Saturday, January 22, 2022

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'We Met in Virtual Reality’ finds love in the metaverse

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 03:40 PM PST

Mark Zuckerberg's vision of a sanitized, hypercapitalist metaverse will likely never be as compelling or idiosyncratic as VRChat, the virtual reality community that's been home to anime fans, Furries and a slew of other sub-cultures since 2014. That's my main takeaway from We Met in Virtual Reality, the first documentary filmed entirely in VRChat, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival today.

There's no chance Zuck's metaverse would let people wear trademarked avatars without paying a ton, attend exotic clubs to receive (or give) virtual lapdances, or allow users to build whatever the hell they want. VRChat, as portrayed by director Joe Hunting, is basically a proto-metaverse where anything is possible. And for many, it has served as a crucial social hub during the pandemic, a place where they can forget about the world, relax with friends and maybe find love.

But of course, that's been the nature of practically every online community. We're social animals — people have always been able to connect with each other over BBS, IRC, Usenet and the plethora of forums and chat services that populated the early internet. I spent most of the '90s hanging out in anime and gaming chat rooms, the sorts of places that today's connected youth would probably find quaint. Still, the people I met there helped me survive the worst parts of middle and high school. Those relationships, and the internet itself, shaped me into who I am (for better or worse).

We Met in Virtual Reality proves that the unbridled, experimental sense of online community is still alive and well today, despite relentless consolidation from Big Tech. But now, instead of staring at tiny CRT monitors, people are slapping on VR headsets to explore fully realized environments. Hardcore VRChat users are also investing in powerful computing rigs as well as upgrades like finger and whole-body tracking. In the '90s, I was grateful to get another 16MB of RAM so that I could have more than one browser window open. Today, VRChat devotees can communicate using American Sign Language, or have their anime avatars show off their belly dancing skills.

Hunting approaches his subjects with the eye of an anthropologist, without any judgment towards their sometimes ridiculous avatars (do all the anime ladies need to have jiggly, