Thursday, December 23, 2021

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Amazon workers in New York make another attempt at forming a union

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:35 AM PST

Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gather over 2,500 worker signatures or half of the 5,000 people employed at the facility.

The workers are hoping to form the Amazon Labor Union, which will be an independent group that's not connected to any major national union. One of their lead organizers is Christian Smalls who led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon fired Smalls after that, telling CNBC that he "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines." Even so, Smalls is still very much involved in the facility's renewed efforts to unionize. In an email to The Washington Post, he referenced what happened at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse, saying that "long drawn-out voting processes are controlled by the bosses who use that period to lie to, intimidate and threaten the workers into voting no for the union."

Majority of the workers at the company's Bessemer, Alabama facility voted against unionization back in April. However, the election was fraught with controversy, with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — the union the workers were supposed to join — accusing Amazon of interfering with the elections. One of the main issues they pointed out was that the company installed the ballot box in front of the warehouse and in view of security cameras, making workers feel as if their votes were being monitored. After looking into the RWDSU's complaint, the NLRB ordered Amazon to hold another vote. 

Amazon has been adamantly opposed to its workers joining unions. When the people at JFK8 first filed a petition to unionize, the e-commerce giant told Engadget in a statement:

"As a company, we don't think unions are the best answer for our employees. Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly. That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle. The benefits of direct relationships between managers and employees can't be overstated — these relationships allow every employee's voice to be heard, not just the voices of a select few. We've made great progress in recent years and months in important areas like pay and safety. There are plenty of things that we can keep doing better, and that's our focus — to keep getting better every day."

The NLRB has confirmed to The Post that it received the group's petition and would be reviewing signatures over the coming days.

The Morning After: A smartphone that feels like paper?

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:15 AM PST

Realme, the sister brand of Oppo and OnePlus, has revealed its new flagship GT 2 Pro, and the most notable feature may not be a tech spec, but literally how it feels. The body of the phone uses an eco-friendly bio-polymer material on its back cover. It's made from paper pulp, and it has obtained International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (or ISCC in short) as proof of its environmental bonafides.

TMA
Realme

Apparently, this adds a satisfying paper feel to the GT 2 Pro, which Realme is calling "Paper Tech Master Design," tapping Muji and Infobar series designer Naoto Fukasawa for his input. For now, the phone launches in China on January 4th, 2022, with the device eventually going overseas later next year.

-Mat Smith

A 'robot lawyer' could help you get unbanned from social media

The service is meant to help people who were wrongly suspended from their accounts.

When users are wrongfully suspended from their social media accounts, it's difficult to figure out how to regain access. Now, the "robot lawyer" company DoNotPay, which offers automated legal services, has a new feature: getting social media accounts unbanned.

It's an alternative to emailing companies' help center bots or appeals that may never get answered. Instead, DoNotPay asks users for information about what happened to them, and sends a letter to the relevant company's legal department on their behalf.

Continue reading.

LG Display's concept bike makes your Peloton look like a toy

It's got several OLED concepts ready for CES 2022.

TMA
LG Display

This is the "Virtual Ride" stationary bike. It features three vertical 55-inch OLED displays that form one continuous screen in front and above the rider. The topmost panel has a 500R curvature radius. According to LG Display, that's the most extreme curve in a large screen to date. No word on whether it has a pause button.

Continue reading.

FDA authorizes Pfizer's Covid antiviral pill for people 12 and older

The Paxlovid treatment could be available within a few days.

The FDA has issued emergency authorization for Pfizer's antiviral pill Paxlovid, making it the first oral method for treating mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. The treatment is meant for high-risk people 12 and older who could progress to a more serious COVID infection. Paxlovid will be available by prescription only, and is meant to be taken within five days of first noticing COVID symptoms.

According to Pfizer's tests, it can reduce hospitalization or death by 88 percent in high-risk patients. The treatment, which can be prescribed to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, consists of 30 pills taken over five days. So far, the US has ordered enough pills to treat 10 million people.

Continue reading.

Square Enix sharpens up Final Fantasy 14's blocky grapes

The low-poly fruit became a meme.

TMA
Square Enix

Square Enix has rolled out the first Final Fantasy XIV patch after the ultra-popular Endwalker expansion arrived in November. Along with adding more quests, items and a raid dungeon, the update addressed various issues. One of those was a so-called bug fix that targeted some delightfully janky-looking grapes. Just don't expect them to suddenly look photo-realistic.

Continue reading.

The OnePlus 10 Pro will be revealed in January

Rumors suggest the device will be the only model in the 10-series lineup.

OnePlus is gearing up to show off its next smartphone, and it seems we won't have to wait long to get our eyes on it. It will reveal the OnePlus 10 Pro next month, according to co-founder and CEO Pete Lau, who wrote "OnePlus 10 Pro, see you in January," on Weibo. Rumors suggest OnePlus will only reveal a single phone this time around, instead of the usual approach of having a base model and a pro device. Leakers have already offered a peek at what the phone may look like, with several unofficial renders. It seems OnePlus will again use Hasselblad cameras, while the OnePlus 10 Pro screen is slated to be a 6.7-inch QHD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Continue reading.

Tesla under investigation for 'Passenger Play' gaming feature

The NHTSA is looking into how games being played while the car's moving may distract drivers.

Tesla came under fire earlier this month following reports that certain games are playable on dashboard infotainment systems while an EV is in motion. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating Tesla over the so-called "Passenger Play" function. While the feature prompts players to acknowledge they're a passenger before they start a game, the NHTSA said Passenger Play "may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash." Before the summer, Passenger Play was only available when the EV was in park.

Continue reading. 

 

The biggest news stories you might have missed


Steam's Winter Sale offers discounts on 'Horizon Zero Dawn,' 'Deathloop' and more

Democrats push Mark Zuckerberg on Meta's actions prior to January 6th Capitol attack

In 2021, Tesla's phenomenal profits were offset by constant crisis

NASA delays James Webb telescope launch due to poor weather

What to watch over the 2021 holidays

Google disables 'Hold for Me' feature on the Pixel 6 following buggy update

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 03:15 AM PST

Last year, Google introduced an exclusive feature for Pixel devices called "Hold for Me" that can alert you when a business finally picks up your call. However, that function has been temporarily disabled on the Pixel 6 due to a bug in the December update, XDA Developers has reported. Pixel 6 owners may also lose the Call Screening tool that stops robocallers from ringing your phone, Google said in a community post. 

