

The Ring Car Cam can be preordered starting today for $199.99. | Image: Ring

More than two years after announcing it, the Ring Car Cam is now available for preorder. Starting today, January 5th, you can order the company’s first dashboard security camera at Amazon.com or Ring.com for $199.99, a savings of $50 over the regular price. It will ship to US customers beginning February 15th.

The Ring Car Cam is the video doorbell company’s first foray into security away from the home. Featuring dual-facing cameras that can record inside and outside of the car, both when it’s in motion and parked, the Ring Car Cam also has a microphone and speaker as well as sensors to detect events and motion in and around the car.

Image: Ring

The Ring Car Cam has a front- and rear-facing camera.

...

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Kensington announces two new trackballs at CES

Kensington revealed the TB450 and TB550 trackballs at CES this year | Image: Kensington

Trackball stans, rejoice! Kensington, one of the few remaining manufacturers of premium trackball mice, has announced two new options for the ergonomic diehards out there. Kensington introduced a pair of more budget-friendly options at CES 2023 with its new Pro Fit Ergo Trackball lineup, the $69.99 TB550 and $49.99 TB450. They join the $119.99 wireless SlimBlade Pro Trackball in Kensingtons’ trackball lineup, but where the SlimBlade Pro is manipulated by the user’s fingers, the new offerings rely on the thumb to get the cursor moving.

Image: Kensington

The TB450 will cost $50 and is battery-operated.

Both the TB450 and TB550 offer the same ergonomic shape with the trackball stationed under the thumb and are...

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Watering the lawn may finally be getting smarter

The Rachio Smart Hose Timer (pictured) can be directly connected to a faucet, allowing you to control and monitor your watering schedule via a free app. | Image: Rachio

There are plenty of smart home gadgets being showcased at CES this year, but frankly, I’m most excited by the prospect of autonomous lawn care. Luckily for me (and my poor neglected garden), both Moen and Rachio are releasing new smart irrigation gadgets that can be used to remotely control watering locations and frequency in your yard, helping to keep plants healthy while reducing water waste. And only one of them actually requires you to already have an expensive irrigation system in place.

First up, Moen is expanding its Smart Water Network — a system of products designed to control and monitor water usage — with a new Smart Sprinkler Controller and Smart Wireless Soil Sensors. Moen claims that the Smart Sprinkler Controller can be...

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AMD admits some Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs are overheating

AMD has acknowledged reports of its Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs overheating and is currently investigating the cause. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Several user reports have appeared since the launch of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card last month that claim the GPU is impacted by performance issues due to running at excessively high temperatures. Now, AMD has released a statement acknowledging that some Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference GPUs have been affected by a manufacturing fault.

The issues were initially reported on forums like Reddit where multiple users said their RX 7900 GPUs were overheating, which throttled performance and in some cases, crashed their computer systems. Temperatures as high as 115 degrees Celsius (239 Fahrenheit) have been reported. While the Radeon RX 7900 Series desktop GPUs can operate up to 110 degree Celsius when under heavy loads (such as 4K...

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Thursday’s top tech news: chips, cars, and audiobooks

Sony and Honda’s new EV prototype: Afeela. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

CES rumbles on, and Apple sneaks out a new audiobook feature.

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New York City schools ban access to ChatGPT over fears of cheating and misinformation

Schools have adapted to disruptive technology before — ChatGPT is the latest challenge to educational norms. | Photo by Nicolas Villalobos via Getty Images

The New York City Department of Education has blocked access to ChatGPT on its networks and devices over fears the AI tool will harm students’ education.

A spokesperson for the department, Jenna Lyle, told Chalkbeat New York – the education-focused news site that first reported the story — that the ban was due to potential “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content.”

“While the tool may be able to provide quick and easy answers to questions, it does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success,” said Lyle.

ChatGPT was released last November by San Francisco-based AI company OpenAI, and has sparked a huge debate over...

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Apple Books quietly launches AI-narrated audiobooks

Apple’s website says digital narration makes audiobooks more widely available to authors. | Image: Apple

Audiobooks narrated by a text-to-speech AI are now available via Apple’s Books service, in a move with potentially huge implications for the multi-billion dollar audiobook industry. Apple describes the new “digital narration” feature on its website as making “the creation of audiobooks more accessible to all,” by reducing “the cost and complexity” of producing them for authors and publishers.

The feature represents a big shift from the current audiobook model, which often involves authors narrating their own books in a process that can take weeks and cost thousands for a publisher. Digital narration has the potential to allow smaller publishers and authors to put out an audiobook at a much lower cost.

Screenshot by Jon...

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The BMW i Vision Dee is a future EV sport sedan that can talk back to you

The BMW i Vision Dee is basically KITT with a kidney grille. | Image: BMW

KITT with a kidney grille? With a minimalist design, a HUD across the whole windshield, and a digital assistant that talks back, this could be the most polarizing BMW concept yet.

