Saturday, August 14, 2021

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Warner Bros. 'Reminiscence' promo uses deepfake tech to put you in the trailer

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 10:21 PM PDT

If you want to see yourself on screen with Hugh Jackman, this is your chance. The promo for Warner Bros. upcoming Reminiscence movie uses deepfake technology to turn a photo of your face — or anybody's face, really — into a short video sequence with the star. According to Protocol, a media startup called D-ID created the promo for the film. D-ID reportedly started out wanting to develop technology that can protect consumers against facial recognition, but then it realized that its tech could also be used to optimize deepfakes.

For this particular project, the firm created a website for the experience, where you'll be asked for your name and for a photo. You can upload the photo of anybody you want, and the experience will then conjure up an animation for the face in it. The animation isn't perfect by any means, and the face could look distorted at times, but it's still not bad, considering the technology created it from a single picture. 

Reminiscence is a sci-fi thriller about Nick Bannister, a "private investigator of the mind." The idea behind the promo is that you're a client looking into your memories to solve a case. The movie will be shown in theatres on August 20th, but like most new releases these days, it will also be available for streaming on HBO Max.

Reminiscence
Engadget

Apple clarifies its sex abuse scans would look for 'images flagged in multiple countries'

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 04:22 PM PDT

Apple, which basked in praise from many corners after refusing to cooperate with federal authorities following the 2016 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, is now aggressively walking back its plans to unilaterally scan customers' phones for child porn on behalf of governments following a swift and furious backlash from privacy advocates. Per a Friday afternoon report from Reuters, the tech company clarified that it will only utilize its proposed system to look for images that have already "been flagged by clearinghouses in multiple countries."

An initial threshold of 30 images would have to be discovered before the automated scanning system alerted Apple that an actual human should review the issue, though the company explained that the figure would eventually be reduced in the future. Apple also made assurances that its list of image identifiers is universal and will remain constant regardless of the device it is being applied to.

As Apple explained during Friday's media call, the company's technical protection is one that creates an encrypted on-device CSAM hash database derived from at least two or more organizations, each operating under the auspices of separate national governments. 

The company, during one of many media-assuaging follow-up meetings this week, declined to comment on whether the negative blowback has had any effect on its position, though it did admit that there was "confusion" surrounding its earlier announcements. Apple did assert that the program was "still in development" and that mulligans like this were a normal part of the production process. 

The practice of scanning user accounts for contraband images is old hat for the tech industry, however Apple's plan to install the monitoring software directly on the hardware itself is an unprecedented move — one that has privacy advocates up in arms. Their concern is that governments could demand Apple scour its users' devices for other private, political, religious or personal information once the basic capabilities are are in place.

ITC judge preliminarily rules Google infringed on five Sonos patents

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 03:02 PM PDT

Sonos has won an early victory in its ongoing legal battle with Google. On Friday, a federal judge with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) made a preliminary decision related to a complaint the company had filed against Google in early 2020, alleging the search giant had infringed on five of its patents. Validating all five claims, the judge said Google should not be allowed to import devices that violate the intellectual property of Sonos.

"Today the ALJ has found all five of Sonos' asserted patents to be valid and that Google infringes on all five patents. We are pleased the ITC has confirmed Google's blatant infringement of Sonos' patented inventions," said Sonos chief legal officer Eddie Lazarus. "This decision re-affirms the strength and breadth of our portfolio, marking a promising milestone in our long-term pursuit to defend our innovation against misappropriation by Big Tech monopolies."

As The New York Times notes, the judge's decision isn't final. The entire ITC body has to make a final ruling before it mandates any remedial measures. With a meeting scheduled for December 13th, that won't happen for another few months.

"We do not use Sonos' technology, and we compete on the quality of our products and the merits of our ideas," said Google spokesperson José Castañeda. "We disagree with this preliminary ruling and will continue to make our case in the upcoming review process."

Sonos first sued Google in early 2020. It accused the company of copying some of the technologies most critical to its speakers, including its Trueplay tuning tool. In patent disputes, companies typically use simultaneous ITC complaints to force the hand of their opponent since the body tends to resolve matters faster than a traditional court. Google subsequently countersued Sonos, claiming the company had been using its search, software, networking and audio processing technologies without paying the proper licensing fees. The feud escalated later that same year when Sonos filed a second suit. 

Sonos may be building its own voice assistant

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 02:03 PM PDT

Out of the box, modern Sonos speakers support Alexa and Google Assistant, and in a roundabout way Siri as well. Between those options, you might think Sonos would be covered when it comes to voice-activated assistants, but the company may be working on a solution of its own. In a customer survey spotted by VoiceBot.ai and later The Verge, Sonos describes a system that would respond to the phrase "Hey Sonos" and allow users to control music playback, search for songs and move tracks between different speakers in their home.

Additionally, the company states the potential voice assistant would process requests locally, claiming that's something that would allow it work faster. It also points to the privacy benefits of such a setup. "Sonos Voice Control interprets your voice entirely on the speaker, so no audio is sent to the cloud, stored, transcribed, or listened to by anyone," the company says in the survey. We'll note here Sonos bought a startup that specialized in fast and private on-device voice processing in 2019.

A Sonos spokesperson told The Verge the company frequently collects feedback from its customers, but that it had no additional information to share. If Sonos plans to release its own voice assistant, it's not hard to understand its motivations. After spending at least a year to get Assistant on its devices, the company had a very public falling out with Google in 2020, culminating in an ongoing legal spat between the two.

Twitter has paused verification applications again

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 12:44 PM PDT

Stop us if you've heard this one before, but Twitter has once again temporarily stopped accepting new verification applications from users. This latest pause follows after the company briefly opened the process to the public in May and then subsequently closed it down some eight days later.

At the time, the company said it was doing so because it was "rolling in" verification requests. It took until June for Twitter to sort out the backlog. This time around, the company has a more encouraging excuse. It said it's taking time to implement tweaks to both the application and review processes, but stopped short of detailing the work it's doing.

We imagine this latest pause also has something to do with the fact Twitter briefly verified a fake Cormac McCarthy account. Under the company's public verification rules, an account holder is required to provide evidence like a government-issued ID to prove they're who they say they are. The holder of the phony McCarthy account apparently didn't do that.

"For those who have been waiting, we know this may be disappointing," Twitter said. "We want to get things right, and appreciate your patience." As before, the company hasn't said when it plans to start taking applications again. 

Boeing's next Starliner test flight could be delayed for months

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 11:55 AM PDT

It could be months before Boeing takes another stab at a Starliner test flight. The company is detaching the capsule from an Atlas V rocket and taking it back to the factory to fix an issue with four propulsion system valves. The problem led to Boeing scrapping the planned second test flight on August 3rd.

Boeing will conduct "deeper-level troubleshooting" of the valves at its Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Engineers attempted to fix the problem while the Starliner was still on top of the rocket — they managed to repair the nine other valves. Boeing, NASA and Atlas V maker United Launch Alliance will need to find a new launch date when Starliner is ready.

However, as SpaceNews notes, the next opportunity for a test flight could be months away. Boeing may have to wait until after the October launches of NASA's Lucy asteroid mission and SpaceX's Crew-3 mission, as well as the return of the Crew-2 spacecraft. So, even if Boeing can fix the valves quickly, it could be November before Starliner can get back on the docking port.