"In light of a bug in the December Android update, we are disabling Hold For Me and Call Screening on Pixel 6 devices running on the Android S December QPR release," the company wrote. The issue only affects Pixel 6 phones with the latest December 2021 security update, and not any older devices. If you haven't yet received the update, you should continue to have access to those features. 

Hold for Me started as a US exclusive feature but was recently expanded to Canada, as XDA Developers noted. It uses Google's Duplex technology AI to detect when a real person comes on the line to take your call, sparing you the pain of listening to looped elevator music or pre-recorded messages. Google's Call Screening tech also uses Duplex AI tech, which launched with the promise of automatically making restaurant reservations for you. 

Apple Watch Series 7 falls to a new low of $339 at Amazon

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 02:28 AM PST

With features like a bigger screen and faster charging, Apple's Watch Series 7 is a great gift idea — but the $399 price tag could be hard to swallow. However, you can now pick up the 41mm model (in green only) at a new all-time low of $339 at Amazon, for a savings of $60 or 15 percent off. 

Buy Apple Watch Series 7 at Amazon - $339

The Watch Series 7 brings a subtle new design with a larger screen that makes a big difference for readability and control. It's more sporty thanks to new IP6X dust-resistance and improved crack-resistance, and offers faster charging if you tend to use it a lot — even for sleep tracking. As with past models, you get a strong watchOS 8 app ecosystem and solid health features like sleep-tracking and ECG measurements. 

It can also monitor your respiration rate while you sleep, and it comes with exclusive watch faces, larger font sizes/buttons and a Qwerty keyboard. The main drawback is with the sleep tracking. Unlike devices from Fitbit and Samsung, the Watch Series 7 can't detect what sleep zone you're in, for one thing. And it won't detect when you've fallen asleep, so you'll need to make sure you have the Sleep Focus mode to log your slumber. 

Still, Apple's Watch is the best selling smartwatch by far for good reason, and as the latest model, the Series 7 is the benchmark. With $60 off the price, there's never been a better time to get one.

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

Samsung's 2022 TVs and monitors will support its new HDR10+ Gaming standard

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 01:26 AM PST

Samsung's 2022 televisions and monitors will support its recently unveiled HDR10+ Gaming standard, the company announced. That means they'll deliver a variety of features for gamers like variable refresh rates (VRR) at up to 120Hz and automatic HDR color correction on a game-by-game basis. 

The standard will be used by Samsung's 2022 Neo QLED lineup with the Q70 TV series and above, along with gaming monitors, the company said. It didn't mention any models, but it showed a wide-screen gaming display (below) and what could be a 2022 Neo QLED TV with very slim bezels. 

Samsung's 2022 TVs and monitors will supports its new HDR10+ Gaming standard
Samsung

HDR10+ Gaming slipped under the radar when it was first announced, but it appears to be a move to counter Dolby Vision HDR for gaming found on Xbox Series X/S consoles. It provides a "consistent HDR gaming experience without the need for manual calibration across a variety of display technologies for various input sources, including consoles, PCs and more," Samsung said.

The idea with HDR10+ Gaming is that you won't need to use any manual settings, as the game engine itself automatically optimizes color calibration in real-time. It's designed to deliver details in dark shadows and highlights, while configuring the display to a "true reference mode" so colors are displayed as intended by the developer. It also supports VRR at up to 120Hz along with tone mapping that won't add any extra latency to the gaming signal.

As with HDR10+, however, the challenge for Samsung is getting developers to adopt the standard for games. Dolby Vision gaming is already available or is coming to over 100 games on Xbox Series X/S, so Samsung has some catching up to do. It did say that "several companies, including Saber Interactive, are expected to showcase their HDR10+ Gaming titles" at CES 2022 (if it takes place). 

Samsung could make some headway with PC gaming, however, as Dolby Vision is only available on a handful of PC titles. To help pave the way for HDR10+ PC games, Samsung said that NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series, RTX 20 Series and GTX 16 Series GPUs will support HDR10+ with drivers "scheduled for release in 2022." 

Apple closes more stores due to surge in COVID-19 cases

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 12:35 AM PST

A bunch of Apple Stores across the US and Canada won't be able to cater to customers' last-minute holiday shopping. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant temporarily shut down eight locations due to a surge in COVID-19 cases both among the public and among its employees. Apple typically shutters a retail store if around 10 percent of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19, the news agency said. 

The following locations have been closed since Tuesday:

  • Dadeland in Miami

  • The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach

  • Lenox Square in Atlanta

  • Cumberland Mall in Atlanta

  • Highland Village in Houston

  • Summit Mall in Ohio

  • Pheasant Lane in New Hampshire

  • Sainte-Catherine in Montreal

The company also shut down stores in Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio, Ottawa (Canada) and Texas earlier this month, though it only lasted for a few days. One of its retail locations in Miami, however, remains shuttered. The company told Bloomberg in a statement: "We regularly monitor conditions, and we will adjust our health measures to support the well-being of customers and employees. We remain committed to a comprehensive approach for our teams that combines regular testing with daily health checks, employee and customer masking, deep cleaning and paid sick leave."

Perhaps in an effort to persuade people to shop online instead, Apple is offering customers "free two-hour courier delivery on eligible in-stock items." The offer doesn't apply to "customized Mac, engraved products and... certain order types including orders paid for with financing or by bank transfer." But so long as the product is eligible and available — it's the holidays and companies are still struggling from component shortages, so availability will most likely be limited — buyers can get their orders delivered for free if they order before 12PM on December 24th.

Apple had taken other steps earlier this month following the rise in cases and the emergence of the Omicron variant. It had chosen to delay its return-to-office plans, which were slated to begin in February, and reinstated mask requirements across all its stores in the US.

Samsung teases a PCI 5.0 SSD that can hit 13,000 MB/s read speeds

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 11:03 PM PST

Samsung has teased a PCIe 5.0 SSD showing that storage products should keep doubling in speed every few years, even while Moore's Law is decelerating. Designed for enterprise servers, the PM1743 SSD can hit read speeds of up to 13,000 MB/s and handle 2,500K input/output operations per second (IOPS) — nearly double what the best PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives can do. 

