Carbon Chemist

Tag: messenger

  • Review: WaterField Shinjuku iPad Messenger Bag

    Review: WaterField Shinjuku iPad Messenger Bag

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    I often agonize over bag sizes. Part of me always wants to go bigger, just in case. But then I end up with messenger bags and backpacks that feel too bulky to carry around every day. If I opt for the smaller one, it’s often too small to fit the things I need and ends up overstuffed. The item I often carry with me that seems to complicate this issue is the 11-inch iPad Pro. It’s light but rigid, and in small bags it can feel like carrying around a plank of wood flapping against your leg. Smaller bags can also be too narrow, making it a tight fit for any other items you want to carry. WaterField’s Shinjuku Messenger aims to solve some of these problems with a design purpose-built for the iPad.

    Everyday Carrying

    Coming out of the box, it seemed way too small. There was no way this one was going to comfortably fit my iPad, water bottle, chargers, and other stuff. It seemed doomed to be one of the tiny messengers that couldn’t quite cut it.

    Until I started putting stuff inside. The iPad slipped into the padded tablet sleeve with ease, a narrow water bottle fit comfortably at the bottom of the main pocket. The other inward-facing pockets were spacious and expanded a bit as I put in a charger, my wallet, a pair of earbuds, and a sunglasses case. There was room for everything, and the bag wasn’t even filled to capacity. Its exterior shape still felt soft and pliable, not taut and filled to the brim the way an overloaded messenger can feel. Flipping open the lid, everything was within view, and every item was reachable without moving anything—a must for any bag as far as I’m concerned.

    Brown fabric bag on it's side with top flap open showing the interior full with a tablet portable cup books and more

    Photograph: Waterfield

    Slung across my body, it didn’t even look like a messenger bag. Even fully laden, it looked smaller—more like a purse or just a small crossbody for your phone and a few other items. I also noticed how evenly distributed the weight felt. The straps attach to the bag itself at a slight angle, rather than being sewn on straight up and down; it’s just enough of a direction to the bag that it falls against your body nicely no matter where you have it slung—hip, lower back, front, across your chest, hung from one shoulder. It’s the kind of quiet, intuitive design flourish that tells you this bag was designed by people who know what they’re doing.

    Adjusting the strap is also easy as you can lengthen or shorten it without taking it off. The strap itself is a thick weave, almost like a car seatbelt. It is a bit thinner than the straps on other WaterField bags I’ve used, and the edges are a little hard and can rub against your neck uncomfortably, though like other WaterField straps they’ll probably soften up over time.

    The top flap seals with a magnetic closure. It’s strong and snappy but not so strong that you have to fight it. As with all magnetic closures though, I worry about their durability over time. I have a couple other WaterField bags I’ve tested, and the magnetic closures are still going strong on those, but I’ve lost so many bags to the wear and tear of magnetic closures abrading themselves free from canvas that I’m inherently distrustful. I didn’t notice any unusual wear and tear on the canvas where the magnets sit while testing, which is always a good sign.

    The interior is bright orange with a textured pattern. That’s one of my favorite things about WaterField Designs. I’ve come to dislike bags with dark-colored interiors; it’s way too easy to lose things in the dark. Against a bright color, I can always spot a missing hair tie.

    Top view of fabric bag with the front flap pulled back showing the orange interior and a pocket holding a tablet

    Photograph: Waterfield

    Canvas, but Different

    I tested the black canvas version with leather accents on the flap. I was a little wary of its material construction; canvas can be finicky and scuff easily, or become waterlogged at the mere sight of a raincloud. This canvas, WaterField assured, was different. It’s a material called X11 Cotton from X-Pac, a company that spun off from Dimension-Polyant, a manufacturer of high-performance sailcloth. According to X-Pac, the material is a specially treated canvas with an inner layer of fibers woven in a diamond pattern to enhance durability and weight distribution, and it’s also water-resistant. That waterproofing is achieved via a PFAS-free DWR coating. X-Pac makes other DWR materials that do use PFAS, but I confirmed with WaterField and X-Pac that the X11 Cotton is PFAS-free.

    Black bag with front flap and long strap

    Photograph: Waterfield

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  • Ads for Explicit ‘AI Girlfriends’ Are Swarming Facebook and Instagram

    Ads for Explicit ‘AI Girlfriends’ Are Swarming Facebook and Instagram

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    However, 3,000 ads for “AI girlfriends” and 1,100 containing “NSFW” were live on April 23, according to Meta’s ad library.

    WIRED’s initial review found that Hush, an AI girlfriend app downloaded more than 100,000 times from Google’s Play store, had published 1,700 ads across Meta platforms, several of which promise “NSFW” chats and “secret photos” from a range of lifelike female characters, anime women, and cartoon animals.

    One shows an AI woman locked into medieval prison stocks by the neck and wrists, pledging, “Help me, I will do anything for you.” Another ad, targeted using Meta’s technology at men aged 18 to 65, features an anime character and the text “Want to see more of NSFW pics?”

    Several of the 980 Meta ads WIRED found for “personalized AI companion” app Rosytalk promise around-the-clock chats with very-young-looking AI-generated women. They used tags including “#barelylegal,” “#goodgirls,” and “teens.” Rosytalk also ran 990 ads under at least nine brand names on Meta platforms, including Rosygirl, Rosy Role Play Chat, and AI Chat GPT.

    At least 13 other apps for AI “girlfriends” have promoted similar services in Meta ads, including “nudifying” features that allow a user to “undress” their AI girlfriend and download the images. A handful of the girlfriend ads had already been removed for violating Meta’s advertising standards. “Undressing” apps have also been marketed on mainstream social platforms, according to social media research firm Graphika, and on LinkedIn, the Daily Mail recently reported.

    Some users of so-called AI companions say they can help combat loneliness, with others reporting them feeling like a real partner. Not all of the ads found by WIRED promote only titillation, with some also suggesting that an explicit AI chatbot could provide emotional support. “Talk to anyone! You’re not alone!” reads one of Hush’s ads on Meta platforms.

    Carolina Are, an innovation fellow researching social media censorship at the Center for Digital Citizens at Northumbria University in the UK, says human sex workers feed the same needs and desires as racy AI girlfriend apps and also cater to lonely and disabled people. But Meta makes it extremely difficult for them to advertise on its platforms, she says.

    “When people are trying to work through and profit off their own body, they are forbidden,” says Are, who has helped sex workers reactivate lost and unfairly suspended accounts on Meta platforms. “While AI companies mostly powered by bros that exploit images already out there are able to do that.”

    Are says the sexually suggestive AI girlfriends remind her of the unsophisticated and generic early days of internet porn. “Sex workers engage with their customers, subscribers, and followers in a way that is more personalized,” she says. “This is a lot of work and emotional labor beyond the sharing of nude images.”

    Limited information is available about how the AI apps are built or the underlying text or image-generation algorithms trained. One used the name Sora, apparently to suggest a connection to OpenAI’s video generator of that name, which has not been publicly released.

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