Researchers shut down Instagram study following backlash from Facebook

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 11:47 AM PDT

AlgorithmWatch, a group of researchers who had been studying how Instagram's opaque algorithms function, say they were recently forced to halt their work over concerns Facebook planned to take legal action against them. In a post spotted by The Verge, AlgorithmWatch claims the company accused it of breaching Instagram's terms of service and said it would move to take "more formal engagement" if the project did not "resolve" the issue.

AlgorithmWatch's research centered around a browser plugin more than 1,500 individuals downloaded. The tool helped the team to collect information it says allowed it to make some inferences about how Instagram prioritizes specific photos and videos over others.

Most notably, the team found the platform encourages people to show skin. Before publishing its findings, AlgorithmWatch said it had reached out to Facebook for comment, only for the company not to respond initially. However, in May 2020, Facebook told the researchers their work was "flawed in a number of ways" after it said earlier in the year it found a list of issues with the methodology AlgorithmWatch had employed.

When Facebook accused AlgorithmWatch of breaching its terms of service, the company pointed to a section of its rules that prohibits automated data collection. It also said the system violated GDPR, the European Union's data privacy law. "We only collected data related to content that Facebook displayed to the volunteers who installed the add-on," AlgorithmWatch said. "In other words, users of the plugin [were] only accessing their own feed, and sharing it with us for research purposes." As for Facebook's allegations related to GDPR, the group said, "a cursory look at the source code, which we open-sourced, shows that such data was deleted immediately when arriving at our server."

Despite the belief they had done nothing wrong, the researchers eventually decided to shutter the project. "Ultimately, an organization the size of AlgorithmWatch cannot risk going to court against a company valued at one trillion dollars," they said.

When Engadget reached out to Facebook for comment on the situation, the company denied it had threatened to sue the researchers. Here's the full text of what it had to say:

We believe in independent research into our platform and have worked hard to allow many groups to do it, including AlgorithmWatch — but just not at the expense of anyone's privacy. We had concerns with their practices, which is why we contacted them multiple times so they could come into compliance with our terms and continue their research, as we routinely do with other research groups when we identify similar concerns. We did not threaten to sue them. The signatories of this letter believe in transparency — and so do we. We collaborate with hundreds of research groups to enable the study of important topics, including by providing data sets and access to APIs, and recently published information explaining how our systems work and why you see what you see on our platform. We intend to keep working with independent researchers, but in ways that don't put people's data or privacy at risk.

This episode with AlgorithmWatch has worrisome parallels with actions Facebook took earlier in the month against a project called NYU Ad Observatory, which had been studying how political advertisers target their ads. Facebook has some tools in place to assist researchers in their work, but for the most part, its platforms have been a black box since the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That's a significant problem, as AlgorithmWatch points out.

"Large platforms play an oversized, and largely unknown, role in society, from identity-building to voting choices," it said. "Only if we understand how our public sphere is influenced by their algorithmic choices, can we take measures towards ensuring they do not undermine individuals' autonomy, freedom, and the collective good."

These 'vaccine passports' are why we can have nice things

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 11:00 AM PDT

We've reached a disquieting point in the COVID-19 pandemic wherein a significant portion of the American public refuses to accept the free and wildly effective vaccines while simultaneously demanding a "return to normalcy" — and all the benefits that reopening the economy would entail. But with the Delta variant's rapid spread threatening to send the country back into another round of social isolation, state and local governments (and numerous businesses) are seeking to strike a balance between the public's health and the nation's economic needs through the use of digital vaccine cards, aka "vaccine passports." But, unlike the mRNA vaccine itself, these passports are not quite the magic bullets against COVID we had hoped.

Vaccine passports, either physical or digital records certifying that a person has been fully vaccinated against a disease, have been around since the 19th century. As early as the 1880s, students and educators in the US were required to show proof of immunization against smallpox before attending classes. In 1897 Russian scientist Waldemar Haffkine developed a vaccine against the bubonic plague. His breakthrough treatment was immediately put to use by the British colonizers of India. To help ensure that densely populated Hindu and Muslim pilgrimage sites in the country did not mutate into outbreak clusters of the disease, the local government began requiring proof of vaccination by every pilgrim before entering these sites.

With the rise of air travel in the second half of the 20th century, the United Nations adopted similar rules in 1951 and then again in 1969, dubbed the International Health Regulations. These regulations, along with widespread outbreaks of yellow fever, led to the advent of "yellow cards," which international travellers have carried for decades to certify their immunization against a wide variety of infectious diseases.

Yellow fever is currently the only disease currently on the IHR for which countries can demand vaccination proof as a condition of entering the country, though the UN's regulations on any disease are advisory and non-binding in nature so the responsibility for adhering to and implementing those rules falls to individual nations.

In response to the COVID pandemic, many nations already have embraced a new generation of vaccine passports. Israel has the Green Pass, Denmark has the Coronapas, the European Union (but not the UK) offers the EU Digital Covid Certificate, China rolled out its vaccine passport as a WeChat mini app in March, and Estonia uses VaccineGuard. Even private businesses are considering implementing their own systems. United, JetBlue and Lufthansa, for example, are rolling out CommonPass, a system designed to verify an international passenger's COVID testing and vaccination status.

"This is likely to be a new normal need that we're going to have to deal with to control and contain this pandemic," Dr. Brad Perkins, chief medical officer at the Commons Project Foundation, the nonprofit that developed CommonPass, told The New York Times in December.

The Biden administration has made clear that it does not support the creation of a vaccine passport program at the Federal level. The President did, however, issue an executive order in January directing the State Department to work with the WHO and international aviation and travel agencies to develop standards for post-pandemic travel.

"The federal government is working on this issue of vaccine credentialing or vaccine verification or what some people call vaccine passports. So we're going to be following carefully what the federal government comes out with," Tomás Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, told the SF Chronicle in April. "If they don't move fast enough, we will come out with technical standards of what we expect and also really focusing on making sure that that privacy is protected and that equity is protected."

Instead, Americans are offers a hodgepodge of local and state regulations, at least those states that haven't banned certification systems — looking at you, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, and Indiana — despite clear legal precedent affirming the government's authority to temporarily abridge certain individual rights during a public health crisis (see: Jacobson v. Massachusetts).

Take California, for example. The Golden State recently rolled out the Digital COVID-19 Vaccine Record, a system that securely pulls the data stored in the California immunization registry. It's the same state-collected vaccination data that is seen on the paper cards issued when you got your shots — specifically your name, date of birth, vaccination dates, and vaccine manufacturer.

"It's not a passport. It's not a requirement. It's just the ability now to have an electronic version of that paper version," California Governor Gavin Newsom explained during a press conference announcing the system's rollout in June.

The system can also store a scannable QR code on your mobile device so that businesses and venues that do require certification of full vaccination prior to entry can do so easily. The QR code is built on the non-profit SMART Health Card technology, which means that only SMART-compatible scanners can actually read the codes. And in San Francisco, that's literally all of them. This is a built-in security feature ensuring that some random clown at the bar can't surreptitiously scan your code using the generic QR reader on their phone and get access to your information.

However, the system's rollout has not been without its hiccups. This reporter specifically has spent the past six weeks attempting to resolve an issue with incomplete vaccination data being reported to the registry. (Basically, it reads that my second dose is the only dose I received.) The CDPH declined to comment on how many Californians have registered for the service and how many of those registrants have run into similar problems, though the agency has set up a virtual agent to help guide users through the process of alerting the state to any mistakes or omissions.