PCIe 5.0 supports up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), double that of PCIe 4.0. To harness that bandwidth, Samsung developed a proprietary controller and worked with Intel to test it. "Together, we have jointly resolved complicated technical issues encountered with PCIe 5.0 during this initial evaluation period," said Intel's Technology Initiatives Director Jim Pappas.

The SSD delivers sequential write speeds of 6,600 MB/s and a random write speed of 250K IOPS, again nearly doubling current specs. It also offers improved power efficiency of up to 30 percent. "This is expected to lower server and data center operating costs significantly, while also helping to reduce their carbon footprint," Samsung wrote. 

While PCIe 5.0 is now inevitable, the next version isn't far behind, either. The PCI Special Interest Group has already unveiled a PCI Express 6.0 specification that could hit up to a blistering 256GB per second across 16 lanes — twice as fast as PCIe 5.0 and four times quicker than the 4.0 spec. However, that format will need to use a new trick called Pulse Amplitude Modulation technology that can carry twice as much data as existing methods without the need to use ridiculously high frequencies.

Samsung is now sampling the PM1743 PCIe 5.0 SSD for select customers and has plans to mass produce it in the first quarter of 2022, with capacities ranging from 1.92 terabytes (TB) to 15.36TB. It's also expected to be the first PCIe 5.0 SSD with dual-port support, guaranteeing server operation when a connection to one port fails. The first customers are likely to be data centers, but such technology usually trickles down to consumers a year or so later — so plan accordingly if you have any 16K video editing projects or whatever coming up. 

LG made some wild curved OLED concepts for CES 2022

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 05:00 PM PST

LG Display will showcase two flexible OLED concepts at CES 2022 – assuming the pandemic doesn't claim the annual trade show as its latest victim. The first one is the "Virtual Ride" stationary bike. It features three vertical 55-inch OLED displays that form one continuous screen in front and above the rider. The topmost panel has a 500R curvature radius. According to LG Display, that's the most extreme curve among large screens to date.

LG Stationary Bike
LG

The second concept is the "Media Chair." It's a recliner with a 55-inch OLED TV attached to it. It features a 1,500R curvature, which LG says is ideal for a use case like this one. It also includes the company's Cinematic Sound OLED technology, allowing the display to create sound without external speakers. Lastly, the display can alternate between portrait and landscape orientations with the touch of a button located on the armrest of the chair.

Like with most CES concepts, the likelihood we'll see LG commercial either the Virtual Ride or Media Chair is slim. That's not to say the company hasn't brought some of its past concepts to market (the OLED R comes to mind), but it's better to see these latest ones as a showcase of how much LG's display technology has advanced in recent years.

FDA authorizes Pfizer's Covid antiviral pill for people 12 and older

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 12:51 PM PST

The FDA has issued an emergency authorization for Pfizer's antiviral pill Paxlovid, making it the first oral method for treating mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. The treatment is meant for high-risk people 12 and older who could progress to a more serious COVID infection. The best part? The FDA says it could be available to use within a few days, making it another tool as we face the Omicron variant wave.

Paxlovid is available by prescription only, and it's meant to be taken within five days of first noticing COVID symptoms. According to Pfizer's tests, it can prevent hospitalization or death by 88 percent in high-risk patients. The treatment, which can be prescribed to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, consists of 30 pills taken over five days. It includes the protein inhibitor nirmatrelvir and rotinavir, which keeps that inhibitor from breaking down in your body. Side effects include an impaired sense of taste, high blood pressure, diarrhea and muscle aches. 

"This authorization provides a new tool to combat COVID-19 at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and promises to make antiviral treatment more accessible to patients who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19," Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement.

So far, the US has ordered enough pills to treat 10 million people, the New York Times reports. The company plans to deliver enough pills to cover 65,000 Americans within a week. And after that, production is expect to ramp up, with 150,000 courses delivered in January and 150,000 in February. It also won't be the only antiviral pill around: Merck's competing treatment is expected to be approved soon, and it'll likely be more readily available than Pfizer's. Merck's option is far less effective, though—tests show it can only prevent hospitalization or death by 30 percent. (Still, that's better than having no treatment.) 

How a ‘robot lawyer’ could help you get unbanned from social media

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 11:45 AM PST

Just weeks after Facebook rebranded itself to "Meta," the longtime owner of @metaverse Instagram suddenly found herself locked out of the account she had run for years. A message told Thea-Mai Baumann she was suspended for impersonation, though she had never pretended to be anyone else. Her account was returned after The New York Timeswrote a story about the ordeal, but the company never offered an explanation for how the mistake was made.

While what happened to her was unusual, one aspect of Baumann's story is more common: that people who are wrongfully suspended from their social media accounts often have little or no recourse for getting them back (at least, not without media attention).

Now that group may have another option. The "robot lawyer" company DoNotPay, which offers automated legal services, has a new offering: getting social media accounts unbanned.

The new service, which is included with DoNotPay's $36 monthly subscription, offers users an alternative to emailing companies' help center bots or wiring appeals that may never get answered. Instead, DoNotPay asks users for information about what happened to them, and sends a letter to the relevant company's legal department on their behalf.

the service can help get banned accounts back online.
DoNotPay

"These platforms prioritize legal cases," DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder tells Engadget. "When you're just writing into customer service, they don't really take it seriously." Legal departments, on the other hand, are much more likely to respond, he says.

In the appeal, the company also tries to "match" your appeal with a "legal reason why they can't ban you," using state and federal laws that may apply. The letter also includes a deadline for the company to respond. He says that so far PayPal and Instagram have been among the most-requested services for unbanning. But the service will work with other platforms as well, including Twitter, Snapchat, Uber, Tinder, YouTube, Twitch and others.

Crucially, Browder points out that the service is not intended for people who were banned from a platform for legitimate reasons, like violating its terms of service. And even for those who were wrongly suspended, he estimates the odds of actually getting an account back as the result of this process are around 20 percent.

But even if the appeal isn't ultimately successful, Browder says there are other benefits to the process. For one, companies are required to turn over users' data regardless of whether their account was suspended. So even if you are unable to, say, regain access to your Instagram account, DoNotPay can ensure the company hands over your account details. There's also the fact that sending a legal demand letter can cause a much bigger headache for a company than ranting to customer service agents.

