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Just ahead of CES (as usual), LG has unveiled one of the most interesting gaming monitors we've seen yet as part of its 2024 UltraGear OLED lineup. The 32-inch 32GS95UE UltraGear OLED not only offers a stellar 240Hz 4K option, but also lets you crank the refresh up 480Hz at 1080p with a "simple click." The company also unveiled new and updated 27-, 34- and 39- and 45-inch UltraGear OLED widescreen curved models, expanding its OLED gaming monitor family considerably.The 32-inch UltraGear OLED is the first model in that family to use LG's new "Dual-Hz" feature that lets you quickly switch between 4K (3,840 x 2,160) at 240HZ, to Full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 at a stellar 480Hz. Very few monitors have the refresh rates that high, let alone the ability to choose between the two highest refresh rates available at their respective resolutions.LGLG says you can switch between these modes "via a hotkey or joystick's directional switch" to best suit the genre of game you're playing. "For fast-paced action titles and shooting games, users can select FHD 480Hz, while visually rich story-driven games can be enjoyed in 4K 240Hz," the company said.Along with that trick, the 32-inch UltraGear OLED offers a .03-millisecond GtG response time - something that's important for a high refresh rate monitor to avoid motion blur and other artifacts. Other features include high-end HDR picture quality (DCI-P3 98.5 percent at 400 nits), a "virtually borderless design," built-in speakers with DTS Virtual:X tech, G-Sync compatibility and more.LGAside from that Model, LG introduce the 34-inch 34GS95QE and the 39GS95QE, it's first 39-inch OLED monitor. Both are ultra-wide models with a 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratio, aggressive 800R curve, 3,440 x 1,440 resolution and 240Hz refresh rate. These are significant because they're LG's first ultrawide OLED monitors, and the first such ultrawide curved OLED models with a 240Hz refresh rate. Both support G-Sync, FreeSync Premium Pro and DisplayHDR True Black 400 (the OLED standard).LG has also refreshed its UltraGear OLED 27 and the UltraGear OLED 45. Both versions of the 45-inch model offer 3,440 x 1,440 resolution and 240Hz refresh rates, but the 45GS96QB version includes speakers and a USB-C PD (power deliver) connection rated up to 65 watts.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lgs-new-480hz-hd-gaming-monitor-can-switch-to-4k-240hz-with-a-click-101738300.html?src=rss

When Apple introduced the Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, it had no clear release schedule and only said that the device will be available sometime early next year. According to a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, early next year" means as soon as February. Apple reportedly ramped up production of the headset in China over the past several weeks with the intention of getting the devices ready for consumers by the end of January. The plan is to make the Vision Pro available the month after that.In addition to ramping up production, Apple has reportedly sent developers an email, notifying them to test their apps for the headset with the latest tools and to send their software to the company for feedback. Gurman says that's another sign of the device's impending release. In his report, Gurman also detailed the steps Apple is taking to launch a completely new product category. The last time the company introduced a brand new product was in 2015 when it started selling the Apple Watch, but the Vision Pro is a different beast that requires meticulous planning for its release.Since the headset has multiple possible configurations and could be customized to meet each customers' needs, Apple is apparently sending at least two staffers from each retail store to its headquarters for training in January. There, they'll be taught how to attach the device's headband and light seals, as well as how to fit prescription lenses. The Vision Pro will set customers back $3,499 when it goes on sale, but Gurman previously reported that Apple is working on a more affordable (and less powerful) version that will cost between $1,500 and $2,500.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-vision-pro-mixed-reality-headset-could-be-available-by-february-2024-060156965.html?src=rss

Following the patent dispute over the blood oxygen sensor on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, the International Trade Commission (ITC) sided with medical technology company Masimo, and ordered to halt all sales of said wearables in the US - conveniently just in time for the holidays. Apple has since filed a motion to pause this ban until its appeal is done, but earlier today, the ITC denied this request, meaning the Apple Watch ban is going ahead, unless the President decides to veto."A Presidential Review Period is in progress regarding an order from the US International Trade Commission on a technical intellectual property dispute pertaining to Apple Watch devices containing the Blood Oxygen feature," Apple told Engadget in an earlier statement. "While the review period will not end until December 25, Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply should the ruling stand."The Apple Watch models affected will stop being sold on Apple.com on December 21, then on December 24 at Apple's retail stores, and then until stocks run out for third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy - which could be pretty fast given the import ban on December 26. Other models like the Apple Watch SE that don't contain a blood oxygen sensor will continue to be sold.Masimo filed its lawsuit against Apple in 2021 over alleged violations of patents related to light-based blood-oxygen monitoring. The case originally targeted the Apple Watch Series 6, but despite the sales ban, you can continue to use the blood oxygen feature on that and other previously purchased Apple Watch models. In retaliation, Apple filed two patent infringement suits against Masimo in October 2022, claiming that the latter's own smartwatch copied Apple Watch features.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/itc-denies-motion-to-pause-us-apple-watch-ban-until-appeal-is-over-041608763.html?src=rss

A Compliance Car" is a vehicle designed not to be sold in large quantities but to satisfy rules around range-wide consumption. For instance, makers of enormous, gas-belching trucks may have to offer a thrifty, gas-sipping ride to balance out the emissions numbers. One infamous example is Aston Martin's Cygnet, a rebadged Toyota iQ with a luxury interior that sold for three times the iQ's price. Now, imagine a company chose to make one of those vehicles intentionally. That's the best way to describe Lexus' new LBX, a small but luxurious, Europe-exclusive city car that you'll love sitting in while waiting in traffic.The LBX is a subcompact car based on the same underlying platform (GA-B) as Toyota's Yaris Cross, its tiny crossover SUV. The Yaris Cross is a city runaround pretending to be an SUV, complete with flared wheel arches, high ride height and optional All Wheel Drive. Lexus is keen to point out that this isn't a rebadge, and that the luxury automaker has refined every facet of its design. The wheelbase is longer and wider, the powertrain smaller and faster, with luxury kit everywhere you look. You can call this many things, but it's not a lazy cash-grab, especially given how much of the early chatter around this car talked about it diluting Lexus' brand.Photo by Daniel Cooper / EngadgetInside, you'll find a 1.5 liter, three-cylinder VVT-iE engine with a bi-polar Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery. That composition offers higher power density and faster response with a smaller footprint than Toyota's own-brand hybrids, with a lighter weight which is key in such a small car. The combined total output is a restrained 136 DIN hp, which is fitting for a car designed to sit in traffic. But Lexus piqued my interest in this car by claiming that its new hybrid system offered powerful acceleration like that of a battery electric vehicle." Given the stately manner in which most small hybrids move, I was curious to put that claim to the test.If you're only accelerating to get off the line when the lights change, then you'll find plenty to like here. It's too much of a stretch to compare it to an EV but if you're looking for a performant city car, it's no slouch. It thrives in the cities, where its small-ish size, speed and driveability let you dart around corners and dive into tight spaces. But this power doesn't run too far beyond the lights, and putting your foot down on the highway exposes this engine. No amount of sound dampening tech - and there's a lot of it in this car - can mask the LBX's anguished screams when you try to accelerate or put the power down going up hills.Photo by Daniel Cooper / EngadgetUp front, it's roomy with a comfortable driving position, while the rear bench seat is higher to offer the passengers a better view. I'm 5' 11" and had enough headroom, but I doubt anyone taller than me would fancy riding in here for long. There's not a huge amount of rear legroom either, so you wouldn't want to do a long trip in one of these.The Lexus LBX is a lot of car, too much for the role in your life that it's intended to play, with a lot of frou-frou. Given this is a car designed for short journeys, I'm not sure it needs to have as much technology on board as it actually does. The model I tested had a digital instrument binnacle, a big central console and a heads-up display. Plus, flappy paddles so you can control your braking level and three USB-C ports in the central console. Oh, and a suite of safety tools that were so sensitive it'd erupt in a chorus of pings and bongs if I so much as glanced at the accelerator before the way in front of me was clear.Photo by Daniel Cooper / EngadgetLexus says the LBX is targeted at younger, city-smart Europeans" rather than the company's traditional, older base. The marketing is full of youths in red vinyl overcoats and Vitaly jewelry but I'm not sure that's the demographic who'll be interested. I'm not sure too many young, city smart Europeans could afford a car like this, or even know how to drive in the first place. Some of the recent stats have been skewed by COVID but the general trend of young people learning to drive has pointed down for a while. The company's representatives did mention they thought another potential demographic would be empty nesters looking to downsize.And then there's the price, with the base model costing 29,995 (around $37,700) on the road in the UK while the fully-specced model is 40,545 (around $50,870). Nobody needs to be told if that's a lot or not, especially given the various ways people buy new cars these days. But Lexus, knowing that it's not going to undercut similarly high-spec city cars in the space, say that while the up-front price is higher, it'll save drivers plenty with its fuel economy. I'm not sure how many people buy a luxury car because they're keeping their eye on the dollars and cents.Photo by Daniel Cooper / EngadgetFundamentally, as much as I like the LBX, I'm unable to square its inherent contradictions as they pile up on top of one another. There are very few faults that I can pick at which are tied to just this vehicle, rather than the quirks inherent in the company's range. But I just can't see a world in which people would line up to buy a car that's this over-equipped and over-specced given the environment in which it thrives.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lexus-lbx-is-the-luxury-city-car-you-never-knew-you-didnt-need-230153698.html?src=rss

The next generation of Apple's CarPlay interface has been previewed in luxury cars made by Porsche and Aston Martin. The interface, which was first announced more than a year ago at Apple's WWDC in 2022, is expected to be released next year in select models from the luxury automakers. It builds on previous versions of CarPlay, but will notably connect with all displays in a vehicle instead of just the central infotainment screen, according to Car and Driver.

Amazon will no longer sell donkey-skin gelatin to California residents. A report published Wednesday by Wired states the online retailer settled with a nonprofit that filed a complaint, alleging the products violated state animal welfare laws protecting horses. Amazon denied any wrongdoing and disputed the allegations. Still, it agreed to block sales of ejiao, a traditional Chinese medicine made from donkey hide, in the Golden State.The Center for Contemporary Equine Studies, an organization devoted to protecting horses, filed the complaint in February. It accused Amazon of violating California's Prohibition of Horse Slaughter and Sale of Horsemeat for Human Consumption Act. The nonprofit argued donkey products should be classified as horsemeat based on the law's language.Ejiao is a gelatin made from soaked and stewed donkey hides. Devotees believe it treats conditions related to blood circulation, insomnia and dry cough. However, apart from one published study - funded by an ejiao maker - suggesting it can be used successfully to treat anemia, scientific research doesn't appear to support these claims.Animal Welfare InstituteAccording to the Animal Welfare Institute, ejiao's popularity is annihilating donkey populations. Donkeys are being stolen, transported long distances without food or water, and killed under inhumane and unsanitary conditions" to fulfill ejiao's demand, the organization wrote. Meanwhile, a report by the Donkey Sanctuary, an advocacy group, claims workers in Tanzania battered the animals with hammers to meet quotas.The plaintiff's attorney believes Amazon's settlement sets a precedent for other retailers to cease ejiao sales in California. Amazon doesn't settle cases it thinks it can win," Corey Page, an attorney with the firm that represented The Center for Contemporary Equine Studies, told Wired. This is a signal that if anyone is doing this, they are doing something illegal. If a company like Amazon decides it needs to stop sending products and promoting products that violate California law, then all other retailers should do the same."Amazon's settlement language reportedly agrees to undertake reasonable best efforts" to enact internal measures" blocking ejiao products so that such products will not be available for sale to California addresses."The error message Amazon provided when trying to order ejiao for a California addressAmazonWhen I attempted to use an old (but still active, according to USPS) Los Angeles address of mine to buy an ejiao product called Ass Hide Glue Lumps" (highlighted in a previous Wired report from earlier this year that drew attention to the issue), it thwarted the attempt. Sorry, this item can't be shipped to your selected address," the error message read in red type. You may either change the shipping address or delete the item from your order."If you're surprised Amazon sold donkey products in the first place (and still does outside California), consider some other exotic" meats the retailer offers. These include whole-skinned alligator (only $195!), foie gras (duck or goose liver), kangaroo jerky and boneless snapping turtle meat.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-will-stop-selling-donkey-skin-gelatin-but-only-in-california-212555337.html?src=rss