New York, on the other hand, has not one but two competing vaccine verification systems, neither of which has proven particularly reliable, trustworthy or useful. At the state level, you've got the Excelsior Pass, which operates in a similar fashion to California's DCVR system — pulling immunization data directly from the state's registry — and leverages IBM's proprietary blockchain technology to maintain data security and user privacy. At the local level, New York City has rolled out a passport app of its own, dubbed the NYC COVID Safe App, which for all intents and purposes is a half-assed image storage app that is ridiculously easy to spoof.

As you can see from the above tweet, STOP founder and NYC-based privacy advocate Albert Fox Cahn was able to get the NYC app to accept a picture of the iconic rodent in lieu of his actual state-issued vaccination card.

"I uploaded a photo of Mickey Mouse when I registered for it and then it gave me a pop up box saying are you affirming this is accurate," Cahn told WNYC earlier this month. "You click yes. And then you're done."

This feat was easily replicated by other users, including San Francisco-based journalist Cyrus Farivar, who used the menu from a local BBQ joint as his photo.

"The NYC COVID Safe App was designed with privacy at the top of mind, and allows someone to digitally store their CDC card and identification," Laura Feyer, spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Gothamist in response to these reports. "Someone checking vaccination cards at the door to a restaurant or venue would see that those examples are not proper vaccine cards and act accordingly."

"The functionality of this app really raises the question, why did the city create it to begin with, because like so many other vaccinated New Yorkers, I had a photo album with my vaccine card months ago," Cahn told Engadget. "It's unclear how this was anything more than a publicity stunt to roll it out as a new city app."

"And then on top of that, to then make these broad sweeping statements that how the app is unhackable and to also say that there's no privacy impact when the app is also collecting your IP address and record of every time it's open," he continued. "It's not a huge amount of IP information but it's information that the city was never collecting before, it's information that they simply don't need."

What's more, the NYC COVID Safe app's lackisadical security also makes it prone to exploitation by anti-vaxxers, like noted area conspiracy theorist, Joe Rogan. Since the app doesn't independently verify any of the information it is displaying, instead relying on bar, venue and restaurant staffers to make the determination as to whether a photo is legitimate or not, malicious users could easily upload a photo of any vaccine card — whether it's been photoshopped, acquired from a friend or bought on on the black market (for $400).

The state-run Excelsior Pass has run into privacy issues of its own. For one, its reliance on IBM's blackbox blockchain system provides virtually no accountability or transparency in how the system actually operates.

The "thing is highly engineered, it has all these layers of registration, verification, and a customized QR code," Cahn said. "That's raising far more important privacy issues because the state is quite clear that it doesn't use location services. But since each scanner is registered to a specific business address, every time you scan that QR code, the state and IBM are collecting a record of where you were and when, and we haven't done any clear information on how long that data is retained."

What's more, an experiment conducted in April by Cahn found that even with the blockchain assurances, the app was remarkably easy to hack. "After getting consent from an Excelsior Pass user, I tried to download their pass, logging into their account using nothing more than public information from social media. Eleven minutes after he gave me the greenlight, I had a copy of his blue Excelsior Pass in hand, valid for use until September," Cahn wrote for the Daily Beast.

"This city app really just speaks to the dysfunction. Here in New York, the rivalry between the city and state, the fact that we have a mayor and the governor who can't stand each other, and it is not addressing a technical need," he lamented. "These apps are such a debacle that we just need to go back to old-fashioned paper records."

‘Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls’ will soon be revived on Apple Arcade

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 10:49 AM PDT

A new(ish) Castlevania game is on the way to Apple Arcade. Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls is coming soon to iOS, tvOS and Mac via the subscription service. Konami announced Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls in 2018. It soft launched the game on iOS in Canada in 2019 before removing it from the App Store last year.

As noted by Gematsu, this outing features character designs and music from Castlevania veterans Ayami Kojima and Michiru Yamane. Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls features a bunch of familiar playable characters, including Alucard, Simon Belmont, Charlotte, Shanoa and Maria. You'll fight your way through Dracula's army with a range of weapons (including the whip) and special moves. Along with the story mode, there are co-op and bounty hunt modes.

Meanwhile, Apple announced the Apple Arcade library now includes more than 200 games.

Lamborghini's Countach LPI 800-4 is an 802-horsepower hybrid supercar

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 10:30 AM PDT

After all the leaks and teases, Lamborghini has finally announced its new hybrid-engine Countach. Thankfully, almost everything you need to know about the car is in its model designation: LPI 800-4. The first part is short for Longitudinale Posteriore Ibrido, referencing how the powertrain is mounted lengthwise toward the back of the supercar and the fact that it's a hybrid. Meanwhile, the two numbers point to the approximately 802 horsepower the Countach's V12 6.5-liter engine and 48-volt electric motor can output together, as well as the fact that it has four-wheel drive.        

Countach LPI 800-4
Lamborghini

All of that makes for one powerful car. The Countach can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds and zero to 124 miles per hour in just under nine seconds. As for a top speed, you can push it to 221 miles per hour, and it has a maximum torque of 531 lb-ft.  

Countach cockpit
Lamborghini

Powering the Countach's electric motor is a supercapacitor Lamborghini claims delivers three times more power compared to a lithium-ion battery of the same weight. The automaker says it mounted the electric motor directly to the gearbox to preserve the feeling of power transfer you get from a V12 engine.   

Carbon fiber makes up most of the chassis and exterior of the Countach LPI 800-4. "It imagines how the iconic Countach of the 70s and 80s might have evolved into an elite super sports model of this decade," Lamborghini says of the design, which is more reminiscent of the Aventador than its original namesake. Inside, you'll find an 8.4-inch touchscreen display that includes CarPlay integration and a button labeled "Stile." Pressing it "explains the Countach design philosophy to its privileged audience."  

Countach LPI 800-4
Lamborghini

Speaking of a privileged audience, Lamborghini will only make 112 units of the Countach LPI 800-4. The press release the automaker sent over doesn't even mention a price tag. It seems Lamborghini is keen on looking forward, but the Countach was too important not to acknowledge with a limited run. 

Why is Facebook so bad at countering vaccine misinformation?

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 10:00 AM PDT

It's been six months since Facebook announced a major reversal to its policies on vaccine misinformation. Faced with a rising tide of viral rumors and conspiracy theories, the company said it would start removing vaccine mistruths from its platform. Notably, the effort not only encompassed content about COVID-19 vaccines, but all vaccines. That includes many of the kinds of claims it had long allowed, like those linking vaccines and autism, statements that vaccines are "toxic" or otherwise dangerous.

The move was widely praised, as disinformation researchers and public health officials have long urged Facebook and other platforms to treat vaccine misinformation more aggressively. Since then, the company has banned some prominent anti-vaxxers, stopped recommending health-related groups and shown vaccine-related PSAs across Facebook and Instagram. It now labels any post at all that mentions COVID-19 vaccines, whether factual or not.

Yet, despite these efforts, vaccine misinformation is still an urgent problem, and public health officials say Facebook and other social media platforms aren't doing enough to address it. Last month, the Surgeon General issued an advisory warning of the dangers of health misinformation online. The accompanying 22-page report didn't call out any platforms by name, but it highlighted algorithmic amplification and other issues commonly associated with Facebook. The following day, President Joe Biden made headlines when he said that misinformation on Facebook was "killing people."

While Facebook has pushed back, citing its numerous efforts to quash health misinformation during the pandemic, the company's past lax approach to vaccine misinformation has likely made that job much more difficult. In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said vaccine hesitancy has decreased among its users in the US, but the company has also repeatedly rebuffed requests for more data that could shed light on just how big the problem really is.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have removed 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, labeled hundreds of millions of pieces of COVID content rated by our fact-checking partners, and connected over 2 billion people with authoritative information through tools like our COVID information center," a Facebook spokesperson told Engadget. "The data shows that for people in the US on Facebook, vaccine hesitancy has declined by 50% since January, and acceptance is high. We will continue to enforce against any account or group that violates our COVID-19 and vaccine policies and offer tools and reminders for people who use our platform to get vaccinated."