"In general in America, they do have the right to ban you," Browder says. "We don't overstate that we can make miracles happen, but we can punish them a lot and get your data."

Steam's Winter Sale offers discounts on 'Horizon Zero Dawn,' 'Deathloop' and more

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 11:19 AM PST

Steam's Winter Sale is now underway. From today until January 5th, Valve is offering steep discounts on some of the best PC games you can buy right now. For instance, Arkane's thrilling immersive simDeathloop, which only came out this past September, is currently 50 percent off, making it $30 at the moment.

Another recent highlight, Sony's Horizon Zero Dawn, is currently $25, down from $50. If season two of The Witcher has made you want to experience more of Geralt's adventures, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is 80 percent off. You can pick up the Game of the Year edition, which includes the game's fantastic Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions, for just under $10.

If indies are more your jam, one of my personal favorites from the past year, Death's Door, is 25 percent off until the new year. For $15, you can't get a much better Zelda-inspired title than that. Eastward, an action RPG with one of the most beautiful pixel art styles in recent memory, is 10 percent off, marking the first time it's been on sale. If you want to catch up on some older gems, may we suggest Disco Elysium and Hades? They're currently priced at $18 and $16.24, respectively.

We'll also note here both GOG and the Epic Games Store recently kicked off their own winter sales, so if you prefer those storefronts, make sure to check them out too.

The OnePlus 10 Pro will be revealed in January

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 10:40 AM PST

OnePlus is gearing up to show off its next smartphone, and it seems we won't have to wait long to get our eyes on it. It will reveal the OnePlus 10 Pro next month, according to co-founder and CEO Pete Lau. "OnePlus 10 Pro, see you in January," Lau wrote on Weibo, as spotted by Gizmodo.

If OnePlus does reveal its next phone in January, it will mark a shift in the brand's usual timeline. Over the last few years, it has announced its flagship handsets in March or April, typically after Samsung debuts the newest Galaxy S series phones.

Rumors suggest OnePlus will only reveal a single phone this time around, instead of the usual approach of having a base model and a pro device. In the past, OnePlus has followed up the flagship devices with a T-series model as well, but it decided not to release a 9T this year.

Lau previously said 10-series devices will have a new Android 13-based operating system that OnePlus is sharing with Oppo. The two formally merged this year under the ownership of BBK Electronics, with OnePlus becoming a sub-brand of Oppo.

Leakers have already offered a peek at the next OnePlus phone through unofficial renders. It seems OnePlus will again use Hasselblad cameras, while the OnePlus 10 Pro screen is slated to be a 6.7-inch QHD+ display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Lau confirmed earlier this month that the upcoming device will use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.

Indie RPG 'Weird West' has been delayed to March 31st, 2022

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 10:15 AM PST

Weird West, the new immersive sim from Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio, won't come out this year. On Wednesday, Colantonio's Wolfeye Studios said it was delaying the title to March 31st, 2022. In an email Weird West publisher Devolver Digital sent to Engadget, Wolfeye said it needs more time to address various bugs and other issues.

As part of the game's closed beta, players have found accidental deadends that can come up as part of gameplay, making it impossible to complete a playthrough. Those types of issues are not unusual for an immersive sim where a player's choices can have a dramatic effect on the state of the game world. In Weird West, there's the added complication that time moves forward even if your character dies. To that end, Wolfeye said it wants to create the best possible experience, even if it means fans have to wait another three months to experience its first project. 

Amazon reinstates mask mandates across all of its warehouses

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 10:06 AM PST

Workers in Amazon's considerable warehousing operations will be required to wear masks, again. The shift comes as US cases have spiked again due to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, and will apply to all "operations facilities, FCs [fulfillment centers], sort centers, and delivery stations," effective today, according to an email shared with Engadget.

Amazon made temperature checks and masking a requirement in April of last year. It allowed individuals who were 14 or more days past their final dose of the vaccine to unmask in May. That decision was seen, at least by some workers, as premature.   

"You may choose to wear your own two-layered, reusable and/or disposable cloth face covering, as long as it complies with site safety requirements (e.g. no long scarves, bandanas, or gaiters)" the email reads, "If you do not have one, face coverings will be available for you to wear upon entering the building." The company wrote that it hopes the requirement will only last the winter.

While laudable that the company is attempting to reduce transmission of the virus during its busiest season, Amazon does not have the sunniest track record where COVID precautions are concerned. Workers at several locations raised concerns that they were not being informed when positive case were discovered at their facilities. In California, the company was fined $500,000 for "concealing" cases from workers. 

Are you a tech worker with concerns about your job, safety, or the work you're required to do? I'd love to hear from you. Reach out confidentially on Signal at 646 983 9846.

Square Enix sharpens up Final Fantasy 14's charmingly blocky grapes

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 09:43 AM PST

Square Enix has rolled out the first Final Fantasy XIV patch after the ultra-popularEndwalker expansion arrived in November. Along with adding more quests, items and a raid dungeon, the update addressed various issues. One of those was a so-called bug fix that targeted some delightfully janky-looking grapes in one of the new areas.

"An issue wherein the polygon count of grapes in Labyrinthos were reduced in excess to alleviate system memory usage in the area," Square Enix wrote at the end of the latest patch notes, perhaps in an attempt to bury the biggest news from the update. "They have been adjusted to be comparable to those found at the Crystarium."

The low-poly model quickly became a meme after the expansion went live, as PC Gamer notes, with some players embracing the blocky aesthetic and other, more foolish players incorrectly deriding the grapes as ugly. So, not everyone may be on board with the smoothed-out edges of the model.

It's hard to call this a fix, since it's a shame Square Enix changed the look of the grapes. They looked fine as is. The previous version felt like a refreshing throwback to some 3D games from the '90s, like the original Tomb Raider. In any case, the latest twist in the saga of the grapes goes to show developers can't please everyone all the time, even when they're tackling apparent bugs. 

Democrats push Mark Zuckerberg on Meta's actions prior to January 6th Capitol attack

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 09:17 AM PST

A group of 13 Democratic senators led by Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jack Reed of Rhode Island has called on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to answer how Facebook handled misinformation enforcement ahead of the January 6th US Capitol attack. Citing documents and testimony shared by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, they say they want to know why the company "prematurely" removed safeguards it had in place before the 2020 presidential election.