We knew it was coming, but now we have a date: Bobby Kotick will officially step down as CEO of Activision Blizzard on December 29, 2023. Blizzard and King vice chairman Humam Sakhnini will also leave at the end of December, Activision Blizzard chief communications officer Lulu Meservey is out in January, and a handful of other executives will leave in March, according to an internal memo from Xbox head Phil Spencer published by The Verge.Activision Blizzard vice chairman Thomas Tippl, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra and King president Tjodolf Sommestad will remain at the studio and report to Matt Booty, Microsoft's president of gaming content and studios. Otherwise, leadership teams across Activision, Blizzard and King will stay the same, according to the memo.Kotick has been the head of Activision since 1991. At Activision Blizzard, he oversaw massively popular franchises including Call of Duty, Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft, and once the company acquired mobile studio King in 2016, he added Candy Crush to that list. The company is a AAA powerhouse and it generated $7.5 billion in revenue in 2022.Activision Blizzard was sued by California's Civil Rights Department in 2021 over allegations of systemic sexism, discrimination and harassment at the studio, and executives were accused of fostering a frat-house style culture. At the time, all top leadership roles at Activision Blizzard were filled by white men. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate, related lawsuit against the studio a few months later. In November 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported Kotick had long ignored and helped cover up instances of sexual harassment at the studio. In response, workers at Activision Blizzard held walk-outs and demanded Kotick's resignation, but a shareholder vote in 2022 kept him in place.Activision Blizzard settled the SEC lawsuit for $35 million in February, and it settled the California CRD suit for $54 million just days ago.Microsoft announced its intent to purchase Activision Blizzard in early 2022, lawsuits and all. The deal was valued at $69 billion, and considering the scale of both companies involved, it faced intense scrutiny from regulators in the US and the UK. The acquisition was approved in October, after 21 months of legal arguments and concessions. Microsoft is now the third-largest video game studio in the world by revenue and it's the face of the ongoing consolidation craze tearing through the industry.Once Microsoft's purchase went through, Kotick said he'd stay on through the end of 2023. According to Bloomberg, Kotick is set to make $375 million from the acquisition, and he's expecting a golden parachute of $14.6 million.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bobby-koticks-reign-at-activision-blizzard-ends-december-29-2023-194225817.html?src=rss

Reuters published an explosive investigative report Wednesday chronicling Tesla's alleged patterns of deliberate neglect and shifting blame onto customers for parts failures. The damning expose accounts the Elon Musk-led company's alleged long-running tendency to claim vehicle owners had engaged in driver abuse," charging them for repairs over failures caused by parts the company discussed internally as being flawed. The issues are often related to suspension and steering. Externally, Tesla's portrayal of the problems has ranged from flat-out denial to partial acknowledgment.Several accounts in the story document Tesla owners who were told their car's issues stemmed from prior damage or driver abuse. In some cases, they had just bought the vehicles:One of the drivers Reuters interviewed, Shreyansh Jain, suffered a suspension collapse in a 2023 Tesla Model Y he had owned for less than 24 hours. When the automaker told him a lower control arm separating from the steering knuckle caused the failure, he expected Tesla to cover the repairs. A service rep who inspected the car said they found no evidence of any external damage," as revealed in a text message.About a week later, Tesla sent a letter to Jain, skirting blame and citing a prior external influenced damage to the front-right suspension" as the cause.Jain said he was the only person to have driven the car on its first day of ownership, and he hadn't had an accident before the suspension failed. I was like, Bloody hell, how can metal just snap like that when I know for sure the car has not hit anything?'" he said to Reuters. Three months later, the repairs were complete, and Jain paid a $1,250 deductible (with his insurance covering the rest). He says his rates then spiked dramatically on another car he owned.Tesla CEO Elon Musk stands behind the Model Y at its 2019 unveiling.TeslaCincinnati surgeon Trace Curry paid $110,000 for a 2016 Tesla Model X. He replaced the SUV's control arms twice, once covered by warranty and a second time at his expense. After the warranty ran out, Reuters reviewed invoices showing Curry paid around $10,000 for failed suspension and drive-axle parts. Then, in 2018, he replaced the front half shafts (under warranty); he replaced them again (at his own cost) for $1,500.Reuters' investigation suggests Tesla knew that many of the parts that required replacing in Curry's Model X - control arms, suspension and front half shafts - had high failure rates.Andrew Lundeen was driving his wife's 2018 Model 3 in August when the car's power steering failed while driving over a speed bump. The Santa Rosa, California, resident told Reuters a Tesla service manager told him a power steering connector had corroded - and attributed it to a car wash, which the employee cited as a known problem.Lundeed paid $4,400 out of pocket to replace the steering rack and a wiring harness, allegedly thanks to his bold decision to visit a car wash. This is the only car I've ever heard of where a car wash can damage the wiring," he told the Tesla manager. Lundeed described the employee as saying, All I can tell you is we're not a 100-year-old company like GM and Ford. We haven't worked all the bugs out yet."Tesla's Model 3Photo by Roberto Baldwin / EngadgetThe investigation also documents Tesla's can-kicking and inconsistent responses to part recalls in different regions. For example, the company's engineers identified the aft link, part of the suspension, as having snapped in several incidents while owners drove at low speeds (similar to Jain's account). A former Tesla employee with direct knowledge of the matter" told Reuters that between 2016 and 2020, Tesla resolved" around 400 aft link complaints in China - either through in-warranty repairs or through goodwill repairs" if they were out-of-warranty.The Musk-led automaker delayed a recall for four years, only agreeing to one after Chinese regulators applied pressure. The country's State Administration for Market Regulation described a risk of accidents" as part of the rationalization.However, despite global reports of failures, Tesla never recalled the part in the US and Europe. The company told US regulators the problems resulted from driver abuse." Reuters also viewed a 2019 talking points" memo urging service centers to blame vehicle misuse," like hitting a curb or other excessive strong impact," as the culprit. Abuse" and misuse" are conditions in the Musk-led company's contract, giving the automaker leeway to reject in-warranty repairs for incidents it labels as such.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating Tesla since 2020 for the fore link (a suspension part) in Model S and X, and it began looking into power steering failures in the 2023 Model 3 and Model Y in July. Reuters' nearly 5,000-word report is worth a read, especially if you're a Tesla owner who has paid for repairs out of pocket. The NHTSA will likely find it an equally compelling read.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-knew-some-of-its-parts-had-high-failure-rates-but-reportedly-blamed-drivers-anyway-184957494.html?src=rss

Samsung has added a new medication tracking feature to its Health app and it's expected to launch in the US when the app updates later this week. Using the new feature, you can set up alerts to remind yourself when to take medications and get reminders for when to request refills from your doctor.When you enter a new medication into the app, you can log the shape and color of the pill, information about your prescribed dosage and the time you are scheduled to take the medication. The tool, which competes with the likes of GoodRx and Apple's Medication app, will give you an overview of a drug's use and possible side effects, including warnings about potential contraindications. Samsung says the information found within the app is backed by evidence-based content licensed from Elsevier, a publishing company that specializes in medical content.To start using the new medication tracking tool when it launches, you need a smartphone with at least Android 8.0 and your Samsung Health app version needs to be updated to version 6.26 or later. The feature's availability also might vary by device.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-adds-medication-tracking-to-its-health-app-174053413.html?src=rss

Vizio has released a software update for its Home platform across all current models in its lineup, which makes the new interface respond faster than before. The company says TV sets that receive the update will power up twice as fast, while apps will now load instantly. This improvement in speed also leads to quicker switching between apps so that moving from one streaming service to another doesn't affect people's viewing experience.In addition, the latest version of the OS is meant to surface recommendations and return search results in both voice and text formats much faster than its predecessor. The hope is that users would benefit from the upgrade by spending less time looking for content and more time actually watching them. The updated Home platform also comes with a new left-side navigation menu, as well as hierarchy sorting, to make it easier to browse for new shows and movies.When Vizio rolled out its redesigned Home interface in June, it already had features created to make it easier and faster for viewers to find new things to watch. They included new navigation tools, recommendations and a reworked onscreen keyboard. According to a Vizio representative, the new update will roll out in the coming weeks and will include "all 2021 and newer model year VIZIO Smart TVs and select TVs from the 2020 model year."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/vizios-latest-smart-tv-update-enables-faster-startups-and-app-switching-170043935.html?src=rss

Welcome back to our weekly gaming news roundup. As the year comes to a close, we're looking back on 12 months of massive change for the video game industry, driven by acquisitions, layoffs and unionization. You can read my story on consolidation for more on gaming's tough year.

Researchers have developed an AI-powered robot they claim can beat the physical marble game Labyrinth faster than humans are capable of. Thomas Bi and Raffaello D'Andrea of ETH Zurich created CyberRunner, which combines model-based reinforcement with the dexterity required to beat a game that requires physical skill, coordination and precision.For the uninitiated, the aim of the game is to guide a marble through a maze without falling into any holes. The player controls the movement of the ball by rotating two dials, which tilt the board.CyberRunner learns through experience. A camera observes the game and an algorithm learns more about it from each attempt. "Based on its understanding of the game it recognizes which strategies and behaviors are more promising," the researchers say. As such, the robot kept getting better at the game.The researchers gave CyberRunner and several humans around six hours of practice with the game. While the humans by and large struggled to beat Labyrinth after that time, CyberRunner was able to conquer it in just under 14.5 seconds. The researchers claim that's faster than any previously recorded time.CyberRunner became so adept at the game that it was able to use some unintended shortcuts. The researchers had to step in and instruct the AI to follow the maze's correct path.We've seen AI models outperform humans in other games, such as chess, Go and Dota 2. However, we haven't seen too many instances of AI performing better than humans in games that require a physical skill component.Meanwhile, the researchers are open-sourcing CyberRunner. Maybe I can help train it to be better at Screwball Scramble than I ever was as a kid.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-an-ai-robot-learn-how-to-demolish-humans-at-a-marble-maze-game-161554199.html?src=rss

2023 was an important year for patients with sickle cell disease. Prior to CRISPR, the only cure for the life-long ailment was a bone marrow transplant, which is notoriously dangerous and costly. This month, the FDA approved Vertex's Casgevy," a CRISPR-based therapy for the treatment of sickle cell disease in patients 12 and older. The landmark approval made the therapeutic the first genetically edited therapy to reach the general market.Casgevy, which also received the greenlight from regulators in the UK for another blood disorder called beta thalassemia, works by being administered in a single-infusion of genetically modified stem cells to a patient. Clinical study participants that took Casgevy were free from symptoms associated with sickle cell disease, like periodic episodes of extreme pain due to blocked blood flow through vessels, for up to a year.CRISPR, which modifies precise regions of a human's DNA strands, was once thought to be a far off scientific innovation. Human cells were first modified using CRISPR in clinical trials in China back in 2016. Less than a decade later, these landmark approvals have set the stage for future nods by regulators for other CRISPR-based therapies that can treat things like HIV, cancers and high blood pressure. Gene therapy holds the promise of delivering more targeted and effective treatments," Nicole Verdun, director of the Office of Therapeutic Products within the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said in a recent press release.ASSOCIATED PRESSCRISPR-based gene editing can be designed as a therapeutic for a number of diseases. A scientist can either delete, disrupt or insert segments of DNA to treat conditions by either targeting specific genes or engineering new cell therapies. The editing process can occur ex vivo (outside the body), in the same way Casgevy does, or in vivo (inside the body). Using CRISPR, sickle cell patients' blood stem cells are modified in a lab before they are re-infused via a single-dose infusion as part of a hematopoietic transplant.Neville Sanjana, a core faculty member at the New York Genome Center and associate professor in the Department of Biology at New York University, runs the Sanjana lab, which develops gene therapies for complex diseases like autism and cancer. One of the really fundamental characteristics of CRISPR is its programmability," Sanjana told Engadget. While working at the Zhang lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Sanjana says he helped design the guide RNA" that became the blueprint for Vertex's Casgevy. CRISPR screens can be powerful tools for understanding any disease or genetic trait," Sanjana said. Right now, he said biomedical folks are focused on applying CRISPR-based therapies for really serious inheritable diseases.While it does set a precedent" to have these first CRISPR-based gene therapies out there, it could also mean that regulators and the general public will regard future innovations in the space as less novel," Katie Hasson, a researcher with the Center for Genetics and Society (CGS) told Engadget. The CGS is a public interest and social justice organization that is focused on making sure gene editing is developed and distributed for good. Hasson explained, it doesn't mean that because one got approved that all other innovative therapies to come after it will not get as much scrutiny.

Researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory say that a dataset used to train AI image generation tools contains at least 1,008 validated instances of child sexual abuse material. The Stanford researchers note that the presence of CSAM in the dataset could allow AI models that were trained on the data to generate new and even realistic instances of CSAM.LAION, the non-profit that created the dataset, told 404 Media that it "has a zero tolerance policy for illegal content and in an abundance of caution, we are temporarily taking down the LAION datasets to ensure they are safe before republishing them." The organization added that, before publishing its datasets in the first place, it created filters to detect and remove illegal content from them. However, 404 points out that LAION leaders have been aware since at least 2021 that there was a possibility of their systems picking up CSAM as they vacuumed up billions of images from the internet.According to previous reports, the LAION-5B dataset in question contains "millions of images of pornography, violence, child nudity, racist memes, hate symbols, copyrighted art and works scraped from private company websites." Overall, it includes more than 5 billion images and associated descriptive captions. LAION founder Christoph Schuhmann said earlier this year that while he was not aware of any CSAM in the dataset, he hadn't examined the data in great depth.It's illegal for most institutions in the US to view CSAM for verification purposes. As such, the Stanford researchers used several techniques to look for potential CSAM. According to their paper, they employed "perceptual hashbased detection, cryptographic hashbased detection, and nearestneighbors analysis leveraging the image embeddings in the dataset itself." They found 3,226 entries that contained suspected CSAM. Many of those images were confirmed as CSAM by third parties such as PhotoDNA and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque trained Stable Diffusion using a subset of LAION-5B data. Google's Imagen text-to-image model was trained on a subset of LAION-5B as well as internal datasets. A Stability AI spokesperson told Bloombergthat it prohibits the use of its test-to-image systems for illegal purposes, such as creating or editing CSAM.This report focuses on the LAION-5B dataset as a whole," the spokesperson said. Stability AI models were trained on a filtered subset of that dataset. In addition, we fine-tuned these models to mitigate residual behaviors."Stable Diffusion 2 (a more recent version of Stability AI's image generation tool) was trained on data that substantially filtered out 'unsafe' materials from the dataset. That, Bloomberg notes, makes it more difficult for users to generate explicit images. However, it's claimed that Stable Diffusion 1.5, which is still available on the internet, does not have the same protections. "Models based on Stable Diffusion 1.5 that have not had safety measures applied to them should be deprecated and distribution ceased where feasible," the Stanford paper's authors wrote.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/researchers-found-child-abuse-material-in-the-largest-ai-image-generation-dataset-154006002.html?src=rss

QR code-based phishing attacks appear to be on the rise. For this new" hacking vector, someone gets a phishing email asking them to scan a QR code, that code redirects to a malicious link (usually to steal credentials) and an account takeover occurs. Local news organizations have warned the public to watch out, security leadership publications tell executives to be careful and security companies really, really want you to call it quishing.To be fair, there have been some notable headlines about it lately. A large-scale version of this against an unnamed major" US energy company went after Microsoft logins, according to a Cofense report in August. Security researchers have unanimously reported some level of uptick or spike in the attack vector this year. Even the Federal Trade Commission warned consumers of the dangers.The fanfare around these attacks, however, mostly outweighs the threat of using QR codes in your daily life. Phishing has been, and will likely always be, a prevalent way to trap victims, and what we're seeing when people talk about QR code attacks is just another way to do that. That's why despite how the reports may generalize the dangers of QR codes as a whole, some common sense security practices that you already use to avoid phishing can help you avoid this tactic, too. Other, advanced QR-based attack vectors outside of phishing are likely too technically complicated and low reward for bad actors to attempt, or for you to worry about.Phishing attacks that work by pointing a victim to a malicious link are incredibly common, and QR codes are essentially just another way to execute them. QR codes are jumping into a security gap," said Randy Pargman, director of threat detection at security firm Proofpoint. It forces a victim away from their computer and onto a cell phone or another device, adding a level of distraction. Plus, people are more likely to fall for a phishing link on a mobile device, according to Pargman.The smaller scale makes it harder to tell what's legit, for example you can't easily see a full link to point out discrepancies, and we generally tend to feel safer in our handheld world. Scanning a QR code on a phone takes a victim away from their computer. That could mean it has fewer security plugins installed on its browser that would warn you to stay away from suspicious sites, although more browsers have automatic protections against both. Or, if it's taking you from a work device to a personal device, a security team probably supports the computer, but not your cell phone, with extra protections in place to stop you from falling victim. But on the flip side, this is a lot less efficient for scammers to set up. It assumes the victim has access to two devices, rather than just clicking a link.Plus, people tend to scan the QR codes, even if they're from an unfamiliar source, because we're so used to it, according to Fae Carlisle, principal security engineer at cybersecurity company Carbon Black. People are regularly told to scan a QR code to show them a map of a place, to vote in a competition, to visit Instagram, etc," Carlisle said. Because of inherent trust, people go along with it." Hackers seemingly saw this trend and figured out they could exploit it.While the application of QR codes to phishing attacks is fairly straightforward, the hype around their use in other malicious vectors mostly ends there. Security professionals advise against scanning unknown QR codes, in the same way you shouldn't plug a random thumb drive into your device. But, while you should always be on guard to protect against phishing attacks, you don't really have to worry about using QR codes in your daily life because it's still rare to see them used as a hacking tactic.This matters because when we think of QR codes, we don't usually think of getting them in emails. You're probably more familiar with them from real world interactions, like a call to action on a flier or a scan-to-order menu at a restaurant. Looking at my own inbox and desktop, the instances of getting a QR code are few and far between, with maybe the exception of some multifactor authentication apps and cross-login for VPNs. Basically, for a hacker going after everyday targets, the less effort the better, and plastering a poisoned QR code all over physical space in the hopes someone will scan it is a whole lot of work, according to Pargman. Bulk sending phishing emails is just a heck of a lot more efficient.While it's also possible to imagine a link takeover situation, where the destination of legitimate QR codes is redirected to a malicious URL, that really hasn't been seen yet. Not only is it a lot of effort, but it would require an attacker to identify a widely-used QR code. That would mean sourcing the code information, and then hoping it was worth the work. Quishing" may be legit, but avoiding QR codes at all costs probably goes a step too far.If something seems off about scanning a QR code, pause before proceeding. If you're scanning a menu of the restaurant's and it's asking you to login to your Gmail account to access the menu, that's a highly unexpected step," said Olesia Klevchuk, product marketing director at security company Barracuda Networks. Those are the kinds of things we want to be on the lookout for." But if you just want to learn more about an exhibit at a museum or have a contactless check-in at the gym, you probably have nothing to worry about.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/qr-code-attacks-probably-arent-coming-for-your-scan-to-order-menus-153006742.html?src=rss

Apple's financial services, including Apple Pay, Apple Cash, Apple Card and Wallet, experienced service disruptions for some users between 6:15 AM and 6:49 AM Eastern this morning, according to the company's System Status page. As AppleInsider notes, it's unclear how widespread the issues were, but the company has experienced intermittent Apple Pay issues earlier this year.On a personal note, I was able to use Apple Pay without issue around 9AM ET to make a pick-up order at Starbucks. After launching in 2014, it took a while for Apple Pay (and other contactless payments options) to reach widespread support in the US. These days you can tap your phone or Apple Watch to pay at most major retailers (except for Home Depot, for some reason).Update, December 20 2023, 11:00AM ET: This story has been updated to reflect that these issues have been resolved.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-pay-apple-card-and-wallet-are-facing-outages-151139333.html?src=rss

The PlayStation 5 has officially hit the 50 million sales milestone, Sony confirmed in a blog post. That's an impressive figure, considering the litany of supply chain issues that kept PS5s in limited supply after its November 2020 launch. And notably, the PS5 manage to reach 50 million sales just a week longer than it took the PlayStation 4, which wasn't bogged down by as many supply chain issues or a worldwide pandemic.Sony has also outsold the Xbox Series X and S by almost three to one this year, the Financial Times reports, based on data from Ampere Analysis. While Microsoft doesn't release official Xbox sales numbers (you can take a wild guess as to why), Ampere estimated that Microsoft sold 7.6 million next-gen systems this year (a 15 percent drop from 2022), while Sony's sales exploded by 65 percent to reach 22.5 million units sold.It's not hard to see why the PS5 is in more demand: Sony has pumped out far more must-have games this generation (including the recent Spider-Man 2, as well as anticipated sequels like God of War Ragnarok), while Microsoft has stumbled with its more high profile releases, like Halo Infinite and Redfall. But it could just be that Microsoft has a different goal. It's far more focused on pushing subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass, which also allows players to stream titles over the cloud and play on PC with its ultimate tier.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-has-sold-50-million-ps5-consoles-over-three-years-145835145.html?src=rss

When Elon Musk first took over Twitter, those of us in the tech media had all kinds of theories about how the acquisition might bring about the death of the 17-year-old platform.Some posited that his inept attempts at cost-cutting would cause irreparable damage to Twitter's infrastructure or that mass resignations would lead to catastrophic instability. But as is so often the case with Musk, predictions were in vain. Twitter did die this year, but the way it played out was both more boring and more stupid than anyone could have possibly imagined.Musk killed Twitter by slowly making it useless for those who relied on it for real-time information, by choking off conversations from those not willing to pay, by flooding users' timelines with spammy blue-check sycophants and renaming the company X. He killed it by re-platforming actual Nazis and far-right trolls and Alex Jones and boosting anti-semitism so loudly the site's largest remaining advertisers and most prominent users abandoned the platform in droves. Though you can still go to www.twitter.com and see a website that vaguely resembles the thing we used to call Twitter, it's only a dull echo of what it once was.- via Getty ImagesThe beginning of the endWhile you could argue the death spiral began the second Musk walked into Twitter HQ carrying a sink 14 months ago, the platform we all knew began to die three months later, when Musk abruptly decided to ban third-party client apps from its platform and put the rest of its API behind an outrageously expensive paywall.Twitter had long been an outlier among its social media peers for having a relatively open platform. It gave researchers tools to access the full history of all public conversations on Twitter. It allowed developers to build their own apps on top of its platform, which fostered a small but robust ecosystem of third-party Twitter clients.Third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific had a relatively small (but devoted) following, but they also played a significant role in defining the culture of Twitter. In the early days of Twitter, the company didn't have its own mobile app, so it was third-party developers that set the standard of how the service should look and feel. Third-party apps were often the first to adopt now-expected features like in-line photos and video, and the pull-to-refresh gesture. The apps are also responsible for popularizing the word tweet" and Twitter's bird logo.And while many of these apps had become less prominent in recent years, they were emblematic of the way that Twitter, at its best, empowered its users to shape the platform.Likewise, having an open and readily-available API meant that Twitter, while not the largest social platform, could play an outsize role in shaping online culture. Because its firehose of data was easily accessible to researchers, the public conversations that happened there fueled studies into everything from global elections to public health.By closing its API to developers and the research community, Musk made it clear he was not interested in using Twitter for anything that couldn't make him a buck in the process. Twitter's data was simply another part of the platform to commodify. Nearly a year later, making Twitter's API inaccessible to all but those with the deepest pockets may not seem like even the tenth-most consequential change to happen under Musk, but it showed just how willing he was to alienate influential communities on Twitter. It was also a major warning sign of what was to come.