Facebook's pandemic decision

Throughout the pandemic, Facebook has moderated health misinformation much more aggressively than it has in the past. Yet for the first year of the pandemic, the company made a distinction between coronavirus misinformation — e.g., statements about fake cures or disputing the effectiveness of masks, which it removed — and vaccine conspiracy theories, which it said did not break the company's rules. Mark Zuckerberg even said that he would be reluctant to moderate vaccine misinformation the same way the company has with COVID misinformation.

That changed this year, with the advent of COVID-19 vaccines and the rising tide of misinformation and vaccine hesitancy that accompanied them, but the damage may have already been done. A peer-reviewed study published in Nature in February found that exposure to misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines "lowers intent to accept a COVID-19 vaccine" by about 6 percent.

People are also more likely to be unvaccinated if they primarily get their news from Facebook, according to a July report from the COVID States Project. The researchers sampled more than 20,000 adults in all 50 states and found that those who cited Facebook as a primary news source were less likely to be vaccinated. While the authors note that it doesn't prove that using Facebook affects someone's choice to get vaccinated, they found a "surprisingly strong relationship" between the two.

"If you rely on Facebook to get news and information about the coronavirus, you are substantially less likely than the average American to say you have been vaccinated," they write. "In fact, Facebook news consumers are less likely to be vaccinated than people who get their coronavirus information from Fox News. According to our data, Facebook users were also among the most likely to believe false claims about coronavirus vaccines."

The researchers speculate that this could be because people who spend a lot of time on Facebook are less likely to trust the government, the media or other institutions. Or, it could be that spending time on the platform contributed to that distrust. While there's no way to know for sure, we do know that Facebook has for years been an effective platform for spreading disinformation about vaccines.

A spotty record

Doctors and researchers have warned for years that Facebook wasn't doing enough to prevent lies about vaccines from spreading. Because of this, prominent anti-vaxxers have used Facebook and Instagram to spread their message and build their followings.

A report published earlier this year from the CCDH found that more than half of all vaccine misinformation online could be linked to 12 individuals who are part of a long-running, and often coordinated, effort to undermine vaccines. But while the company has banned some accounts, some of those individuals still have a presence on a Facebook-owned platform, according to the CCDH. Facebook has disputed the findings of that report, which relied on analytics from the company's CrowdTangle tool. But the social network's own research into vaccine hesitancy indicated "a small group appears to play a big role" in undermining vaccines, The Washington Postreported in March.

There are other issues, too. For years, Facebook's search and recommendation algorithm have made it extraordinarily easy for users to fall into rabbit holes of misinformation. Simply searching the word "vaccine" would be enough to surface recommendations for accounts spreading conspiracy theories and other vaccine disinformation.

Engadget reported last year on Instagram's algorithmic search results associated anti-vaccine accounts with COVID-19 conspiracies and QAnon content. More than a year later, a recent study from Avaaz found that although this type of content no longer appears at the top of search results, Facebook's recommendation algorithms continue to recommend pages and groups that promote misinformation about vaccines. In their report, researchers document how users can fall into misinformation "rabbit holes" by liking seemingly innocuous pages or searching for "vaccines." They also found that Facebook's page recommendation algorithm appeared to associate vaccines and autism.

"Over the course of two days, we used two new Facebook accounts to follow vaccine-related pages that Facebook suggested for us. Facebook's algorithm directed us to 109 pages, with 1.4M followers, containing anti-vaccine content — including pages from well-known anti-vaccine advocates and organizations such as Del Bigtree, Dr. Ben Tapper, Dr. Toni Bark, Andrew Wakefield, Children's Health Defense, Learn the Risk, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries. Many of the pages the algorithm recommended to us carried a label, warning that the page posts about COVID-19 or vaccines, giving us the option to go directly to the CDC website. The algorithm also recommended 10 pages related to autism — some containing anti-vaccine content, some not — suggesting that Facebook's algorithm associates vaccines with autism, a thoroughly debunked link that anti-vaccine advocates continue to push."

Facebook has removed some of these pages from its recommendations, though it's not clear which. Avaaz points out that there's no way to know why Facebook's recommendation algorithm surfaces the pages it does as the company doesn't disclose how these systems work. Yet it's notable because content associating vaccines with autism is exactly one of the claims that Facebook said it would ban under its stricter misinformation rules during the pandemic. That Facebook's suggestions are intermingling the topics is, at the very least, undermining those efforts.

Claims and counterclaims

Facebook has strongly opposed these claims. The company repeatedly points to its messaging campaign around covid-19 vaccines, noting that more than 2 billion people have viewed the company's COVID-19 and vaccine PSAs.

In a blog post responding to President Biden's comments last month, Facebook's VP of Integrity Guy Rosen argued that "vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the US has increased." He noted that the company has "reduced the visibility of more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content debunked by our network of fact-checking partners so fewer people see it."

He didn't share, however, how much of that misinformation was about vaccines, or details on the company's enforcement of its more general vaccine misinformation rules. That's likely not an accident. The company has repeatedly resisted efforts that could shed light on how misinformation spreads on its platform.

Facebook executives declined a request from their data scientists who asked for additional resources to study COVID-19 misinformation at the start of the pandemic, according toThe New York Times. It's not clear why the request was turned down, but the company has also pushed back on outsiders' efforts to gain insight into health misinformation.

Facebook has declined to share the results of an internal study on vaccine hesitancy on its platform, according to Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine's office, which has launched a consumer protection investigation into the company's handling of vaccine misinformation.

"Facebook has said it's taking action to address the proliferation of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on its site," a spokesperson said. "But then when pressed to show its work, Facebook refused."

The Biden Administration has also — unsuccessfully — pushed Facebook to be more forthcoming about vaccine misinformation. According to The New York Times, administration officials have met repeatedly with Facebook and other platforms as part of its effort to curb misinformations about coronavirus vaccines. Yet when a White House official asked Facebook to share "how often misinformation was viewed and spread," the company refused. According to The Times, "Facebook responded to some requests for information by talking about vaccine promotion strategies,' such as its PSAs or its tool to help users book vaccine appointments.

One issue is that it's not always easy to define what is, and isn't, misinformation. Factual information, like news stories or personal anecdotes about vaccine side effects, can be shared with misleading commentary. This, Facebook has suggested, makes it difficult to study the issue in the way that many have asked. At the same time, Facebook is a notoriously data-driven company. It's constantly testing even the smallest features, and it employs scores of researchers and data scientists. It's difficult to believe that learning more about vaccine hesitancy and how misinformation spreads is entirely out of reach.

Facebook Messenger rolls out end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 09:41 AM PDT

Facebook is rolling out a host of features for Messenger users who switch on end-to-end encryption (E2EE). You can now call Messenger contacts using voice or video with E2EE enabled, just like in WhatsApp.

No one other than the person you're speaking with can see or listen to your E2EE chats or calls, so you can add an extra layer of protection to your voice and video conversations on Messenger. However, Facebook says you can still report messages if needed.

There are updates for disappearing messages as well. You'll see an option for them when you tap your profile photo in a chat, as well as in the message compose field (tap the timer icon there). You can now activate disappearing messages for everyone in a chat, not just yourself. On top of that, you'll have more control between how long messages are viewed and when they vanish — between five seconds and 24 hours.