"This action allowed misinformation, disinformation, and violent rhetoric to return to the platform immediately following Election Day and in the lead-up to the January 6th insurrection," the group said.

Many of the questions center around Meta's defunct Civic Integrity team. During her testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, Haugen said that the company dissolved shortly after the 2020 election. That's a claim Meta has consistently disputed.

"We did not disband Civic Integrity," Guy Rosen, Meta vice president for integrity, told Time in October. "We integrated it into a larger Central Integrity team so that the incredible work pioneered for elections could be applied even further, for example, across health-related issues. Their work continues to this day."

To that point, the group asks Zuckerberg when Meta made the decision to disband the team and who ultimately made it. They also want to know what part of Meta is currently responsible for overseeing its efforts to prevent election-related misinformation, in addition to details like how many employees the company has assigned to that division. Beyond those questions, the group says they want to know how Meta plans to protect the integrity of future elections.

"While we acknowledge the efforts Facebook took to prevent the spread of election-related misinformation and disinformation, violent rhetoric, and harassment prior to the 2020 elections, it clearly was not enough to prevent lies about the election from taking root on the platform and fueling violence against our democracy," Klobuchar, Reed and the 11 other senators said.

The group stops short of threatening regulatory action against Meta. It's possible the Senate could call on Zuckerberg to testify much like Instagram head Adam Mosseri was asked to do earlier this month. While most US lawmakers agree more needs to be done to regulate Facebook and other social media platforms, Democrats and Republicans have found little common ground on how to approach the issue.

Tesla under investigation for 'Passenger Play' gaming feature

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 08:15 AM PST

Tesla came under fire earlier this month following reports that certain games are playable on dashboard infotainment systems while an EV is in motion. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating Tesla over the so-called "Passenger Play" function.

The preliminary evaluation from the agency's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) covers around 580,000 Model 3, S, X and Y vehicles sold since 2017. While the feature prompts players to acknowledge they're a passenger before they start a game, the NHTSA said Passenger Play "may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash."

A report from the New York Timesindicated that an update Tesla rolled out in the summer made three games playable while a car is moving. Before then, Passenger Play was only available when the EV was in park. The NHTSA told Engadget earlier in December that it was speaking to Tesla about the feature.

The ODI said the preliminary evaluation will assess the driver distraction potential of Passenger Play while the EV is moving. It will look into various aspects of Passenger Play, including use scenarios and how often it's used.

In announcing the investigation, the NHTSA cited a report that was filed with the agency in August. "Tesla is now making interactive video games and live internet web searching possible on the main front seat display while the car is driving," the complaint reads. "Why is a manufacturer allowed to create an inherently distracting live video which takes over 2/3 of the screen which the driver relies on for all vehicle information? Creating a dangerous distraction for the driver is recklessly negligent."

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The company no longer has a PR department.

In 2021, Tesla's phenomenal profits were offset by constant crisis

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 08:00 AM PST

The close of 2021 finds Tesla wealthier than ever — and, in CEO Elon Musk's case, wealthier than everybody else. The electric vehicle manufacturer notched records for both deliveries and profits this year despite a global chip shortage that decimated supply chains worldwide, effectively kneecapping the rest of the automotive industry's production capacity. However its financial successes were often overshadowed by Tesla's continuing production quality issues, multiple NHTSA and SEC investigations, high profile failures of its vaunted "Full Self Driving" system, as well as numerous vehicle recalls and delays for upcoming models. And with existing industry stalwarts like Ford, GM, Honda and the Volkswagen Group making concerted efforts to electrify their own offerings, could 2022 be the year that Tesla's reign as top EV automaker finally ends?

The Good

2021 was, without a doubt, a banner year for Tesla's bottom line. The company entered this year having met its 2020 goal of producing a half-million vehicles (of which it delivered 499,550 to customers), a nearly 133,000 unit increase over 2019. By April, Tesla had produced a record 180,338 vehicles and delivered 184,800 of them. Demand remained strong throughout the first half of the year thanks, in part, to price cuts on both the Model 3 and Model Y.

The company then broke its same record in July, having built 200,000 vehicles over the past three months, earning Tesla $1.1 billion in net income during the same period. "Public sentiment towards EVs is at an inflexion point and, at this point, I think almost everyone agrees that electric vehicles are the only way forward," Musk said during the Q2 earnings call.

Unsurprisingly, Tesla's record-breaking trend continued unabated through Q3 with the company rolling 237,823 vehicles off its production lines — nearly all of which were of the Model 3 and Model Y varieties — and delivering 241,300 of them. The company also began taking pre-orders for the UK version of the Model Y in October and announced that those Model Ys destined for the Chinese market would be receiving upgraded AMD Ryzen chipsets.

Tesla capped off its stellar financial year with announcements from Hertz that it plans to order 100,000 vehicles (though there remains uncertainty about how that deal will actually play out) and from Uber Eats that it intends to rent as many as 50,000 Tesla vehicles to its drivers.

The Bad

While Tesla enjoyed unabashed sales success with its core lineup, the company often struggled to meet release deadlines for a number of its yet-to-be-released models. Both the Cybertruck and Semi have both been pushed back to 2022 while the Tesla Roadster reportedly won't be arriving until at least 2023. Tesla also took the strange tack of releasing an "entry-level" standard range Model Y for just a few weeks before discontinuing the trim level. Similarly, Tesla pushed back the release of its $130,000 Model S Plaid edition to June 10th, debuting it mere days after Musk unilaterally announced that the Model S Plaid+ was canceled outright,

The company was also beset by a wide array of production woes and vehicle recalls this year. In February, Tesla bowed to pressure from the NHTSA and recalled 135,000 Model X and S vehicles on account of faulty touchscreens. That same month, Tesla was forced to issue a recall for another 12,300 Model Xs on account of loose trim panels. In April, customers reported that the company had double-charged them for their vehicles, up to $71,000 in some cases, though Tesla was quick to reimburse the affected buyers and even threw in a $200 gift certificate for the company store.

June saw yet another recall, this time for 6,000 Model 3 and Ys over faulty brake caliper bolts, and in October, Tesla had to recall another set of Ys and 3s because their suspensions kept separating. Just last month, the company had to pull nearly 12,000 vehicles from across its product line on account of software issues — that's not to be confused with the recent Tesla App outage that locked drivers around the world out of their own vehicles.