I've always been pretty money-conscious, but I didn't really get into budgeting until I was in my mid-twenties. Budgeting" is generous - I thought I was budgeting, but really I was using a crude Google Sheet system to track my expenses every month. I didn't truly understand the difference between those two things until I started looking into ways to upgrade. It had been working fine for me, but as I got older and wanted to grow my savings, save up for a home down payment and a wedding and generally do more adult" things with my money, I started to scour the internet for alternatives. I settled on You Need a Budget (YNAB) about four years ago and I've enjoyed it so much that I keep using it even after achieving some of those milestones.The YNAB Method is an approach to budgeting that resonated with me then and still does today. I won't belabor the basics here, but put simply, you're to give every dollar a job" as soon as you get paid by taking care of immediate needs first and then accounting for the rest of your true expenses. The way YNAB does this is basically by acting like a digital envelope system where you can customize all of your envelopes (or categories") and the amount of money you need for each (targets"), and dump money into all of them every time you get paid. For example, I know I need $65 each month to pay for internet, so I have an internet category in YNAB with a target of $65 each month that's due by the 15th, since I'll need that money to pay the bill on the 20th of every month.Follow that example for all of the rest of your expenses like rent or mortgage payments, groceries, electricity, insurance premiums and you'll have a full YNAB budget in place. You can (and should) also do that for true" expenses, which include things like hair cuts and car maintenance in the YNAB system. You may not need a specific amount of money for things like that every month, but you can plan for them by saving a little every time you get paid - so by the time you need to get that hair cut ahead of a wedding or unexpectedly need a new set of tires, you have at least some, if not all, of the money necessary to pay it.YNABI was already taking stock of my standard expenses and setting aside money for those first and foremost, but YNAB made the process much easier. It's worth noting that was already part of my routine. I was privileged enough to get a decent financial education from my parents growing up (mantras like pay yourself first" come to mind, and I see taking care of your most necessary expenses as a way of accomplishing that).The game-changer for me was considering my true expenses," which added up quickly. The inevitable weekly takeout order, veterinary bills for our cat, train and rideshare fees and the like were all things I knew I needed to pay for but didn't previously deal with until the time came. In YNAB, you can create categories for all true expenses and plan for them each month (or week, depending on how you budget/get paid) so there's (hopefully) never a question of how you're going to pay for any of them.If you're able to do this and get your expenses in order, it's possible that you'll find you have money left over each paycheck. Then you can expand your budget to think about other true expenses or sinking funds you may want to address. My line between true expenses and sinking funds is blurry at best, but the latter are just allocated monies you set aside for variable expenses that you know are inevitable like home maintenance or insurance premiums.Holiday gifts were big for me; every year, I have even more people in my life that I need to buy gifts for during the holiday season and I never planned for that in advance before using YNAB. Now, I have a holiday gifts" category with a generous target that I put money toward every month and set to be due" every year in early October. As soon as sales start to kick in during the fall, I have a pool of money with which I can buy all of my loved ones' gifts.I should say that YNAB appeals to my Type-A, uber-organized personality, but you can't plan for everything. A few years back, I unexpectedly had to spend about $500 for some car repairs and I didn't have quite that much in my car maintenance" sinking fund. Instead of panicking, I moved some money over from my clothing" category to cover the remainder of the costs. It was a bit painful psychologically (I love seeing those little green progress bars in the YNAB app), but it didn't impact my finances at all. YNAB accounts only for the money you actually have, regardless of which category it's in, so I wasn't spending anything that I couldn't afford. That's really important to me, as someone who tries to live within their means - and as much as possible, below it - to avoid lifestyle creep.YNABGetting back to those adult" priorities I mentioned before: YNAB was one of the key things that helped me and my partner save up a home down payment and the funds we'd need to pay for our wedding simultaneously, without feeling too stretched along the way. We cut down (not cut out, mind you) on all unnecessary expenses and aggressively saved during this five-year period, and YNAB made keeping track of it all easy.But I would like to stress that the service was just one of the things that helped, and there were other factors that contributed as well. It's not realistic to suggest budgeting alone is the answer to all of one's money prayers. But it's certainly a step in the right direction and a good habit to build over time.I consider YNAB up there with 1Password as one of the few services I'm happy to pay for every year because of how much it adds to my life. However, it's worth noting that you don't have to pay for YNAB to start budgeting using its tenants. The YNAB method, the envelope system and zero-based budgeting are all very similar and you can do them all with less expensive tools, and even manually with physical envelopes and cash. There are plenty of online communities with flourishing examples of how you can get started without paying for yet another subscription. I recommend checking out Taylor Budgets, Budget Treasures and other similar YouTube channels for more inspiration.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-we-bought-how-ynab-gives-me-peace-of-mind-and-keeps-my-money-in-check-140049410.html?src=rss

Creating stickers from photos is an easily overlooked iPhone feature tucked into iOS 17. Using Apple's machine learning algorithms that quickly separate a subject from its background, it extracts pictures of you, your friends or pets (or anything else it detects as the picture's subject), transforming them into digital decals. It even makes animated stickers from Live Photos to slap onto iMessage chats or Markup tools. Here's how to create your own.What are iPhone stickers?In Apple's ecosystem, stickers are digital versions of their real-world counterparts. They debuted in iOS 10, Apple's 2016 iPhone operating system, allowing users to place cut-outs of fun images onto iMessage bubbles for more personalized reactions.AppleCreating iPhone stickers from photos is new to iOS 17, and so is their location. In older versions of iOS, you had to navigate the iMessage App Store (in the Messages app) and app drawer to find them. In the new software's more streamlined approach, you only have to tap the plus icon next to a message, choose Stickers and pick the one you want. (More on that below.)How to create stickers from photos in iOS 17Here's how to make custom stickers from your photos on Apple's latest iPhone software:

AI may or may not take people's jobs in years to come, but in the meantime, there's one thing they cannot obtain: patents. Dr. Stephen Thaler has spent years trying to get patents for two inventions created by his AI "creativity machine" DABUS. Now, the United Kingdom's Supreme Court has rejected his appeal to approve these patents when listing DABUS as the inventor, Reuters reports.The court's rationale stems from a provision in UK patent law that states, "an inventor must be a natural person." The ruling stipulated that the appeal was unconcerned with whether this should change in the future. "The judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines," Thaler's lawyers said in a statement.Thaler first attempt to register the patents - for a food container and a flashing light - was in 2018, as owner of the machine that invented them. However, the UK's Intellectual Property Office said he must list an actual human being on the application, and when he refused, it withdrew his application. Thaler fought the decision in the High Court and then the Court of Appeal, with Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing stating, "Only a person can have rights. A machine cannot."Thaler, an American, also submitted the two products to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which rejected his application. Plus, he previously sued the US Copyright Office (USCO) for not awarding him the copyright for a piece of art DABUS created. The case reached the US District Court of Columbia, with Judge Beryl Howell's ruling explaining, "Human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright." Thaler has argued that this provision is unconstitutional, but the US Supreme Court declined to hear his case, ending any further chances to argue his stance. While the UK and US have rejected Thaler's petitions, he has succeeded in countries such as Australia and South Africa.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uk-supreme-court-rules-ai-cant-be-a-patent-inventor-must-be-a-natural-person-131207359.html?src=rss

The European Union says three porn sites are now subject to stricter rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The bloc has designated Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos as "very large online platforms" (VLOPs) after determining that they each have an average of more than 45 million monthly users in the EU. As such, the three sites are subject to the same stringent rules as the likes of Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.The European Commission (the EU's executive arm) says VLOPs have until February 17 to comply with the DSA's general requirements. Those include making it easy for users to flag illegal content, prioritizing reports from "trusted flaggers," providing a means of appeal for content moderation decisions, publishing an annual transparency report detailing content moderation processes and bolstering their systems to "ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety of minors."The three porn sites also have four months to comply with additional obligations. For instance, they're required to have mitigation measures in place to prevent the spread of illegal content. This, according to the Commission, includes "child sexual abuse material and content affecting fundamental rights, such as the right to human dignity and private life in case of non-consensual sharing of intimate material online or deepfake pornography." The three sites must also offer researchers publicly available data and be subject to an annual external independent audit. The Commission says these measures will "empower and protect users online, including minors, and duly assess and mitigate any systemic risks stemming from their services."The Commission says it will keep a close eye on the three porn sites to make sure they comply with the rules, "especially concerning the measures to protect minors from harmful content and to address the dissemination of illegal content."When asked for comment, Pornhub directed Engadget to a statement claiming that "as of July 31, 2023, Pornhub has 33 million average monthly recipients of the service in the European Union, calculated as an average over the period of the past six months." As such, Pornhub disputes the EU's claim that it has more that 45 million monthly users in the bloc. Engadget has also asked XVideos and Stripchat for comment.The penalties for failing to comply with the DSA's requirements are severe. Platform holders can be fined up to six percent of their annual global revenue. The Commission may also issue penalties of up to five percent of average daily worldwide revenue for each delayed day that VLOPs fail to abide by remedies, interim measures or commitments. In extreme cases, the EC can also ask national courts to temporarily block access to a given service.The Commission, which designated its first 19 Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines under the DSA in April, is already holding some VLOPs to account. Earlier this week, the EU opened formal infringement proceedings into X over potential violations of the DSA. Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the platform is doing enough to mitigate risks to "civic discourse and electoral processes." They're also examining the "suspected deceptive design" of features such as paid checkmarks. In October, the EU said it was looking into Meta's and TikTok's handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas under the DSA.Update 12/20 8:38AM ET: Added Pornhub's statement.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/pornhub-and-xvideos-will-be-subject-to-the-same-strict-eu-rules-as-social-media-sites-123922469.html?src=rss

If they feel brave and technically capable, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 owners can now fix their phones through the company's self-repair service. The do-it-yourself program is also expanding to the Galaxy S23 series, Tab S9 series and the Galaxy Book2 Pro, all in collaboration with iFixit.Neither the Flip 5 nor the Fold 5 show on iFixit yet, so we don't know how much repairs might cost. For the sake of estimates, a repair kit for the Google Pixel Fold's inner screen costs around $900.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedVolkswagen is returning to physical buttons instead of touch controlsThe DOJ says it disrupted the BlackCat ransomware groupIn 2023, Cruise's robotaxi dreams took a necessary hiatusVideo games in 2023: Acquisitions, layoffs, unionsTeenage Engineering's stylish new sampler doesn't cost the earthIt could be the first in a series of more affordable music gear.EngadgetTeenage Engineering's latest reveal (with timer and everything) turned out to be the K.O. II EP-133 sampler. Another lump of music technology, yes, but the real surprise was its (relatively) reasonable price. The K.O. II is an opportunity for Teenage Engineering to create a series of more capable instruments that don't cost Field-series levels of money. Even if it's still $299. As a sampler, it's great for beginners or those who love a more performative style. It's not nearly as detailed as rival samplers, but it was never going to be. Fadergate aside (many devices have issues with the sliders not working), this is a promising product.Continue reading.Apple reportedly scrambles to update Watch software to avoid retail banYou'll still be able to buy it from other retailers - just not Apple.Following yesterday's news, Apple is scrambling to make software updates to its Apple Watch algorithms to avoid a ban on smartwatch sales in the US. Changing how the Watch measures oxygen saturation, Apple believes, could help keep the Watch on shelves during the crucial holiday season. The blood oxygen sensor, first introduced with the Apple Watch 6 in 2020, is at the heart of a patent dispute between Apple and Masimo, another California-based company that sued Apple in 2021. The tech company previously called the ITC's ruling erroneous" and plans to appeal the decision to the Federal Circuit.Continue reading.Death Stranding: Director's Cut for iPhone delayed to early 2024Hideo Kojima fans will have to wait a bit longer.505 Games, the publisher behind the iPhone (and Mac) port of Death Stranding, announced on X it needs a little more time," and it will have a new release date in early 2024." The Mac App Store now lists January 31, 2024, as the expected date. If you're hoping to play it on iOS, you're limited to the iPhone 15 Pro line with its A17 Pro chip. Resident Evil 4, however, is available to play, now.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-you-can-now-repair-samsungs-foldables-yourself-121548532.html?src=rss

Now's your chance to avoid paying full price for a Mac desktop that has plenty of processing power. Apple's Mac Mini M2 256GB model is down to $479 from $600 at Amazon and B&H. The 20 percent discount brings the Mac Mini M2 back down to its all-time low price - compared to the $500 it's frequently at. The 512GB Mac Mini M2 is also on sale, with a 17 percent price cut, bringing it to $700 from $800.The Mac Mini 2 is an impressive add-on to any Apple computer and a serious upgrade from the first Mini's release in the early 2000s. The device builds on 2021's M1, and merited an 86 in our review thanks to features like 8GB of RAM, eight CPU cores and ten graphic cores. It's also wild with ports, offering two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C, two USB-A, HDMI 2.0, a 3.5mm headphone jack and gigabit Ethernet. Plus, it supports Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E.Apple's Mac Mini 2 also offers better airflow than its predecessor, thanks to an elevated base. The device itself is sleek, and with a width and height of 7.75 inches, it won't take up too much room on your desk. All in all, besides the fact that none of the ports face forward, there's not much to dislike about the Mac Mini M2.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-mac-mini-m2-falls-back-to-a-low-of-479-115548138.html?src=rss

Volkswagen is the latest automaker to embrace Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) in electric vehicles. Subsidiaries Audi, Porsche and Scout Motors will implement the NACS in their North American EVs starting in 2025 as well.The VW brands are also looking into providing owners of existing models with adapters so they can tap into Tesla's Supercharger network. There are more than 15,000 Supercharger stations in North America. VW's EVs will be able to charge at those in addition to more than 3,800 DC fast charging outlets run by Electrify America and Electrify Canada.With so many carmakers adopting the NACS, Tesla's charging solution is becoming a de facto standard. GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid and others have all pledged to support NACS charging within the next couple of years.On the other hand, ChargePoint started rolling out support for the NACS across its EV charging network in October. Electrify America plans to offer the NACS connector at its stations by 2025 as well.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-finally-confirms-itll-switch-its-evs-to-teslas-charging-standard-101517391.html?src=rss