Facebook has some other E2EE features in the works. It's planning to start public tests of E2EE group chats and calls in Messenger in the coming weeks. The company will also begin a limited test E2EE for Instagram direct messages. You'll need to have an existing chat with someone or to follow each other before you can enable E2EE on a DM exchange.

This week's best deals: $100 off the Apple Watch Series 6 and more

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 08:45 AM PDT

Samsung may have announced a bunch of new devices this week, but it was Apple and Amazon that led the week when it came to online deals. While Woot's flash sale on the Apple Watch Series 6 Product Red Edition came and went quickly, you can still get the smartwatch for $299 at Amazon. The Mac Mini M1 got a $100 discount while a number of Echo devices went on sale as well — including the new, second-generation Echo Show 5. And through Sunday, you can save on laptops, tablets, TVs and more in Best Buy's anniversary sale. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

Apple Watch Series 6

Apple Watch Series 6 Product Red with Count Up face
Apple

The Apple Watch Series 6 Product Red Edition is $100 off right now, bringing it down to $299. While not an all-time low, it's still a great deal on Apple's more powerful smartwatch. We gave the Series 6 a score of 89 for its speedy performance, improved battery life and faster charging. However, if you're willing to wait, you'll be able to get the next-generation Apple Watch pretty soon — we expect to see it debut sometime in September.

Buy Series 6 Product Red at Amazon - $299

Mac Mini M1

Apple Mac mini
Engadget

Apple's Mac Mini M1 has returned to $600, or $100 off its normal price. The sale price is actually $650, but an automatically applied coupon will bring the final cost down even more. This is the device to get if you want a compact desktop with the power and efficiency of Apple's M1 chipset.

Buy Apple Mac Mini (256GB) at Amazon - $600

AirPods Pro

Apple AirPods Pro
Billy Steele / Engadget

Apple's AirPods Pro remain $60 off at Amazon, bringing them down to $190. These are the best sounding earbuds you can get from Apple, and we gave them a score of 87 for their better, more secure fit, IPX4 water resistance and solid audio quality.

Buy AirPods Pro at Amazon - $190

10.2-inch iPad

Apple's 10.2-inch iPad is still on sale for $299, or $30 off its normal price. It's arguably the best iPad for new tablet owners and we liked its improved performance, familiar design and support for the first-generation Apple Pencil.

Buy 10.2-inch iPad at Amazon - $299

Beats Studio Buds

Beats Studio Buds review
Billy Steele/Engadget

Beats' new Studio Buds are $20 off right now, bringing them down to $130. It's the first discount we've seen on the buds since they came out a few months ago. We gave them a score of 84 for their smaller, more comfortable design, balanced sound and quick pairing on both Android and iOS.

Buy Beats Studio Buds at Amazon - $130

Amazon Echo devices

Amazon Echo Show 5
Engadget

A handful of Echo devices are on sale right now at Amazon, including the second-generation Echo Show 5 for $55. That's the best price we've seen since the device came out earlier this year. You can also grab the latest Echo Show 8 for $100 and the Echo Frames for $180.

Buy Echo Show 5 at Amazon - $55Buy Echo Show 5 Kids at Amazon - $65Buy Echo Show 8 at Amazon - $100Buy Echo Frames at Amazon - $180

Anova Precision Cooker Nano

Anova Precision Cooker Nano
Anova

Anova's entry-level sous-vide machine, the Nano, remains discounted to $99. It's a great option for those interested in giving sous-vide cooking a try, but don't want to spend a ton of money upfront to do so. The Nano uses 750 watts of power to cook food submerged in water, and it can run for up to 3,000 hours before it needs recharging.

Buy Anova Precision Cooker Nano at Amazon - $99Buy Anova Precision Cooker Nano at Best Buy - $99

Comic-Con 2022 sweepstakes

Through December 8, you can enter to win four-day passes to San Diego Comic-Con 2022. Along with the passes, you'll get access to a special preview night, reserved seating in Hall H, a personal concierge, a private tour of the Comic-Con Museum, dinner in Balboa Park and tickets to the "Night at the Comic-Con Museum" event. It's free to enter, but funds from this sweepstakes will go to the San Diego Comic Convention.

Enter to win at Omaze

Virgin Galactic sweepstakes

In this Omaze giveaway you can win two seats on one of the first Virgin Galactic flights to space. In addition, you'll go on a tour of Spaceport America in New Mexico with Richard Branson. You don't have to pay to enter, but funds from all paid entries will support Space for Humanity, an organization that hopes to make space more accessible for all.

Enter to win at Omaze

Gaming PC sweepstakes

Omaze is giving away another $20,000 to build your ultimate gaming PC. This sweepstakes is free to enter, but funds donated with purchased entries will benefit Schools on Wheels, an organization that provides free tutoring and mentoring services to children experiencing homelessness across Southern California.

Enter to win at Omaze

Pricing and availability is subject to change. No donation or payment necessary to enter or win this sweepstakes.See official rules on Omaze.

New tech deals

Elgato Key Light Air

Elgato's slim Key Light Air has been a favorite of ours for streamers and now you can get it for $110, or $20 off its usual price. It's a sleek LED panel with 1,400 lumens that can provide just the right amount of light for your streams without taking up too much space. It's also WiFi-enabled, so you can turn it on and off and switch up your light settings directly from your smartphone.

Buy Key Light Air at Amazon - $110

Instant Pot Duo Plus (8-quart)

This 9-in-1 Instant Pot is $40 off at Amazon thanks to a clippable coupon that knocks an additional $20 off the sale price. Along with pressure cooking, you're getting rice cooking, yogurt making, steaming, warming, sous vide and other functions in this device, plus a capacity large enough to make food for a big party.

Buy Instant Pot Duo Plus at Amazon - $100

Aukey Omnia Duo 65W Dual-Port PD Charger

This 65W GaN USB-C charger from Aukey is only $26 when you use the code OMNIADUO at checkout. It includes two USB-C ports, so you can quickly power up two mobile devices at once or even your laptop and your smartphone simultaneously. And because it uses GaN technology, it's smaller than other similar chargers and isn't as susceptible to overheating.

Buy Omnia Duo 65W charger at Aukey - $26

NordVPN

One of our recommended VPNs is running a decent summer sale on a two-year subscription. You can sign up for NordVPN for $99 for the first two years, which comes out to $49.50 per year, and get three additional months of access for free. We like NordVPN for its speed, its no-logs policy, the thousands of servers it has to choose from and that one account supports up to six connected devices.

Buy NordVPN (2 years) - $99

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Airbnb drops sexual harassment and assault arbitration rules for guests and hosts

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 08:30 AM PDT

Airbnb will update its terms of service to drop arbitration provisions for sexual assault or harassment claims by guests or hosts. The company expects the updated terms to be ready this fall.

"We believe that survivors should be able to bring claims in whatever forum is best for them," Airbnb wrote in a blog post. "We encourage our industry peers within the travel and hospitality space to consider taking similar steps for their respective communities."

The move will formalize Airbnb's current approach to such cases, which it adopted in January 2019. The company hasn't asked a court to force sexual assault or harassment claims by hosts or guests into arbitration since then. Nor will it do so until the updated terms of service are in effect.

"Incidents of sexual assault are extremely rare on Airbnb, but in these rare cases, Airbnb's highly-trained Safety team works with survivors to put their wellbeing first," the company said. According to the blog post, members of its safety team have "undergone training in trauma-informed methodology and they prioritize supporting and empowering survivors in their healing process."