Tesla's parade of crises also extended to the production lines themselves with the Fremont factory facing a sizeable COVID outbreak shortly after reopening in March. Musk complained often and loudly throughout 2020 over California's quarantine lockdown laws and finally made good on threats to take his toys and go home, officially moving Tesla's headquarters to Texas in October.

The company was also ordered to pay $137 million to former employee Owen Diaz after a San Francisco federal court jury found Tesla liable for the unconscionable racial bigotry Diaz faced while working at the Fremont plant. That lawsuit has been followed up by another, filed in November by Jessica Barraza who alleged "rampant sexual harassment" as well as continued verbal and physical abuse while she worked at the Fremont location.

Tesla's Full Self Driving beta also turned out to be a mixed bag for the company in 2021. Following its debut in October of last year, beta 8.3 rolled out in May, doubling the size of the test program, before releasing beta 9 in July. Version 9's rollout coincided with a new FSD subscription program charging customers $199 a month (or $99 a month if they'd previously purchased the now-discontinued Enhanced Autopilot feature) — assuming they already had the $1,500 FSD computer hardware installed in their vehicle.

However, Tesla's decision to abandon radar-based autonomation sensors in favor of an optical-only setup in May led to a backlash from the NHTSA which subsequently forced the company to remove some of its driver-assist designations such as forward collision and lane departure warnings. In an effort to counter claims that the use of the Autopilot feature can cause drivers to become inattentive and less responsive once they resume control of the vehicle, Tesla activated its in-car driver monitoring cameras in late May.

FSD beta 10 arrived to great fanfare in September with owners noting smoother turns on city streets, improved display visuals and an overall improvement in the vehicle's off-highway navigation. Those feelings were short-lived when, in October, the company was forced to revert its beta 10.3 implementation after becoming aware of "some issues," per Musk, including a "regression" with left turns. Users also reported phantom forward-collision warnings and auto-steering bugs.

The company's FSD faults — which have been implicated in multiple crashes where Teslas inexplicably rammed into first responder vehicles and other civilian drivers as well as a widely-reported wreck in Houston with nobody behind the wheel — has led to calls for increased scrutiny from and by the NHTSA, NTSB, the US Senate, and even the California DMV.

The FSD feature also prompted a 300,000-unit recall at the behest of the Chinese government over the ease in which FSD can be activated, though that was far from the only issue Tesla faced with the nation. In April, China banned Tesla vehicles from its military bases and "key state-owned companies" over fears that the cars' myriad cameras could be leveraged for espionage. After nearly a month of wrangling and appeals to social media, Tesla finally caved to China's cybersecurity demands and established a local clearinghouse for that data.

The Musk

And what would a Year in Review of Tesla be without a look back at CEO Elon Musk's unique brand of shenanigans? Last October, Musk unilaterally disbanded Tesla's PR department, thereby making his personal Twitter account the first, last and only stop for confirmation of the company's decisions. This January, Musk reversed course slightly and, instead of reforming the department, began hiring people to respond to customer complaints made toward him on the social media platform.

Speaking of tweets, Tesla was also sued this year for allegedly breaking a previously struck deal with the SEC by allowing Musk to continue sending unapproved, "erratic" tweets as well as for the company failing to obtain a neutral general counsel to reign in its CEO. The National Labor Relations Board also went after Tesla in 2021, finding that the company had illegally fired a union activist. The NLRB consequently demanded that the worker be rehired and Musk delete a 2018 union-busting tweet related to the case.

2021 was also the year that Musk leaned hard into crypto. Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of the stuff in February and briefly toyed with the idea of allowing customers to use the currency to purchase its vehicles, though those plans were quickly canned over concerns about Bitcoin mining's environmental impacts. Musk also took time out of his Saturday Night Live hosting duties in May to crash the value of Bitcoin rival Dogecoin, though his later tweets helped the price of Dogecoin rebound, to a degree.

And then there was the whole Tesla "Robot" debacle, which I can't even, I mean, it was literally just an actor in a spandex jumpsuit dancing around while Musk made a bunch of wildly unsubstantiated claims.

What's Next

Looking ahead to 2022, Tesla appears to be on track for continued success. Its Berlin Gigafactory is nearly ready to start production and is expected to do so by the end of this month – barring any unforeseen setbacks. The company's stockpile of chipsets and aggressive maneuvers to shore up supplies of battery precursor materials will insulate Tesla from many of the production bottlenecks that many other EV automakers are likely to struggle with throughout the new year.

However, even with Tesla's record-breaking production figures from the past couple of years, the number of vehicles it delivers annually is still a small fraction of what more established automakers sell. BMW, for example, sold 2.3 million vehicles worldwide in 2020. In the same year, GM sold 2.5 million in the US alone. And as those companies increasingly turn their attention to the EV market while leveraging economies of scale that Tesla cannot match, Musk's company could soon find itself relegated back to being a niche EV brand rather than an industry titan.

iRobot's smart-mapping Roomba i7 is on sale for $399

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 07:35 AM PST

With features like smart house mapping and voice assistant control, iRobot's Roomba i7 is among the best robotic vacuums you can get. As a relatively high-end device, however, it normally commands a pretty high price ($540) — but you can now pick one up at Amazon for just $399, for a savings of $141 (26 percent).

But iRobot Roomba i7 at Amazon - $399

You can program the Roomba i7 to clean at certain times, or just yell at Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant to start it up if there's some unscheduled filth. Once in operation, it's one of iRobot's quietest vacuums yet thanks to a change in the placement of the motor. On top of that, it supposedly has twice the suction power as the Roomba 960. 

It does a great job of avoiding obstacles and cleaning efficiently, thanks to the smart mapping feature that can create an entire plan of your house. You can then label each area and ask it to only clean specific rooms. It's ideal if you have pets, as the multi-surface robber brushes supposedly won't tangle up with pet hair. It also traps 99 percent of cat and dog dander allergens. 

The i7 won't automatically empty its bag like the Roomba i7+ or j7+, but guess what: the latter model is still on sale at Amazon's all-time low price of $649 ($200 off). The Roomba j7+ has many of the same features as the i7, but can dump its waste into a bin that you only need to empty every couple of months. It also has longer battery life and AI-powered vision that can detect pet waste and other nasty stuff. The only drawback is that it's not quite as good for low-pile carpet as the i7, and takes a bit longer to charge. 