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AMD promises RTX 3060 desktop graphics performance with new RDNA 3 laptop GPUs

AMD’s RDNA 3 architecture is coming to laptops in February. | Image: AMD

AMD is bringing its RDNA 3 graphics architecture to laptops this year. The chip giant is promising RTX 3060-level desktop graphics on the latest laptops featuring its new Radeon RX 7600M XT GPUs. That’s games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla running at 100fps at 1080p, Borderlands 3 hitting 106fps, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider reaching 142fps.

At the top end, AMD will offer laptop manufacturers the Radeon RX 7600M XT or RX 7600M. The RX 7600M XT has 32 teraflops of performance paired with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The RX 7600M has 28 teraflops of performance with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. Both discrete GPUs are built on the RDNA 3 architecture and a 6nm process and will support AV1 encode and decode. That’s good news for streamers or content...

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AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 mobile processors include a massive 16-core chip

This is where the magic will happen. | Image: AMD

AMD has announced its new Ryzen 7000 mobile CPUs for laptops. The list is a real who’s who of mobile processor architecture, including Zen 4, Zen 3 Plus, Zen 3, and Zen 2 chips.

The potential star of the show is the “Dragon Range” Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7945HX, which has 16 cores and 32 threads, frequencies of 2.2-5.4 Ghz, 80MB cache, and 55-75 watt TDP. I repeat — 16 cores in a laptop. These aren’t Intel’s little efficiency cores. These are 16 full Zen cores in a laptop’s chassis.

This may seem like an underdog compared to Intel’s top 13th-Gen chips, which have 24 cores — Intel has claimed that its Core i9-13980HX is the “world’s fastest mobile processor”. This chip, however, only has eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, while all...

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AMD’s Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs arrive next month to take on Intel for PC gaming

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

AMD is bringing its impressive 3D V-Cache technology to its Ryzen 7000 desktop processors. Starting in February, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 7900X3D, and 7800X3D will all start shipping with some big promises of PC gaming and productivity gains. AMD could be about to regain the PC performance crown it lost to Intel’s Core i9-13900K just a few months ago.

There’s reason to be excited if you’re just about to build a PC gaming rig. AMD’s first desktop chip to use its 3D V-Cache technology, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, outclassed its own Ryzen 5900X and Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9-12900K last year for PC gaming. Even against the Core i9-13900K, it held its own in a number of games.

Image: AMD

A render of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 X3D chips.

A...

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‘AI is going to reinvent how you do everything on Windows,’ says Microsoft’s Windows boss

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Panos Panay is the man in charge of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft hardware, and he has CEO Satya Nadella’s ear. So when he says that AI is the future of Windows, we’re definitely paying attention.

“AI is going to reinvent how you do everything on Windows, quite literally,” he told an audience at AMD’s CES 2023 press conference, pausing for effect.

“quite literally”

The context: AMD has just announced its new Ryzen 7000 mobile processors, and the company’s boasting that they’re the first x86 chips to contain a dedicated AI engine — one that, it claims, also happens to be 20 percent faster than the one in Apple’s MacBook Pros with M1 Pro chips.

(Dragging Apple was a bit of a theme during the early part of AMD’s keynote, though it’s...

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Sony announces Project Leonardo, a PlayStation 5 accessibility controller

Sony

During Sony’s CES 2023 presentation, the company shared that it’s working on a new accessibility controller kit, codenamed “Project Leonardo”.

Sony shared in an official blog post that it consulted with video game accessibility advocates like AbleGamers and SpecialEffect to create a controller that is “highly configurable” and “works in tandem with many third-party accessibility accessories.”

Leonardo’s kit features PlayStation 5 face and trigger buttons that can be swapped around a wide circular gamepad as well as a joystick which can be repositioned relative to the gamepad. It will also come with accessories in a variety of shapes and sizes for “players to find a configuration that works for their strength, range of motion, and...

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Asus announces new Xbox controller with a built-in OLED screen

There’s a tiny OLED display right at the top. | Image: Asus

Asus is releasing a new Xbox PC controller later this year that has a built-in OLED display and a host of connectivity options for PC. The ROG Raikiri Pro has a tiny 1.3-inch OLED display above the Xbox button that will display custom animations, battery or microphone status, and more.

The OLED display (128 x 40 resolution) will largely be used for swapping profiles during games, or for checking charging or mic status, Bluetooth pairing, and running text or animated wallpapers. The custom animations remind me a lot of the OLED display that replaced the Xbox “jewel” on the revamped Duke controller in 2018.

Image: Asus

The OLED display in action.

Two buttons at the top of the Raikiri Pro support controller...

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