Airbnb didn't say whether it plans to change its arbitration rules for other types of harassment. It ended forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault claims by employees in late 2018. Other notable tech companies ditched forced arbitration for sexual assault and/or harassment claims around that time, including Uber, Lyft, Google and Square.

Apple acknowledges 'confusion' over child safety updates

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 08:01 AM PDT

Apple is ready to acknowledge the controversy over its child safety updates, but it sees this as a matter of poor messaging — not bad policy. Senior software engineering VP Craig Federighi told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that introducing both the scans for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on iCloud and opt-in local monitoring of iMessage sexual content was a "recipe for this kind of confusion." People conflated the two and thought that Apple might spy on messages, Federighi claimed, adding that he wished Apple had "come out a little more clearly."

The executive maintained that Apple was striking the right balance between child safety and privacy, and addressed some of the concerns that surfaced since the company announced its new measures in early August. He stressed that the scans of iCloud-destined photos would only flag existing images in a CSAM database, not any picture in your library. The system only sends an alert when you reach a threshold of 30 images, so false positives aren't likely.

The system also has "multiple levels of auditability," Federighi said. On-device scanning will reportedly make it easier for researchers to check if Apple ever misused the technology. Federighi also rejected the notion that the technique might be used to scan for other material, such as politics, noting that the database of images comes from multiple child safety groups, not just the agency that will receive any red-flag reports (the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).

The response won't satisfy those who object to the very notion that Apple is scanning photos on their phones, even with privacy protections in place. It is, however, a recognition that it can be a challenge to properly address privacy issues — it doesn't take much to prompt an uproar.

House bill takes aim at iOS and Android app store competition

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 07:30 AM PDT

A bipartisan bill that targets app store competition has been introduced in the House of Representatives. It's the House version of a Senate bill that was introduced this week by a group of Republican and Democrat senators, and it would likely have a drastic impact on Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store were it to come into effect.

"For far too long, companies like Google and Apple have had a stranglehold on app developers who are forced to take whatever terms these monopolists set in order to reach their customers," Ken Buck, the ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee antitrust panel, wrote in a tweet. As Reuters notes, Buck introduced the bill alongside Democrat Hank Johnson. 

Should the Open App Markets Act become law, it could level the playing field for third-party app stores and in-app payment services. Using a third-party app marketplace on an iPhone is difficult without jailbreaking the device. Google says Android 12 makes it easier for users to install apps from other stores, but it still requires developers to handle payments through the Play Store's billing process.

Both Apple and Google take a 30 percent cut of in-app payments. That's a key reason why the likes of Spotify and Netflix don't allow users to sign up through mobile apps. They direct users to their mobile websites instead.

"Apple has used the iOS platform and its App Store policies to insulate itself from competition and disadvantage rivals for far too long," Horacio Gutierrez, Spotify's head of global affairs and chief legal officer, told Engadget in a statement. "By introducing the Open App Markets Act in both chambers of Congress, we're one important step closer to curbing Apple's anticompetitive behavior, leveling the playing field, and restoring competition for all." The company has accused Apple of operating as a monopoly on iOS.

The bill would also allow developers to inform consumers about lower prices elsewhere, according to its sponsors. Epic Games' legal battles with Apple and Google kicked off when it offered mobile Fortnite players a discount on virtual goods if they bypassed the iOS and Android payment systems. Apple and Google swiftly removed the game from their app stores and Epic responded quickly by filing lawsuits against both companies. A judge's decision is pending in the Apple case.

Turns out, I like cooking food from scratch... in a microwave

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 07:00 AM PDT

I'm a sucker for newfangled kitchen appliances. I bought into the Instant Pot hype a few years ago and tried out an air fryer as well. (I ended up getting the Breville Smart Oven Air, a toaster oven with an air-frying setting.) I also own a host of other contraptions cluttering up my kitchen cabinets: a juicer, food processor, ice cream maker and two sous vide machines.

Yet, the appliance I use the most is the humble microwave. Like many of you, I use it mainly for reheating leftovers or warming up frozen dinners. I've never really considered using it for actual cooking, except for the occasional "microwave mug cake" recipe I've seen go viral on social media. Oh, I've heard of cookbooks from the '70s and '80s that tried to sell the public on the wonders of microwave cooking — I'm sure my mom even bought a few back in my youth — but those have largely turned out to be full of culinary deception. (A roast beef dinner via microwave? I don't think so.)

But a few months ago I saw an Instagram ad for a new line of cookware that was designed to be used specifically with the microwave. It's called Anyday, and it was co-founded by renowned chef David Chang of Momofuku and Ugly Delicious fame. The ad showed luscious photos of mashed potatoes, mapo tofu, mac and cheese, and a chicken and pea dish that all looked really delicious. Could all of this really be made with just the microwave? Perhaps the best kitchen appliance was under my nose all along? Needless to say, I was intrigued.

Anyday Cookware
Engadget

According to Anyday, the main thing differentiating its cookware from regular microwave-safe containers is its glass lid. It has a silicone gasket that blocks splatters and keeps moisture in, as well as a knob at the top that can be pulled out for steam to escape through air vents. The knob can also be pushed down to create an airtight leakproof seal, at which point the containers are also stackable. In contrast, my existing set of Pyrex containers just have regular plastic lids, which even the manufacturer recommends shouldn't be used in the microwave since they can warp.

I should note here that the Anyday lids do have stainless steel rims, which you might think is a little dangerous to put in the microwave. But they're actually safe on account of their smooth, curved shape, which prevents arcing. The company does warn against heating up two dishes at once, however, as the combination of two stainless steel lids might result in sparks flying.

Also, the Anyday dishes themselves are made of a frosted borosilicate glass which can withstand large temperature fluctuations without cracking. This last part is important, as certain ceramics and glass aren't completely microwave safe. For example, I tried heating up a potato once on a plate I bought from IKEA, and it ended up splitting in two. The plate, that is, not the potato.

Mac and Cheese in Anyday Cookware
Engadget

Still, I was a little skeptical. So I went ahead and purchased a full set of Anyday cookware just to try everything out. That's four dishes total — shallow and deep in medium and large sizes — which is admittedly quite expensive at $120. Alternatively, you can get the medium set of two dishes for $55 or the large set for $75. You can also opt to buy each dish separately; the two medium ones go for $30 a piece while the large options are $40 a piece. That definitely makes this pretty pricey compared to an average set of microwave-safe containers — a full 18-piece Snapware Pyrex set, for example, is just $30.

The Anyday set comes with several recipe cards, which are very handy to start out with, but the best place to find recipes is on the Anyday website. You'll find everything from one-ingredient recipes (e.g., you just want to steam some rice) to full recipes such as black bean soup and squash curry. On each recipe page, you can select your desired serving size as well as the wattage of your specific microwave oven, which will determine variables such as dish size, cook time and what power level you should use.

I've used the Anyday cookware for several weeks now, and I've actually been mostly impressed with the results. The first recipe I tried was a chicken and rice meal with peas and marinara sauce. I was nervous about whether it would work, but it turned out to be delicious, with the chicken cooked through to the bone and the rice tender and fluffy. The Thai pineapple chicken recipe also worked out well. I think I would've preferred it if the onions were browned and caramelized like they would be on the stove, but for microwave cooking, it was completely satisfactory.