Buy iRobot Roomba j7+ at Amazon - $649

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

What to watch over the 2021 holidays

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 07:25 AM PST

It's been a surprisingly solid year for television. Partially because many major film releases ended up hitting streaming services early. (Don't forget about Warner Bros. unprecedented decision to stream their releases on HBO Max when they hit theaters.) Film and TV productions that were delayed due to the pandemic in 2020 also managed to cross the finish line thanks to safer shooting schedules and vaccines. The result was a wealth of content for couch potatoes.

As you settle in for holiday celebrations, here are a few selections that you may have missed during the year. (And be sure to check out our recommendations from last year!)

Netflix

Arcane

I'll be honest: I didn't expect much from a League of Legends TV show. But Arcane surprised me with its well-written characters, wonderfully realized fantasy world and luscious animation. While there are some killer action sequences, what really makes Arcane work is its commitment to mature storytelling. Characters you love will die. Villains are never one-note and heroes are never perfect. It's not only a solid video game adaptation, it's one of the best TV shows to debut this year.

Midnight Mass

Religious-focused horror may seem more like anti-holiday programming, but that's not going to stop us from recommending Midnight Mass. The show is an exploration of dogma, fanaticism, our connection to the cosmos and another compelling series from the rising horror master Mike Flanagan. Unlike his previous haunted house entries (The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor), Midnight Mass focuses on a small island community off the coast of Massachusetts, the sort of place that has its own demons festering under the surface. I won't spoil what happens, but it's the sort of thing that fans of Stephen King will eat up.

Also on Netflix:

The Power of the Dog: Jane Campion returns to feature films with a hauntingly beautiful Western. Benedict Cumberbatch steals the show as a monstrous cowboy poisoned by the spell of toxic masculinity.

Voir: The latest Netflix project from director David Fincher is a series of visual essays about the power of cinema from some of the best critics and thinkers today.

Gabby's Dollhouse: An adorable cat-themed show about a young girl who goes on the occasional dollhouse adventure.

HBO Max

Hacks

A once-legendary comedian (Jean Smart) is forced to team up with a young, semi-cancelled writer (Hannah Einbinder) to whip her act into shape. Hilarity ensues. Hacks takes this simple sitcom premise and elevates it with Smart's ferocious performance. On the face of it, it's a story about two creative generations learning to coexist. But really, it's the story of lost people finding direction in each other. It's the sort of genius comedy and drama we'd expect from the folks behind Broad City.

Starstruck

A lost twenty-something (Rose Matafeo) accidentally has a one-night stand with a movie star (Nikesh Patel). Again, hilarity ensues. (HBO Max really has a knack for collecting great show premises!) Starstruck is the rare season of TV that you can easily binge all at once—it's just six twenty-two minute episodes. But I'd recommend taking your time. Matafeo is uproariously funny, but there's also a romantic undercurrent that makes you root for these crazy kids.

Also on HBO:

The White Lotus: Rich resort-goers vs. the people who are forced to cater to them. It's great to see another funny, yet deeply human, show from Mike White.

Search Party: This former TBS show (now an HBO Max original) is the best hipster murder mystery you'll ever see.

Succession: There are plenty of shows about rich blowhards these days, but Succession stands out as a sharply written dark comedy filled with characters you love to hate.

Hulu

Reservation Dogs

Stories about the everyday lives of Native Americans are far too rare, so it's refreshing to see a dramedy like Reservation Dogs. Set in a rural Oklahoma reservation, it follows a group of teenagers as they get into trouble, help their community, and pursue their dream of moving to the promised land of California. It's the first TV series to feature an entirely Indigenous crew of writers and directors (it was co-created by the ever-delightful Taiki Waititi), and it's a reminder of how the push for better on-screen representation can lead to fresh storytelling.

Also on Hulu:

Top of the Lake: If you're looking for a smart crime thriller, don't sleep on this Jane Campion series. It stars Elisabeth Moss as an Australian detective who, across two seasons, investigates cases focusing on missing and murdered women.

Y: The Last Man: The rare adaptation that manages to improve on its source material, Y is a compelling portrait of a world where almost every person with a Y chromosome dies, leaving women in charge.

Apple TV+

For All Mankind

One of the first Apple TV+ series has evolved from being a mildly intriguing alternative history tale — what if the Soviet Union landed on the Moon first? — to one of the best dramas ever made about space travel. My advice? Get past the rocky first two episodes to find the show's true genius: NASA's push to get more women, and eventually people of color, into space. If it miraculously lasts several seasons, I wouldn't be surprised if For All Mankind shows us how something like Star Trek's space-faring society could be formed.

Also on Apple TV+:

Dr. Brain: Apple's first Korean series, from visionary director Kim Jee-woon, explores the possibility of downloading and reliving someone else's memories. Strap in – it's a lot.

Disney+

Hawkeye

Even if you're tired of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hawkeye is worth a watch simply because it's fun. Clint Barton has never been the most interesting Avenger, but he's fantastic as the foil to Kate Bishop, a plucky arrow-slinging protege. It may not reach the heights of Loki or Wandavision, but it's miles ahead of the supremely disappointing Falcon v. Winter Soldier.

Also on Disney+:

The Beatles: Get Back: An astounding fly-on-the-wall documentary featuring some previously unseen Beatles footage.

Star Wars: Visions: The anime spin on Star Wars I've always dreamed of.

Bluey: Hands down the best kids show on TV.

Other things to watch

Yellowjackets (Showtime): An elite girls' soccer team gets stranded in the woods after a plane crash. How did they manage to stay alive for over a year? Yellowjackets follows the surviving adults as they try to figure out who's digging into their traumatic past.

Star Trek Prodigy (Paramount+): What happens when a group of alien kids get their hands on an Enterprise starship? Something we've never seen in the Star Trek universe before: how people outside of the affluent Federation live. Prodigy features some genuinely fun characters and gorgeous animation in a kid-friendly package.

AWS had another outage, this time affecting apps like Slack and Hulu

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 07:00 AM PST

If you find that some apps, websites and games are having trouble loading this morning or seem more sluggish than usual, there might be an explanation. Amazon Web Services, on which many apps and websites run, experienced more difficulties today, impacting a number of services for at least the third time in the last few weeks.