After laying off nearly a quarter of its staff last year, e-scooter rental company Bird has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company announced. Existing lenders have agreed to purchase the assets and the company is being kept afloat via a $25 million loan from Apollo Global Management (Yahoo and Engadget's owner) and second-lien lenders, according to The Wall Street Journal.The company will continue to operate as normal and "has sufficient liquidity to meet financial obligations to city partners, vendors, suppliers, and employees during and after the restructuring process, and will operate as usual," the company wrote. The filing doesn't affect Bird Canada or Bird Europe, which are separate organizations.Bird aims to sell off its assets for the highest possible price via a stalking horse" agreement that will set in motion an auction of sorts. Its current lenders will designate a baseline bid before opening the proceedings to other bidders over the next few months.Bird went public in 2021 via a "SPAC" (special purpose acquisition company) with an implied valuation of $2.3 billion, but its stock cratered less than a year later. Founder Travis VanderZanden stepped away late in 2022, at which point his stake in the company was worth less than his Miami house, according to a Crunchbase report. Bird was forced to delist from the New York Stock Exchange this year due to a valuation that was too low.Bird launched in multiple cities in 2017-18 with a fair amount of hype as e-scooters were seen as a sustainable urban mobility solution. It continued to grow despite a lack of profitability (following the Uber model), but the COVID pandemic forced the company to halt operations in multiple locations around the world. Since then, cities have also become more hostile to e-scooter rentals, with some seeing them now as a potential safety hazard and eyesore.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bird-files-for-bankruptcy-after-going-public-in-2021-092905867.html?src=rss

Rite Aid will not be able to use any kind of facial recognition security system for next five years as part of its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which accused it of "reckless use of facial surveillance systems." The FTC said in its complaint that the drugstore chain deployed an artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology from 2012 to 2020 to identify customers who may have previously shoplifted or have engaged in problematic behavior. Apparently, the company had created a database with tens of thousands" of customer images, along with their names, dates of birth and alleged crimes. Those photos were of poor quality, taken by its security cameras, employees' phones and even from news stories. As a result, the system generated thousands of false-positive alerts.Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the technology's use left Rite Aid's customers facing humiliation and other harms." Employees would follow flagged customers around the store, the complaint said, would publicly accuse them of wrongdoing in front of friends and family and would sometimes get the police involved. Further, the system was more likely to generate false positives in predominantly Black and Asian communities. A Reuters investigation in 2020 revealed that the company used facial surveillance in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods." The FTC noted in its complaint that the technology and Rite Aid's failures were likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, especially to Black, Asian, Latino and women customers."In addition to prohibiting the use of facial surveillance technologies, the order also requires Rite Aid to delete the photos it collected, notify consumers when their information is registered in a database for security purposes and to provide conspicuous notices if it does use facial recognition or other types of biometric surveillance technologies. It also has to implement a proper data security program to protect the information it collects and will need to have a third party assess it. The proposed order will take effect after being approved by the bankruptcy court, since the company is currently going through bankruptcy proceedings.Rite Aid, however, said that it fundamentally disagree[s]" with the agency's allegations and that it stopped using the surveillance technology years ago.We are pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC and put this matter behind us," the drugstore chain said in a statement. We respect the FTC's inquiry and are aligned with the agency's mission to protect consumer privacy. However, we fundamentally disagree with the facial recognition allegations in the agency's complaint. The allegations relate to a facial recognition technology pilot program the Company deployed in a limited number of stores. Rite Aid stopped using the technology in this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC's investigation regarding the Company's use of the technology began.Rite Aid's mission has always been and will continue to be to safely and conveniently serve the communities in which we operate. The safety of our associates and customers is paramount. As part of the agreement with the FTC, we will continue to enhance and formalize the practices and policies of our comprehensive information security program."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftc-bans-rite-aid-from-using-facial-surveillance-systems-for-five-years-053134856.html?src=rss

If you were hoping to play Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding: Director's Cut on a Mac, iPhone or iPad before the year ends, I'm afraid you'll now have to wait a bit longer. 505 Games, the publisher behind this port, announced on X that it needs "a little more time," and that it will have "a new release date in early 2024." Specifically, the Mac App Store now lists January 31, 2024 as the expected date for this post-apocalypse package delivery simulator, which is available for pre-ordering for $40.While the game itself is from 2019 (with the director's cut released in 2021), Apple appears to be keen on leveraging such heavyweight titles to show off its own processors - M1 or later - and 3D graphics capabilities. If you prefer mobile, though, you're limited to the iPhone 15 Pro line with their A17 Pro chip. Much like the PlayStation versions, this Apple flavor will also feature cross-over content from Cyberpunk 2077 and Half-Life.Back in June, Kojima said his future games will also be available on the Apple platform, though it's not clear if that includes Death Stranding 2. More recently, the gaming legend announced that the title will be adapted into a movie, with help from studio A24. "There are a lot of 'game adaptation films' out there but what we are creating is not just a direct translation of the game," Kojima promised.

Meta has fixed a bug that temporarily prevented some Threads users in Canada from reading and sharing news on the app, a company spokesperson told Engadget. Even though Meta pulled news content from Canadian users' Facebook and Instagram feeds earlier this year, the block hasn't carried over to Threads.But a number of Threads users wondered if that had changed when they began to see alerts that suggested otherwise. People in Canada can't view this content," a notice with Threads branding read. Content from news publishers can't be viewed in Canada in response to Canadian government legislation."It's unclear how widespread the bug was or how long it was happening. Reports of the issue seemed to crop up on Monday, with some users still unable to view links as of Tuesday morning. Well... that sucks. @meta is escalating their news blocking in Canada, previously only on Facebook and Instagram, now on Threads," Pedro Marques wrote in a post Monday.Screenshot via ThreadsA Meta spokesperson told Engadget that the Online News Act's framework doesn't apply to Threads, at least for now. Still, the fact that the notice appeared at all has prompted speculation that the company could eventually block news content on Threads as well.Over the last few years, the world's largest tech companies have tussled with countries about paying for news. In 2021, for instance, Facebook stopped people in Australia from sharing news links, while Google threatened to stop showcasing content from Australian news publishers on Google News. Both companies, however, eventually reached agreements and agreed to start paying Australian news organizations.In August, Meta started blocking news on Facebook and Instagram in Canada in response to the country's Online News Act that requires platforms to pay news organizations to make up for lost advertising revenue. Google, which had earlier pledged to block news links in the country, eventually reached a deal with the country's government and agreed to pay Canadian publishers around $100 million a year, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.Though Meta has downplayed the significance of news on Threads - Instagram head Adam Mosseri said earlier this year the company didn't want to amplify news" on the platform - blocking news on Threads could have a more dramatic impact on Threads than it has in Instagram and Facebook. The app has grown to about 100 million users as more people look for Twitter alternatives.Blocking news, though, could make the app a lot less useful for users and publishers, who have started to see more engagement from the service. How will Threads replace Twitter when I can't even click on a news story in Canada without getting blocked by Meta," a Threads user named dexter wrote after encountering the bug.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-says-a-bug-briefly-blocked-news-for-canadian-users-on-threads-220230063.html?src=rss

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that eBay has violated the rights of unionized workers at TCGPlayer, a trading card marketplace owned by the company. This comes in response to charges filed by the Communications Workers of America back in March of this year. eBay has allegedly refused to recognize TCGPlayer's worker union and it delayed participating in any bargaining practices and it has also refused to divulge any information with the group that the union is legally entitled to.As part of its examination of the issue, the NLRB said that because eBay and TCGPlayer broke the law, the company must face legal consequences for its union-busting practices. The union, which officially formed in March following numerous anti-union actions from eBay and TCGPlayer, was denied representation during disciplinary investigations. The NLRB also found that eBay was changing working conditions and benefits without engaging in bargaining with the group. On top of that, eBay is said to have even enforced rules that would punish any workers' elections to unionize.While the NLRB lays out evidence of eBay's union-busting practices, it did not officially issue a decision on the matter. The agency is still waiting on the company's response to the issue. Now that the board has come to a decision on eBay's illegal practices, we hope the company will see the light, obey labor law and engage in good faith bargaining practices so that workers can secure a strong union contract," Dennis Trainor, Communications Workers of America District 1 Vice-President, said in a statement. eBay could not be reached for comment.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nlrb-finds-that-ebay-and-subsidiary-tcgplayer-engaged-in-union-busting-practices-205337429.html?src=rss

Apple is scrambling to make software updates to Apple Watch algorithms that measure blood oxygen levels to avoid an impending ban on the smartwatch in the US over a patent dispute, Bloomberg reported. Changing how the Watch measures oxygen saturation, Apple believes, could help keep the Watch on shelves during the busy holiday shopping season.The blood oxygen sensor, which was first introduced with the Apple Watch 6 in 2020, is at the heart of a patent dispute between Apple and Masimo, another California-based company that sued Apple in 2021. Masimo claimed that Apple's sensor violated two patents related to light-based blood-oxygen monitoring that it owned. In October, the International Trade Commission (ITC) upheld a ruling, stating that Apple did, in fact, violate Masimo's patents.The case then went to the White House for a 60-day Presidential Review period, which ends next week. If President Biden doesn't veto the ITC's decision, Apple will be banned from selling the Apple Watch 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, which include blood oxygen sensing. Apple is complying preemptively with the ban and will stop selling both Apple Watch models on its website on December 21 and in retail stores on December 24 in case the veto doesn't happen.One way Apple could keep selling the watch is to settle with Masimo, but the company's last-minute race to make software changes to the Watch suggests that it doesn't plan to do so. The company told Bloomberg that it plans to submit its software workaround to the ITC for approval. Masimo's CEO Joe Kiani, told Bloomberg that he would be open to settling with Apple, but the company hasn't called him yet. It takes two to tango," he said.He also doesn't think that a software update to the Apple Watch would resolve the situation. I don't think that could work - it shouldn't - because our patents are not about the software," Kiani said. They are about the hardware with the software."Overhauling Apple Watch hardware would, of course, be a lot more challenging for Apple than tweaking its software. Even if the ITC approves any potential hardware changes, manufacturing and shipping modified versions of the two Watch models could take upwards of three months, a person familiar with how Apple operates told the publication.Apple and Masimo have a complicated history. Apple reportedly discussed acquiring the company in 2013 and hiring Kiani to work on the medical features on its smartwatch. That deal never went through. Instead, Kiani claimed that Apple hired more than 20 Masimo engineers, doubled some of their salaries, and made them develop the same kind of medical technology they were working on at Masimo at Apple. This is not an accidental infringement - this is a deliberate taking of our intellectual property," Kiani told Bloomberg.Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment on Kiani's statements. The company has previously called the ITC's ruling erroneous" and plans to appeal the decision to the Federal Circuit.It's not clear whether Apple will get immediate relief. The silver lining for the company is that the ban only applies to Apple Watch sales through the company's own channels - its website and its retail stores - in the US. You should still be able to buy the Apple Watch through other retailers like Best Buy, Walmart and Target.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-reportedly-scrambling-to-update-apple-watch-software-to-avoid-a-potential-ban-202710009.html?src=rss

Beeper Mini has a new fix" coming for its broken iMessage on Android integration. However, the new method requires Mac access to send (and intermittently resend) registration data" from an Apple-made desktop or laptop, calling into question how far users will stick with the app. The company says you'll see the new functionality in an update to the Beeper Cloud Mac app on Wednesday, December 19.Beeper's current method requires identification info (registration data") sent from a physical Mac computer to authenticate iMessage connections on Android. The company's latest plans now shift the Mac onus to users. We have, up until now, been using our own fleet of Mac servers to provide this," a Beeper spokesperson wrote in the app's Reddit community. Unfortunately, this has proven to be an easy target for Apple because thousands of Beeper users were using the same registration data."Beeper Mini launched to much fanfare, promising - and delivering - seamless iMessage chats on Android with only a phone number. However, in what seemed like an inevitable move, Apple squashed the app's core functionality, forcing the startup to deploy new workarounds as it entered a cat-and-mouse game with the $3 trillion corporation.Beeper says tomorrow's update for Beeper Cloud on Mac will generate unique 1:1" registration data for individuals rather than thousands of accounts drawing on the same validation info on Beeper's servers. The company says the new approach makes the connection very reliable." However, the registered Mac will still need to periodically regenerate" the data after you've connected a Mac to Beeper Cloud, so it can't just be a one-and-done connection to the computer.If you don't have a Mac and want to use Beeper Mini, the company says you can ask a friend to use their Apple computer for validation. In our testing, 10-20 iMessage users can safely use the same registration data," the company posted. The spokesperson said the update will restore chatting on iMessage with your Apple ID email if you don't already have a phone number tied to your account.Beeper CEO and co-founder Eric Migicovsky, formerly of Pebble smartwatch fameSteve Jennings via Getty ImagesIt remains to be seen if Beeper Mini's users will stick around for the more cumbersome setup. At this point, I am willing to wait for Apple to come out with RCS support," Redditor u/OldSalukiBandDude commented, referring to Apple's promised support for the standard that will bring more iMessage-like features to chats between iPhones and Android handsets. Fix' is a strong word," u/PredatorRanger added. This is more like half-assing a workaround that requires more on the user's end."Others were more open-minded about Beeper's persistence in the face of Apple's moves to squash the service. Ppl are so whiney," u/Waders411111 wrote. This is a great bandaid to stop the bleeding and let ppl use beeper as intended.. as a way to integrate all your message apps in one place." U/bb147 concurred: Not the most user friendly fix but I am happy to have stable consolidated chats again even if I have to install something on a Mac, at least for now."In addition to the new setup method, Beeper says it's open-sourcing its full iMessage bridge and the Mac code that generates registration data. The company linked to a Github tool that allows users to self-host the bridge, bypassing the company's servers for those who want extra assurance.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/beeper-minis-latest-imessage-for-android-setup-requires-a-mac-200322777.html?src=rss