Anyday Cookware
Engadget

One dish in particular was a revelation for me: Silky Chinese steamed egg. This is a recipe that can be quite tricky to master on the stove, as you need to steam it slowly over a gentle heat. But in the microwave, it's a matter of heating the custard solution at a lower power level for just four to five minutes, depending on your microwave wattage. (The company's site recommends Power Level 4.) I've never really fiddled around with my microwave's power settings before, but now that I see it can result in a smooth custard, I will definitely be using it more often.

Another killer application, at least for me, is poached eggs. I usually find poaching eggs to be a bit of a chore; you have to heat up a pot of water, carefully drop in the egg and hope you're able to rescue it when it's done just right. It's especially challenging when it's six in the morning and I haven't had my coffee just yet. But with the Anyday and the microwave, all I have to do is fill up a shallow dish with cold water straight from the tap, crack an egg into it, cover it, nuke it for two minutes and it's done. The yolk is cooked just enough so that it's a little runny, which is how I like it. I almost couldn't believe it.

The experience wasn't perfect, however. For example, I tried using the Anyday to cook white rice, and even though I followed the recipe exactly, the water in the dish boiled over, pushing the lid up and spilling out into the microwave. As a result, the rice wasn't cooked correctly, and I had to add the water back in and cook it further. I tried cooking the rice in a much larger dish later on and it worked out better, but I wish the site had suggested that instead of me finding out on my own.

Silky Chinese Steamed Egg Custard via Anyday
Engadget

Speaking of the recipes, I should note that not all microwave ovens are the same, even among those with the same wattage. My microwave, for example, is apparently more powerful than normal, and it took way less time for me to steam broccoli than the site recommended. I also found that not all microwave ovens' power levels are the same either. My Power Level 4 could be your Power Level 3. I definitely had to play around with different variables in order to get certain foods to cook properly.

Plus, there are certain kinds of cooking that the microwave just cannot do. You're just not going to get the same kind of browning that you can get on the stove or in the oven. You can't use it to deep fry or roast or bake. What you're basically doing is steaming food, albeit in a more controlled way. The microwave won't replace your stove or your oven or your Instant Pot completely.

But, for all its flaws, I still think the Anyday cookware is great. It's made me realize that the microwave has a lot more uses than just reheating leftovers. It's opened up a whole new world of culinary possibilities that I had not realized existed before. Sure, the mac and cheese I made in the microwave won't be as amazing as the one baked in the oven, but the former can be done in under 10 minutes, and it still tastes creamy and cheesy. I've also made instant ramen in the Anyday and the microwave to great success.

It might not make the best food you've ever tasted, but for college students and time-pressed parents and professionals, the microwave might just be the most versatile appliance in the kitchen. As long as you have the right cookware for it anyway.

Senators ask Amazon how it will use palm print data from its stores (updated)

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 06:44 AM PDT

If you're concerned that Amazon might misuse palm print data from its One service, you're not alone. TechCrunchreports that Senators Amy Klobuchar, Bill Cassidy and Jon Ossoff have sent a letter to new Amazon chief Andy Jassy asking him to explain how the company might expand use of One's palm print system beyond stores like Amazon Go and Whole Foods. They're also worried the biometric payment data might be used for more than payments, such as for ads and tracking.

The politicians are concerned that Amazon One reportedly uploads palm print data to the cloud, creating "unique" security issues. The move also casts doubt on Amazon's "respect" for user privacy, the senators said.

In addition to asking about expansion plans, the senators wanted Jassy to outline the number of third-party One clients, the privacy protections for those clients and their customers and the size of the One user base. The trio gave Amazon until August 26th to provide an answer. We've asked Amazon for comment.

This won't necessarily lead to government restrictions on One and other biometric payment tech. Amazon might not get much sympathy, however. The company has offered $10 in credit to potential One users, raising questions about its eagerness to collect palm print data. This also isn't the first time Amazon has clashed with government — cities have dropped Amazon's Rekognition face detection system, and Congress has proposed face detection regulations with Rekognition in mind. It wouldn't be surprising if the One investigation eventually led to legislative action, even if the effort isn't targeted specifically at Amazon.

Update 8/13 at 11:05AM: Amazon declined to comment, but pointed to an earlier blog post where it said One palm images were never stored on-device and were sent encrypted to a "highly secure" cloud space devoted just to One content.

Best Buy discounts Surface laptops, Galaxy tablets in its latest weekend sale

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 05:50 AM PDT

Best Buy is back with a new three-day sale that reduces the prices of many gadgets, including laptops and tablets from Microsoft and Samsung. Through August 15, you can grab the Surface Pro 7 with its Type Cover for as low as $599 and a Core i5 model of the Surface Laptop Go for $750. Samsung's flagship tablets, the Tab S7 and S7+, are both on sale, while the already affordable Tab S6 Lite is even cheaper at $270. Here are the best tech deals we found in Best Buy's latest weekend sale.

Google WiFi (3 pack)

Google WiFi
Google

Google's mesh WiFi kit with one router and two access points is $50 off, bringing it down to $150 (Amazon's matching the deal as well). This system came out at the end of last year and it supports speeds up to 1.2Gpbs. Each node covers up to 1,500 square feet, so you're getting a ton of coverage with this three-pack. While it's not as fast as the Nest WiFi system, it's a good upgrade for those who may still be relying on a router from their ISP.

Buy Google WiFi (3 pack) at Best Buy - $150Buy Google WiFi (3 pack) at Amazon - $150

Galaxy Chromebook 2

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 laptop with its lid open sitting on a wooden table.
Engadget

The Galaxy Chromebook 2 is down to $449 for the Intel Celeron model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The Core i3 model will set you back $599, but that's still a decent deal. We gave this laptop a score of 82 for its impressive screen, loud speakers and solid performance.

Buy Galaxy Chromebook 2 at Best Buy - $449

Surface Pro 7 bundle

Surface Pro 7
Engadget

The base Surface Pro 7 with its Type Cover is down to $599 for this sale, or $360 off its normal price. This model has a Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage — we'd be wary about using a device with 4GB of RAM as your primary device (unless it's a Chromebook), but this would make a good convertible for those that want a lighter device to tote around with them.

Buy Surface Pro 7 bundle at Best Buy - $599

55-inch LG A1 OLED 4K TV

The latest LG OLED lineup just became available a few months ago and now you can grab the 55-inch A1 model for $1,300. The A1 series is the most affordable of the bunch, making these sets good options for anyone looking to upgrade to OLED while on a tight budget.

Buy 55-inch LG A1 OLED at Best Buy - $1,300

55-inch LG C1 OLED 4K TV

The 55-inch, mid-tier LG C1 OLED TV is down to $1,500, or $300 off its normal price. It uses LG's a9 Gen4 AI Processor 4K and supports HDMI 2.1, G-SYNC and FreeSync for gaming and voice commands using Alexa or the Google Assistant.

Buy 55-inch LG C1 OLED at Best Buy - $1,500Buy 55-inch LG C1 OLED at Amazon - $1,500

Surface Laptop Go

Surface Laptop Go review
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go with a 10th-gen Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is $150 off right now, bringing it down to $750. This is a good price for the upgraded model with more RAM, as most people will need at least 8GB on their daily driver. We gave the Laptop Go a score of 81 for its solid, minimalist design, excellent keyboard and trackpad and speedy performance.

Buy Surface Laptop Go at Best Buy - $750

Galaxy Tab S7

Galaxy Tab S7 and S7+
Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Best Buy and Amazon have knocked $120 off Samsung's Galaxy Tab S7, bringing the total price to $530. The S7+ is also on sale for $730. This slab earned a score of 80 from us for its lovely 120Hz display, attractive build and long battery life.