AWS said on its service health dashboard that there was a power outage at a data center in the US-EAST-1 region. It first reported issues at 7:35AM ET. By 8:39AM ET, power had been restored to "all instances and network devices within the affected data center" and AWS noted services that use the data center for hosting and were impacted by the outage were starting to recover. Around 25 minutes later, it said the majority of AWS services had recovered, but noted it was still trying to remedy issues with some Elastic Block Store volumes (a type of AWS storage) due to "degraded IO performance."

Among the affected services were Epic Games Store — which said internet service outages were impacting logins, library, purchases and more — and Slack, which noted it was having trouble with uploading files, editing messages and other features. Imgur, Asana, family location sharing app Life360, Udemy and Honeywell and Fall Guys are among the services that reported issues, while the likes of Hulu, Rocket League, Grindr and the McDonalds app also suffered difficulties, according to user-submitted reports on Down Detector. At the time of writing, some of those issues are ongoing.

An AWS outage on December 7th impacted the likes of the Associated Press, Disney+ and Vice. AWS later said an issue with an automated capacity scaling feature was the cause. A brief outage on December 15th affected Twitch, Slack and online gaming services.

Realme's latest flagship phone apparently feels like paper

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 05:55 AM PST

It was only a matter of time before someone other than Fairphone delivered a sustainability-themed smartphone (which is a good thing, of course). Realme, the sister brand of Oppo and OnePlus, announced that its upcoming flagship GT 2 Pro features an eco-friendly bio-polymer material on its back cover — apparently a first in the mobile industry. Better yet, Realme has once again collaborated with Muji and Infobar series design icon Naoto Fukasawa, who finished the GT 2 Pro's design with a textured paper feel on the body. They call this "Paper Tech Master Design."

Realme GT 2 Pro
Realme

This bio-polymer material, supplied by Saudi Arabia's SABIC, is based on paper pulp, and it has obtained International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (or ISCC in short) to prove its environmental friendliness. The Realme GT 2 Pro's packaging also uses much less plastic than its predecessor — from an overall plastic ratio of 21.7 percent down to a mere 0.3 percent.

The phone itself packs some surprises, too. For one, it's one of the first devices to be powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, following the Moto Edge X30. The GT 2 Pro is also the world's first smartphone with a 150-degree ultra-wide camera (most are at around 120 degrees), which offers a unique fisheye camera mode for some fun photography. 

There are also some noteworthy features on the radio side. In Realme's "Antenna Array Matrix System" here, there's the "world's first" ultra-wide-band antenna switching technology, which lets the phone switch to whichever of the 12 antennas has the best signal strength. In addition, this system consists of a symmetrical Wi-Fi antenna which apparently boosts signal stability by up to 20 percent. 

NFC 3 antenna array
Realme

But the most interesting feature here is perhaps the "360-degree NFC," which is achieved by hooking up the NFC module to the top two cellular antennas as well as its own, thus forming an "NFC 3 antenna array." This allows the upper part of the GT 2 Pro to read NFC on either side, which should make the likes of contactless payment and Bluetooth pairing easier.

For now, the Realme GT 2 Pro is only slated for a China launch at 7:30PM local time (6:30AM ET) on January 4th, 2022, but a company spokesperson confirmed that it will eventually go overseas. Given the brand's track record, this device will likely be competitively priced, but we're just eager to check out Fukasawa's latest mobile design in person — especially the supposedly paper-like texture. Stay tuned for more technical specs, prices and our hands-on.

NASA delays James Webb telescope launch due to poor weather

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 05:20 AM PST

The James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready for launch after 14 years in development. NASA cleared its launch readiness review and gave it the go-ahead for launch, which was supposed to take place on December 24th. Unfortunately, poor weather conditions have prompted the agency to delay its launch yet again. James Webb will be lifting off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket with the new target date of December 25th and a launch window of between 7:20 AM and 7:52 AM Eastern time.

This is the closest the telescope has ever gotten to starting its month-long journey towards its destination. It's been delayed numerous times in the past due to one reason or another — NASA targeted an October launch date after its development was delayed by the pandemic, but it determined that the telescope wouldn't be ready until November or December. 

NASA (and its partners, the European and Canadian space agencies) then targeted a December 18th launch date, before pushing it back to December 22nd. The James Webb team needed the extra time to inspect the telescope and make sure nothing was damaged during an incident that happened at testing. Its launch was delayed to December 24th after that because of a communication issue between the telescope and its Ariane 5 launch vehicle. This time, NASA had already conducted a news conference confirming that the telescope is ready for launch before announcing the new target date.

After the James Webb telescope arrives in its orbit near the second Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system, researchers around the world will be able to use it to peer at some of the universe's earliest galaxies, look into black holes and assess exoplanets' habitability. NASA will confirm the new launch date this evening.

Honor's first foldable smartphone will be the Magic V

Posted: 22 Dec 2021 04:45 AM PST

Honor has teased the launch of its first foldable smartphone, the Magic V, on Twitter and Weibo. The former Huawei sub-brand called it "Honor's first foldable flagship," and said it will be released "soon," though the company didn't provide an exact date.

Rumors have been circulating about a possible Honor folding device, particularly after the company applied for the terms "Magic Fold" and "Magic Wing" with China's trademarking authority. The company's CEO George Zhao told CNET in 2019 that it was interested in building a folding phone, while its former parent Huawei recently released its third-gen folding device, the Mate X2.

Other details are scant, but a rumor from The Elec stated that an upcoming Honor folding phone would use ultra-thin glass with an 8.03-inch folding display and 6.45-inch exterior screen. If accurate, that means it would be much like Samsung's Galaxy Fold 3 and not the Galaxy Flip 3. Given that it's a flagship, it should have a relatively high-end processor and other parts.

Huawei sold Honor in November 2020 in order to "ensure it's survival," so Honor has been independent for just over a year now. Unlike with Huawei devices, Google apps are available on Honor smartphones. 

Along with Samsung, Huawei and now Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo and Motorola have recently released various types of folding smartphones. Google is also reportedly working on at least one folding Pixel device and recently announced a version of Android designed for tablets and foldables.
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