Blue Origin's 24th mission is officially a success. The New Shepard rocket took off as planned this morning and the booster and crew capsule safely separated mid-flight and landed back on this great blue marble we call Earth.This was an uncrewed mission, but it carried 33 science payloads into low orbit, more than half of them from NASA. The launch allowed for a few minutes of zero gravity in which researchers conducted remote studies on these payloads. For instance, a payload from Honeybee Robotics studied the strength of planetary soils under differing gravity conditions. The manifest also included 38,000 student postcards from the Club for the Future initiative.To those following this mission, the original launch was scrapped on Monday due to a ground system issue that was, obviously, handled. There were no issues reported regarding today's flight, though there was a slight holdup of a few minutes added to the countdown.This mission was basically a do-over of a flight from last year that ended prematurely due to a malfunction of the New Shepard booster's hydrogen-based rocket engine. This anomaly led to the suspension of Blue Origin launches until an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was completed.The FAA's investigation ended in September, freeing up Blue Origin for more launches once it handled a suite of corrective actions mandated by the agency. This included a redesign of the booster's engine and nozzle as well as some procedural changes. The company hasn't announced any official plans for future crewed flights, but recently installed an elevator at the launch tower. This is to make future launches more accessible to people with disabilities, and more people in general," launch commentator Erika Wagner said during today's livestream.To that end, Blue Origin has begun ramping up promotions to attract customers for crewed flights. You can also apply to add a payload to a future launch.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/blue-origin-returns-to-form-with-a-successful-rocket-launch-after-being-grounded-for-over-a-year-193948312.html?src=rss

Microsoft Copilot just rolled out a new feature that creates songs via text prompt, thanks to a partnership with AI-based music creation platform Suno. Microsoft says it gives users the ability to craft personalized songs, regardless of musical background." Suno has long been working with various algorithms to create an AI that can whip up entire songs and it looks like the company has struck gold.

The US Department of Justice says it has disrupted the Blackcat ransomware group. Also called ALPHV or Noberus, the hackers have targeted over 1,000 computer networks and extorted millions of dollars from victims. Bloomberg reports its members were known for speaking Russian. In disrupting the BlackCat ransomware group, the Justice Department has once again hacked the hackers," Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco wrote in a DOJ news release.The FBI says it developed a decryption tool, which it has used to help over 500 Blackcat victims recover their data -saving more than $68 million in ransom payments. The agency adds that it has gained visibility into the Blackcat ransomware group's computer network" and seized several of its websites.With a decryption tool provided by the FBI to hundreds of ransomware victims worldwide, businesses and schools were able to reopen, and health care and emergency services were able to come back online," Monaco wrote. We will continue to prioritize disruptions and place victims at the center of our strategy to dismantle the ecosystem fueling cybercrime."US Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco with President Biden.REUTERS / ReutersBlackcat's developers create and update the ransomware software, which affiliates" deploy in attacks on high-value targets; the developers and attackers then split the profits. Once an affiliate has infiltrated a network, they typically steal sensitive data before encrypting the victim's system, incapacitating it. They then ask for a ransom. If the victims pay, the hackers say they'll decrypt the system and abstain from exposing their confidential information. If the targets refuse to pony up, the hackers leave the victims locked out and publish their spicy documents on the dark web.Blackcat took credit for infiltrating businesses and other US and European organizations. These included hacks on MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Reddit, US critical infrastructure (government facilities, emergency services, defense industrial base companies, critical manufacturing and healthcare facilities), a large UK hospital group and various attacks across the energy sector.Its members aren't afraid to think outside the box, either. Last month, Blackcat affiliates reportedly ratcheted the pressure on a hacked company by snitching to the SEC for not reporting their infiltration.Although this could only be a fleeting upper hand in a long-running game of cat and mouse, the DOJ warns it's just getting started. Criminal actors should be aware that the announcement today is just one part of this ongoing effort," wrote the DOJ's Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri. Going forward, we will continue our investigation and pursue those behind Blackcat until they are brought to justice."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-doj-says-it-disrupted-the-blackcat-ransomware-group-174755936.html?src=rss

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 owners can now fix their phones through the company's self-repair service. The do-it-yourself program is expanding so that more Galaxy products, including foldables and tablets, are included in the iFixit collaboration.Samsung said it will add seven more products this month to its list of devices that are eligible for self-repair - from PCs, smartphones and tablets - including the Galaxy S23 series, Tab S9 series and the Galaxy Book2 Pro series. The program provides users with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) device parts and step-by-step guides that allow for things like screen or battery replacements. The price of fix kits will vary depending on the device. For example, a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Screen and Battery set costs $240.Samsung's self-repair program, which first launched in the US last year, will also be offered to customers in an additional 30 countries across Europe. The company says expanding the scope of what's covered by the program is in line with Samsung's overall strategy to alleviate e-waste.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-adds-foldables-to-its-self-repair-program-for-the-first-time-171120939.html?src=rss

Blue Origin is taking another stab at its first launch in 15 months as New Shepard's 24th mission is scheduled to take flight on Tuesday. The company had to scrub a planned launch on Monday due to a ground system issue. Today's launch window opens at 11:37AM ET and the webcast starts 20 minutes beforehand. You can watch the launch below.The uncrewed science mission has 33 payloads, more than half of which were developed by NASA, Blue Origin says. The other payloads are from K-12 schools, universities and STEAM-centric organizations. The manifest also includes 38,000 student postcards from the Club for the Future initiative.The Federal Aviation Administration grounded New Shepard after an uncrewed launch attempt in September 2022 didn't go as planned. The booster failed after takeoff but it was able to separate successfully from the capsule. Although the capsule made a safe parachute landing, the booster was destroyed when it hit the ground in a designated hazard area.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/watch-blue-origins-first-launch-in-15-months-here-at-1137am-et-160030131.html?src=rss

The year had started so well for robotaxis. Cruise and Waymo came into 2023 riding high on fresh investments from General Motors and Google, respectively, as well as rapidly growing interest from the general public and a downright rabid rate of adoption by city governments. Things were looking up, very up, for the burgeoning self-driving vehicle industry! Then a driverless Crusie taxi accidentally dragged a hit-and-run victim down a San Francisco street for a few dozen feet and everything just sort of went to shit from there. So fragile, these Next Big Things. Let's take a look back through the year that was to see how autonomous taxi tech might recover from this catastrophe.Cruise's compounding problemsCruise came into this year looking like a nigh-on unstoppable force of transportational change as the core of GM's self-driving efforts. The company received a $1.5 billion investment from the automaker in March 2022 after GM spent $2.1 buying equity ownership for the startup from Softbank Vision Fund. In February the company announced that its test fleet of driverless taxis had traveled a million miles of San Francisco's streets without a human behind the wheel. The program had only started the previous November."When you consider our safety record, the gravity of our team's achievement comes into sharper focus," Mo Elshenawy, Cruise's EVP of engineering, said in February. "To date, riders have taken tens of thousands of rides in Cruise AVs. In the coming years, millions of people will experience this fully driverless future for themselves."Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt had been installed at his position in December 2021 after GM CEO Mary Barra ousted Dan Ammann from the spot. Vogt spent the following year laying out a grand vision of zero crashes, zero traffic, and zero emissions," though, according to a November report from the New York Times, the company put a priority on the speed of the program over safety" during his tenure, cutting corners on safety in order to get more vehicles on the road. And expand Cruise did, into Houston and Los Angeles most notably, despite a growing number of traffic incidents and accidents left behind by its vehicles.In April, the company was given permission to operate its driverless vehicles throughout San Francisco, 24/7 as well as pick up paying passengers during daylight hours. Previously, only Cruise employees were allowed to ride in the robotaxis and they could only operate when the sun was out. In August, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-to-1 in favor of allowing Cruise (and Waymo as well) to to pick up paying passengers at all hours.Not everybody was fully on board with the robotaxi takeover, mind you. In January 2023, San Francisco officials requested the CPUC slow or even halt the expansion of self-driving vehicle services in the city, arguing that the free-for-all growth OK'd by state regulators was becoming an unreasonable" burden. In fact, barely a week after the CPUC voted in favor of expansion, the California DMV opened an investigation into an altercation between a Cruise taxi and a fire truck. In response, the DMV had Cruise cut its operating fleet in half - down to 50 vehicles during daylight hours and 150 at night - until it had completed its investigation. Then there was the whole using robotaxis as love hotels" issue in August.