Buy Galaxy Tab S7 at Best Buy - $530Buy Galaxy Tab S7 at Amazon - $530

Buy Galaxy Tab S7+ at Best Buy - $730Buy Galaxy Tab S7+ at Amazon - $730

Galaxy Tab S6 Lite

Galaxy Tab S6 Lite review
Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Samsung's affordable Android tablet is even cheaper in this sale — the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is down to $270, or $80 off its normal price. If you're looking for a capable Android tablet that won't break the bank, this is one that gives you a number of premium features at a great price. We gave it a score of 84 for its sturdy, attractive design, long battery life and excellent note-taking features with the S Pen.

Buy Galaxy Tab S6 Lite at Best Buy - $270Buy Galaxy Tab S6 Lite at Amazon - $270

Fujifilm X-T3

Engadget

The Fujifilm X-T3 mirrorless camera is $300 off during this sale, bringing it down to $1,200. Although Fujifilm debuted the X-T4 last year, the X-T3 remains a good option if you're on a tight budget. We gave it a score of 90 for its faster autofocus, excellent image quality and its compact, weatherproof design. 

Buy Fujifilm X-T3 at Best Buy - $1,200Buy Fujifilm X-T3 at Amazon - $1,200

Google Pixelbook Go

We thought the Pixelbook Go was a bit too expensive for a Chromebook (even a high-powered one at that), but this sale knocks it down to $750. That gets you a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage — more than enough power for most Chrome OS users. We gave the Go a score of 84 for its thin-and-light design, good performance and solid battery life.

Buy Pixelbook Go at Best Buy - $750

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Engadget Podcast: Diving into Samsung and foldables with Mr. Mobile

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 05:30 AM PDT

This week, Cherlynn and guest co-host Mat Smith are joined by foldable aficionado and tech personality Michael Fisher (aka Mr Mobile) to talk all about foldables. Specifically, Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3, as well as the new Galaxy Watch 4 series and Buds 2. Then, our hosts try to make sense of the confusion around Apple's CSAM-detecting features, and go over some other gadgets launched this week.

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


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Video livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Mat Smith
Guest: Michael Fisher aka MrMobile
Producer: Ben Ellman
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Owen Davidoff, Luke Brooks
Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Kyle Maack
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Poly Network offers $500,000 reward to crypto hacker who returned stolen assets

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 05:15 AM PDT

In the latest twist to the Poly Network crypto hack, the perpetrator who returned most of the $611 million in stolen digital tokens is being offered a $500,000 reward. The prize is a bug bounty to be precise, an incentive offered by tech organizations to those who report security vulnerabilities. In a statement, Poly Network referred to the culprit as a "white hat" in reference to his status as an ethical hacker. The decentralized finance platform thanked the hacker for "helping to improve" its security, but did not mention how it would pay the reward or whether it had been accepted. 

A person claiming to be the perpetrator confirmed that Poly Network had offered him a $500,000 bounty to return the stolen assets and promised that he would not be held accountable for the incident, according to messages shared on Twitter by Tom Robinson, the chief scientist and co-founder of Elliptic, a crypto tracking firm. 

Poly Network connects different blockchains, the ledgers upon which cryptocurrencies are based, so they can work together. The company revealed on Tuesday that it was the victim of a massive crypto heist that saw a hacker make away with about $611 million in Ethereum, Shiba Inu and other digital currencies. 

On Wednesday, the hacker began returning the stolen funds after claiming they were ready to surrender. Poly Network said on Friday that the hacker had repaid $340 million worth of assets into a digital wallet. All that remains is the $33 million in tether frozen by the company behind the cryptocurrency.

It's still unclear what prompted the hacker to backtrack. Some experts believe that they may have found it hard to launder and cash out the large amount of stolen crypto. While others suggest that the hacker was afraid of being exposed and prosecuted after researchers discovered a trove of identifying info, including an email and IP address. More broadly, the bizarre series of events further illustrates the pitfalls involved with cryptocurrency, an unregulated domain where hacks and scams are rife.

The Morning After: Understanding Apple’s child safety updates

Posted: 13 Aug 2021 04:15 AM PDT

Last week, Apple announced that it was taking new steps to prevent the distribution of CSAM on its platform. This included a system to detect such material by scanning the images in people's iCloud libraries, which has proved controversial. Privacy campaigners have said that this is the first step on a slippery slope to allowing governments all over the world access to people's phones. That could have implications for activists and journalists in more authoritarian countries, something Apple has prior form in bowing to.

That's why Engadget's Karissa Bell has taken a deep, deep dive into what exactly is going on with all of this. If you've only heard snatches of what's going on, and don't quite get what the real world impacts are, then we've got you covered. She's explored how the technology works, what Apple has said, and if anyone really needs to be concerned.

-Dan Cooper

Zoom's new Focus mode hides people who might distract you

Teachers can stop classmates from pulling focus away from the lesson.

Zoom's new Focus mode is designed to block student distractions
Zoom

Zoom knows that not even the internet can dampen the allure of watching the class clown instead of your teacher. That's why the company is unveiling Focus Mode, which is designed for educators trying to wrest control of their lesson back from the students. With it, teachers can see all of the students on their own feed, but each student can only see the teacher and whatever presentation the teacher is giving. That could be a key tool to keep kids paying attention especially with the Delta variant threatening to derail the start of school. Continue Reading.

Amazon may monitor employee keystrokes to protect customer data

It says it needs to in order to protect its users.

Amazon is planning to license keystroke-monitoring software to keep an eye on its employees when they work from home. A leaked document purportedly from the company says that there is a concern that remote working could lead to a rise in data breaches. As such, it's planning to use software from a company called BehavioSec which tracks keyboard and mouse use. In a statement, Amazon said that it treated the security of user data with the highest respect, and that it was always exploring new ways of safeguarding its customers. Continue Reading.

The best VR headsets you can buy

There's something for every budget. 

HTC Vive Pro 2
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

If you've been waiting for VR to mature to the point where you can really get some value out of the technology, now may be the time. A number of companies are now making comfortable, usable and in some cases surprisingly affordable headsets for standalone and PC gaming. In our latest buyer's guide, we explore the best VR gear for most people, the most affordable way to get set up, and which headset comes out on top as the best that money can buy. Continue Reading.

Honor's new Magic3 heralds the company's glorious return

Photography is at the heart of this new handset, and the specs are outrageous.

Honor Magic 3
Honor

Honor, for many years, was a subsidiary of Chinese mega-corp Huawei responsible for making budget phones. When the US sanctions against the company began to bite, however, Huawei sold Honor off so it could try to flourish as a standalone business. Now, Honor is reintroducing itself to the world with the Magic3, a new flagship with a "more-is-more-is-more" approach to photography. The Magic3 Pro+, for instance, has a 50-megapixel primary camera, flanked by a trio of 64-megapixel sensors for zoom, wide-angle and monochrome photography. Honor says that it can even shoot cinema-quality video, which is a feature we can't wait to test. Continue Reading.

The new season of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' stays true to the show's core

The crew of the USS Cerritos is back.

CBS

The best Star Trek series since Deep Space Nine is back, and it's as good as it ever was in its first year. Lower Decks features the crew of the USS Cerritos, with an emphasis on those folks who aren't doing all of the top-tier adventuring on the bridge. In our preview of the second season premiere, you'll find out if it remains as funny as it was, if it stays true to the show's core and if it's worth tuning in, although given that it airs on Paramount+, we probably shouldn't say "tuning in'' any more, should we? Continue Reading.

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