This was a year of upheaval in video games. The industry has shapeshifted over the past 12 months, and it's not all due to Microsoft's lengthy acquisition of Activision, Blizzard and King. While Xbox executives were defending the legality of a $69 billion deal that would create the third-largest video game studio in the world, smaller companies were firing staff and shutting down entire teams, even amid fervent collective-bargaining efforts. It's been a wild ride.In 2023, the main factors molding the video game landscape were consolidation, layoffs and unionization, with each of these phenomena feeding into each other. This past year, the video game industry shrank, even as it grew financially.ConsolidationWhen its purchase of Activision-Blizzard-King was legally approved on October 12, 2023, Microsoft became the world's third-largest video game studio by revenue. As the owner of the Xbox ecosystem, Microsoft was already a massive player in video games, but purchasing a tentpole AAA studio solidified its position in the top three. Activision and Blizzard are the owners of Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Starcraft, but the real meat of this deal comes from King, the mobile division. King operates Candy Crush Saga, a game with 238 million monthly active users, which is more than twice as many as Activision Blizzard's combined player bases. Candy Crush Saga has generated more than $20 billion in lifetime revenue, and King routinely outperforms Activision and Blizzard in terms of quarterly returns. Mobile gaming remains a huge business, especially in the Chinese market, which represents the largest and most lucrative audience in video games.Though the $69 billion Activision deal was the biggest in Microsoft's history - beating its purchase of LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016 - it wasn't the company's first video game acquisition. Microsoft owns nearly 40 developers and it bought a chunk of those in the past five years. The Xbox umbrella covers 343 industries, Arkane Studios, Bethesda, Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, id Software, Infinity Ward, Mojang Studios, Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Tango Gameworks and Turn 10, among dozens more.Charley Gallay via Getty ImagesWith these studios at its back, Microsoft is leaning hard into cloud gaming while attempting to build a device-agnostic ecosystem powered by the Xbox brand. These moves are designed to unlock the mobile market even more, putting Xbox games on all devices, everywhere, all the time.Still, Sony is bigger than Microsoft by revenue. Though Microsoft is often the face of the game-studio acquisition spree, Sony is the owner of 21 development teams, including Bungie, Guerrilla Games, Haven Studios, Housemarque, Insomniac Games, Media Molecule, Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch Productions. Sony has been subtly expanding its roster - more subtly than Microsoft, at least - over the past three years, and it's also made heavy investments in studios like Epic Games and FromSoftware.With this lineup, Sony is betting heavily on ongoing games, and it has 12 live-service titles in production right now, on top of Bungie's Destiny franchise. These include Haven'sFairgame$ and a multiplayer Horizon title from Guerilla.By expanding to PC and mobile, and... also to live services, we have the opportunity to move from a situation of being present in a very narrow segment of the overall gaming software market, to being present pretty much everywhere," Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan said in 2022.For the companies at the top, total domination is the goal.Even still, Tencent is bigger than both Sony and Microsoft. Tencent is not a console manufacturer, so it isn't a household name among most players, but it's one of the largest companies in the world, and it wields a ridiculous amount of financial power in video games. Tencent owns a portion of Bloober Team, Bohemia Interactive, Don't Nod, Epic, Paradox Interactive, PlatinumGames, Remedy Entertainment, Roblox and Ubisoft, among others. It has a majority stake in Supercell, Grinding Gear Games, Klei Entertainment, Tequila Works, Techland, Yager Development and others. It fully owns Riot Games, Funcom, Sharkmob, Turtle Rock Studios, and, of course, others. It also runs multiple internal development companies, including the Level Infinite and Tencent Games publishing labels.Xinhua News Agency via Getty ImagesSure, Sony has a stake in Epic, but Tencent's is bigger. This investment alone means any time you buy a game built on Epic's Unreal Engine, Tencent (and Sony) is getting a cut. Tencent is the biggest investor in games, with thousands of tendrils across the industry - if you played something this year, Tencent was probably involved.On a smaller scale, companies like Netflix and Devolver Digital have also dipped their toes in the acquisition pond recently. Devolver started buying studios in 2020, and it now owns Croteam, Dodge Roll, Doinksoft, Firefly Studios, Nerial and System Era Softworks. Annapurna Interactive bought South African studio 24 Bit Games in November. Netflix launched its Games division in 2021, and it's already purchased four studios, including Oxenfree developer Night School and Alphabear company Spry Fox.Night School co-founder Sean Krankel told Engadget in June that the move to Netflix was a boon for the studio, providing financial security, a dedicated working space and plenty of marketing support for its projects.A small subset of teams are good to go for the next 10 years, but others have these peaks and valleys, and we were somewhere in between," Krankel said. We weren't in danger of anything going sideways. But we were at a spot where we're like, it would be cool to tether to somebody who has a similar vision, and somebody that we could work with that would like, de-risk us."NetflixThis is the short-term benefit of being bought by a larger company, but there are downsides to relinquishing independence. Having a corporate overseer can result in rigid production timelines, hindering a studio's ability to pivot, and despite all of the promises otherwise, developers may be forced to adhere to a specific tone, vibe or game-development structure. Owned studios are held accountable by people outside of the actual development of a game, and the bigger the company, the further away its bosses are from the creative process.The most extreme negative outcomes for an acquired indie studio are, of course, layoffs and closures. We saw a lot of these in 2023.LayoffsThe post-acquisition power dynamic is playing out in public and in real-time. It's estimated that more than 9,000 people in video games were laid off this year and the firings affected teams of all sizes. This is a crisis amount of cuts. In 2022, just 1,000 video game jobs were lost, according to layoffstracker.com.The Embracer Group provides the clearest example of rampant, surprise layoffs in 2023. Embracer has spent the past few years acquiring prominent midsize studios, including Gearbox Software (Borderlands), Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider), Eidos-Montreal (Deus Ex) and Square Enix Montreal (Deus Ex Go). In the past decade, Embracer grew its portfolio to cover more than 100 game studios, including Volition (Saints Row), Coffee Stain (Goat Simulator), Free Radical Design (TimeSplitters) and Zen Studios (Pinball FX). The holding company also secured the rights to The Lord of the Rings in 2022, promising to turn it into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world."VolitionIn June 2023, Embracer announced a six-year, $2 billion funding deal had fallen through, and it was going to restructure - meaning, layoffs and studio closures. Since this announcement, Embracer has shut down Volition, Free Radical Design and Campfire Cabal, it divested Goose Byte and it's fired developers at Saber Interactive. More than 900 people lost their jobs during these moves. Meanwhile, Embracer's share price rose by 11 points in November.This wasn't the only layoff round of the year. Unity lowered its headcount three times in 2023, affecting about 900 jobs. In its quarterly financial results in November, Unity reported a yearly revenue increase of 69 percent and it told investors, We continued to manage costs well."Sony cut 100 jobs at Bungie, a company it bought for $3.6 billion in 2022. According to developers that are still there, Sony executives are attempting to use this upheaval to wrest more control of the studio from Bungie founders and leaders.Epic Games fired roughly 830 people this year, or 16 percent of its staff. This included significant job cuts at Mediatonic, the studio behind Fall Guys that Epic purchased in 2021.MediatonicFor a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn," CEO Tim Sweeney wrote about the layoffs. He continued, I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic."Electronic Arts was one of the first video game companies to institute significant layoffs this year, with a reduction of 6 percent of its workforce, or about 800 employees, in March. EA later cut jobs at Dirt and F1 studio Codemasters, which it purchased in 2021 for $1.2 billion. EA culled an estimated 1,130 jobs in 2023.CD Projekt RED and Sega each laid off about 100 people in the past 12 months, while Ubisoft fired an estimated 255 employees. Microsoft cut 10,000 jobs across its businesses early in the year, and that included about 100 people at Halo studio 343 industries.343 industriesThese are just some of the biggest names in layoffs in 2023. Looking back on the carnage, it feels like a warning - as consolidation efforts increase, more game studios will be controlled by just a handful of companies, and they'll be vulnerable to moves like mass layoffs and closures. We're laying the foundation for the future of video games right now, and consolidation only makes the industry smaller and more generic, as accountants, investors and shareholders push for low-risk concepts, rather than innovation and change.What will rampant consolidation mean for all of these acquired studios in five years' time? What will it mean when these teams aren't shiny, new investments any longer, and the people at the top are ready to get lean again? Remember that many of the shuttered studios listed above were purchased within the past three years.Being acquired is a cost-benefit analysis for smaller studios, where the benefits are immediate and the costs are potential. It's easy to say that won't happen to us. But it can happen, and it does, and as consolidation increases, bulk layoffs are only going to occur more often.UnionsUnionization is one approach that can help protect the livelihoods of people in the video game industry, and there was progress on this front in 2023. Developers at multiple studios now have union support, from small indies to AAA powerhouses.Microsoft is currently the home of the industry's largest union, with representation for more than 300 quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Media. ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda, id Software and Arkane, and Microsoft purchased the whole caboodle for $7.5 billion in 2021. Microsoft formally recognized the ZeniMax union this January and the parties started negotiating in April. In December, Microsoft announced it would hire 77 contract workers as full-time employees under the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union. The deal guaranteed a pay raise, paid holidays and sick leave, and a copy of Starfield, the game they helped ship.Bethesda SoftworksWe are now stronger at the bargaining table and are working to secure a fair contract for all workers - direct employees and contractors," ZeniMax union member Chris Lusco said. "We are all a part of ZeniMax Studio's success and we all deserve our fair share. We hope to set a new precedent for workers across Microsoft and the entire gaming industry so that all workers, regardless of their employment status, are able to improve their working conditions through collective bargaining."Meanwhile, executives at Microsoft's newest acquisition, Activision Blizzard, spent the past few years stalling internal unionization efforts. However, QA employees at Raven Software, a subsidiary of Activision, successfully voted to unionize in May 2022. Microsoft has vowed to respect organization attempts now that Activision-Blizzard-King is under its control.Other companies with unions established in the past two years include Avalanche Studios, Anemone Hug, CD Projekt RED, Experis Game Solutions, Keywords Studios, Sega of America, Tender Claws and Workinman Interactive.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/video-games-in-2023-acquisitions-layoffs-unions-143037174.html?src=rss

Xfinity says a data breach likely led to attackers obtaining customers' usernames and hashed passwords. Other personal information may have been exposed, such as names, contact information, the last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and secret questions and answers. The company added that its analysis of the attack is ongoing and it has informed law enforcement about the incident.In a filing with Maine's attorney general's office, Xfinity owner Comcast disclosed that the intrusion has impacted 35.8 million people. As TechCrunchpoints out, Comcast had 32.3 million broadband customers as of the end of September, indicating that the vast majority of Xfinity customers have been affected by the breach.On October 10, Citrix disclosed a vulnerability in software that Xfinity and many other businesses use. It provided guidance on how to mitigate the vulnerability on October 23 and Xfinity said it swiftly patched the problem. However, while carrying out a routine cybersecurity check two days later, Xfinity spotted suspicious activity in its systems. It later determined that bad actors accessed its internal network between October 16 and 19.Xfinity says it's informing customers of the incident via its website, email and by other means. It's urging them to change their passwords, to make sure they don't use the same passwords on different accounts and to enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication. Xfinity also suggested that folks who use the same login credentials on other accounts change their passwords on those.This isn't the first security incident Xfinity has had to deal with. Back in 2018, it emerged there was a bug in a Comcast website used to activate Xfinity routers. The issue led to some customers' home addresses being exposed, along with the name and password for their Wi-Fi networks.Update 12/19 8:00AM ET: Updated to note the number of people who were impacted by the breach.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xfinity-suffered-a-data-breach-but-doesnt-know-quite-how-bad-it-was-100711214.html?src=rss

Some holiday misery for Apple: It will soon pause sales of its latest Apple Watches in the US due to an International Trade Commission (ITC) ban. The company will suspend sales online this week and at Apple retail locations after December 24. Ho ho ho.It's all down to a patent dispute over the wearables' blood oxygen sensor. Cast your minds back: Medical tech company Masimo sued Apple in 2021 for alleged violations of light-based blood-oxygen monitoring patents. In October, the ITC upheld a judge's ruling from earlier this year that the Apple Watch did violate Masimo's patents. The ITC's order blocks all Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 imports to the US after December 25.The case went to the White House for a 60-day Presidential Review Period. Although President Biden has one more week to decide whether to veto the ITC ruling, Apple has pre-emptively complied with the commission's decision.President Biden reportedly owns an Apple Watch - but also a load of other watches too.- Mat SmithYou can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!The biggest stories you might have missedAn electric car completed the world's first-ever drive from the North to the South PoleAdobe terminates its $20 billion Figma acquisition amid regulatory scrutinyBeats headphones and earbuds are up to 49 percent off right now2023 in review: The year the economics of tech caught up with realityHere's everything you should do to up your digital security before next yearNordVPN comes to the Apple TVOur top gadgets of 2023The ones we bought.EngadgetWe test and review tons of gadgets every year, and (for some reason) we also buy a lot of things for ourselves. This year, those purchases included coffee-making upgrades, fancy keyboards and even pricey digital pianos. But there are plenty of other things we've bought and loved this year that have yet to make it on the site. Here, our staff looks back at the things that were worth the money.Continue reading.A new picture of Uranus looks like a sci-fi portalThe Webb telescope's NIRCam filters are to thank for this.NASA / ESA / CSAThe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has a treat to celebrate the upcoming second anniversary of its launch: an image of the icy planet Uranus. The picture, resembling a glowing blue marble rippling in a black ocean, was funneled through the telescope's infrared filters to capture wavelengths we wouldn't see with the naked eye.Yeah, it looks like the CBS logo.Continue reading.US lawmakers call for DOJ probe into Apple's blocking of Beeper's iMessage appThey asked an assistant attorney general to determine whether Apple violated antitrust laws.More socks for Apple's legal department this Christmas. A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives have urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether Apple violated antitrust laws by attempting to block Beeper Mini's access to iMessage. Senators have asked an assistant attorney general to look into Apple's potentially anticompetitive conduct."Hopefully, senators will have learned lessons from the other times they've tried to grill technology companies without the technical expertise for their questions to make sense.Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-apple-pauses-apple-watch-series-9-and-ultra-2-sales-121539726.html?src=rss

Meta's Oversight Board has published its decision for its first-ever expedited review, which only took 12 days instead of weeks, focusing on content surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. The Board overturned the company's original decision to remove two pieces of content from both sides of the conflict. Since it supported Meta's subsequent move to restore the posts on Facebook and Instagram, no further action is expected from the company. However, the Board's review cast a spotlight on how Meta's reliance on automated tools could prevent people from sharing important information. In this particular case, the Board noted that "it increased the likelihood of removing valuable posts informing the world about human suffering on both sides of the conflict in the Middle East."For its first expedited review, the Oversight Board chose to investigate two particular appeals that represent what the users in the affected region have been submitting since the October 7th attacks. One of them is a video posted on Facebook of a woman begging her captors not to kill her when she was taken hostage during the initial terrorist attacks on Israel. The other video posted on Instagram shows the aftermath of a strike on the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza during Israel's ground offensive. It showed dead and injured Palestinians, children included.The Board's review found that the two videos were mistakenly removed after Meta adjusted its automated tools to be more aggressive in policing content following the October 7 attacks. For instance, the Al-Shifa Hospital video takedown and the rejection of a user appeal to get it reinstated were both made without human intervention. Both videos were later restored with warning screens stating that such content is allowed for the purpose of news reporting and raising awareness. The Board commented that Meta should have moved more quickly to adapt its policy given the fast-moving circumstances, and the high costs to freedom and access to information for removing this kind of content..." It also raised concerns that the company's rapidly changing approach to moderation could give it an appearance of arbitrariness and could put its policies in question.That said, the Board found that Meta demoted the content it reinstated with warnning screens. It excluded them from being recommended to other Facebook and Instagram users even after the company determined that they were intended to raise awareness. To note, a number of users had reported being shadowbanned in October after posting content about the conditions in Gaza.The Board also called attention to how Meta only allowed hostage-taking content from the October 7th attacks to be posted by users from its cross-check lists between October 20 and November 16. These lists are typically made up of high-profile users exempted from the company's automated moderation system. The Board said Meta's decision highlights its concerns about the program, specifically its unequal treatment of users [and] lack of transparent criteria for inclusion." It said that the company needs to ensure greater representation of users whose content is likely to be important from a human-rights perspective on Meta's cross-check lists."We welcome the Oversight Board's decision today on this case. Both expression and safety are important to us and the people who use our services. The board overturned Meta's original decision to take this content down but approved of the subsequent decision to restore the content with a warning screen. Meta previously reinstated this content so no further action will be taken on it," the company told Engadget in a statement. As explained in our Help Center, some categories of content are not eligible for recommendations and the board disagrees with Meta barring the content in this case from recommendation surfaces. There will be no further updates to this case, as the board did not make any recommendations as part of their decision."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/oversight-board-says-metas-automated-tools-took-down-israel-hamas-war-content-that-didnt-break-its-rules-110034154.html?src=rss

On top of fighting (and losing to) Epic Games over Play Store antitrust concerns, Google has been fighting a similar lawsuit filed by 36 states and the District of Columbia in 2021. A settlement for that suit was announced in September, but a judge still had to confirm the terms. Now, Google has announced that it will pay a $700 million fine and make what amounts to fairly minor changes to the Play Store.Of that sum, Google will distribute $630 million to consumers who may have overpaid for apps or in-app purchases on Google Play (after taxes, lawyers' fees, etc.). That covers around 102 million people, according to The Washington Post. It will also pay $70 million into a "fund that will be used by the states," according to Google's blog.The other major change is that Google must allow developers to steer consumers toward sideloading to avoid Google's Play Store fees on subscriptions and the like. It'll do that via updated "language that informs users about these potential risks of downloading apps directly from the web for the first time." However, these actions will be time limited to seven years for the sideloading and five years for the updated language, according to settlement's wording spotted by The Verge.Google will also include language stating that "OEMs can continue to provide users with options out of the box to use Play or another app store." Starting with Android 14, third-party stores will be allowed to handle future app updates, including automatic installs. It's also expanding user choice billing that will allow Android apps and games to offer their own payment system in the US. "Developers are also able to show different pricing options within the app when a user makes a digital purchase," Google states.The company will only be required to make these changes for five or six years maximum (seven years for alternate means to download apps). In other words, it could feasibly cut off access to sideloading or third-party app stores after that point, or make it harder for the average consumer to find the option.Another big thing missing is exterior payment links. "Google is not required to allow developers to include links that take a User outside an app distributed through Google Play to make a purchase," the settlement agreement reads.The settlement sum represents a miniscule portion of Google's turnover and the other terms are relatively minor changes over what it already does. It also doesn't include Epic Games, which won its own lawsuit against Google earlier this month (Google has vowed to appeal). A court still needs to formally approve the states' settlement.Google also argued at its Epic trial that consumers were able to get games by sideloading and other means, but that failed to sway the jury. When the settlement with the states was announced in September, Epic CEO Tim Sweeny said that if it "left the Google tax in place" his company would fight on. "Consumers only benefit if antitrust enforcement not only opens up markets, but also restores price competition," he said at the time.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-multi-state-lawsuit-settlement-will-cost-it-700-million-103512109.html?src=rss

On December 12, Rhysida, a ransomware group, announced it had taken 1.67 terabytes of data - over 1.3 million files - from Sony's Insomniac Games and requested $2 million. Now, the one-week deadline for Insomniac Games to pay Rhysida has passed, and the group has made good on its threat to release the stolen information, Cyber Daily reports.The data includes internal HR documents, screenshots of employees' Slack conversations, and more, but the main focus is the yet-to-be-released Wolverine video game. The released files contain details about level design, characters and actual screenshots from the game. There's also a signed publishing agreement between Sony and Marvel that lays out three upcoming X-Men games, the first being Wolverine, with the other two still unnamed. However, it details that Sony - which plans to spend $120 million per game - must release Wolverine by September 1, 2025, with the others due by the end of 2029 and 2033, respectively.Rhysida claims that it took the group only 20 to 25 minutes to get the domain administrator and that money was their sole motivation. "We knew that developers making games like this would be an easy target," a Rhysida spokesperson told Cyber Daily. "Sony has launched an investigation, but it would be better in the backyard."Notably, Rhysida's initial ransom notice allowed anyone to bid on the data, not just Insomniac Games, and it appears some of it was bought. The ransomware group stated that any unsold data was released - but only 98 percent of stolen information is publicly available. Rhysida stipulated that any data purchased must not be resold, but who knows if the new owners will follow that rule.Rhysida only targeted Insomniac Games within Sony, but in May, a separate attack gained access to 6,800 current and former employees' personal data. The attack, which ransomware group CLOP took credit for, became public knowledge in October.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/insomniac-games-hackers-leak-13-million-files-after-demanding-2-million-ransom-102134429.html?src=rss

TomTom just announced a fully integrated, AI-powered conversational automotive assistant" which should start popping up in dashboard infotainment platforms in the near-ish future. The company has issued some bold claims for the AI, saying it'll offer more sophisticated voice interaction" and allow users to converse naturally to navigate, find stops along a route, control onboard systems, open windows and just about anything else you find yourself doing while driving.The company, best known for GPS platforms, partnered up with Microsoft to develop this AI assistant. The technology leverages OpenAI's large language models, in addition to Microsoft products like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Cognitive Services. Cosmos DB is a multi-model database and Cognitive Services is a set of APIs for use in AI applications, so this should be a capable assistant that draws from the latest advancements.TomTom promises that the voice assistant will integrate into a variety of interfaces offered by major automobile manufacturers, stating that the auto company will retain ownership of its branding. So this could start showing up in cars from a wide variety of makers. The company hasn't announced any definitive partnerships with known vehicle manufacturers, but the technology will be integrated into TomTom's proprietary Digital Cockpit, an open and modular in-vehicle infotainment platform.This isn't the first time a company has tried to stuff an LLM inside of a car. Back in June, Mercedes announced a three-month beta program that incorporated ChatGPT models into select vehicles. This tool also leveraged Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service. TomTom is showing off the AI at CES in January, so we'll know more about how it actually works at that point.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tomtom-and-microsoft-team-up-to-bring-generative-ai-to-automobiles-063002000.html?src=rss

It may seem like blasphemy for an Engadget writer to diss touch controls, but as the demise of the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar has proven, those aren't always a good idea - especially on cars. As spotted by Autocarat Volkswagen City Studio in Copenhagen, the ID. 2all concept electric car now features a slightly updated interior, with the most notable change being the return of physical buttons below the central touchscreen. According to the brand's interior designer Darius Watola, this will be "a new approach for all models" based on "recent feedback from customers" - especially those in Europe who wanted "more physical buttons."In Autocar's Tiguan launch interview back in June, Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schafer already acknowledged customers' criticism on the over-reliance on touch controls - namely on the Golf Mk8 and ID.3, not to mention the same trend across the motor industry. The exec went as far as saying the earlier touch-heavy approach - endorsed by his predecessor, Herbert Diess - "definitely did a lot of damage" in terms of customer loyalty.

Google is giving anyone who has a WiFi-only Stadia controller lying around an additional year to convert it to Bluetooth. The deadline to do this was previously until the end of this year, but Google is now extending it to December 31, 2024.Google axed Stadia, its cloud gaming service, at the beginning of this year. Most customers who bought digital games through the Google Store got refunds, but some physical hardware such as Stadia's controller that connected directly to WiFi, is still out there. Enabling Bluetooth on Stadia controllers will let people use them with any other devices such as PCs, Macs, phones or tablets. This, as Kotaku points out, could prevent e-waste.Switching your controller to Bluetooth is permanent. It takes about three minutes and requires a USB cable, according to Google. To pair a Stadia controller to Bluetooth, you need to press and hold the Y and Stadia button for at least two seconds. You'll know that the controller has entered pairing mode" when the status light flashes orange. If you're having issues establishing a connection, Google advises making sure that the controller is charged for at least 30 minutes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-have-a-whole-additional-year-to-convert-your-google-stadia-controller-to-bluetooth-232856929.html?src=rss

Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder of Nikola, was just sentenced to four years in prison on three counts of fraud.In October 2022, a jury found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Milton faced up to 60 years in prison. Prosecutors asked the judge for an 11-year prison sentence and a $5 million fine, according to The New York Times, while the defense argued for probation.After announcing the sentence at a federal court hearing in New York City, U.S. District Judge Edgar Ramos spoke directly to Milton. "As difficult as it may be for you or your family to hear, I believe the jury got it right," Ramos said, as transcribed Reuters. Milton addressed the court before sentencing was handed down, saying "I did not intend to harm anyone and I did not commit those crimes levied against me." He also spoke at length about his rural upbringing and recited biblical verse.Prosecutors claimed that Milton pumped up the value of the company's stock by lying to investors about "nearly all aspects" of Nikola's business. Among other things, Milton claimed his company had a fully functional electric truck. The company released a video that made it appear as though a Nikola One prototype was able to move by itself. However, an indictment alleged that the truck was actually rolling down a hill and that Milton was involved in the video's creation.In addition, Milton was accused of lying about Nikola having billions of dollars worth of pre-order reservations and that it was producing hydrogen fuel at four times less than market rates. Prosecutors also said Milton falsely claimed Nikola had developed "game-changing" battery tech.Nikola is still in business and it plans to resume deliveries of its battery electric truck in early 2024 following a recall over battery issues that cost around $61.8 million to resolve. In the nine months to September 30, Nikola produced 96 trucks and shipped 79.The company's stock price has dropped by 99 percent since 2020 and investors are said to have lost more than $660 million. Milton sold around $100 million of his Nikola stock in 2020 and spent most of that on luxury goods such as a plane and real estate, according to the Times. It's likely that Milton will appeal this conviction, as he's already asked Ramos for a new trial following the jury's guilty verdict.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-sentenced-to-four-years-in-prison-192432136.html?src=rss

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has a treat to celebrate the upcoming second anniversary of its launch. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), which operate the craft alongside the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), shared a recent image of the icy planet Uranus. The picture, resembling a glowing blue marble rippling into a black ocean, was funneled through the telescope's infrared filters to capture wavelengths future space travelers wouldn't see with the naked eye.Compared with the generic-looking images of Uranus taken by Voyager 2 in the 1980s, the Webb telescope paints a more vivid picture. Capturing light in the infrared spectrum, the craft's sensors reveal a strange and dynamic ice world filled with exciting, atmospheric features," as the team operating the telescope described it.The JWST's image showcases the planet's rings surrounding the planet, including the elusive Zeta ring," Uranus' faint and scattered innermost one. You can also catch its north polar cloud cap, the white blob near the center.NASA / ESA / CSAThe image also captures 14 of Uranus' 27 moons, labeled in the photo above. Among the (mostly Shakespearean-named) orbiting bodies pictured are Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Juliet, Perdita, Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Ariel, Miranda, Bianca and Portia.The JWST's photo uses four NIRCam filters, revealing detail in the near-infrared spectrum. These include F140M (blue), F210M (cyan), F300M (yellow) and F460M (orange). An image NASA shared earlier this year showed Uranus in only two filters (blue and orange), resulting in a more primitive-looking view of the icy giant.Speaking of ice, Uranus has loads of it. The planet rotates on its side at about 98 degrees, plunging the opposite side of the planet into extreme cold and darkness for a quarter of a Uranian year. Oh, and since Uranian years last around 84 Earth years, that means, by our calendar, the planet's dark side enjoys a blustery 21-year winter.NASA / ESA / CSAAstronomers believe the Webb telescope's images will help them better understand Uranus, especially its Zeta ring, for future missions. They also view the pictures as a proxy for learning about the nearly 2,000 documented exoplanets in other solar systems that share traits with our ringed and icy neighbor.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/webb-telescopes-new-uranus-image-looks-like-a-portal-to-another-dimension-181035887.html?src=rss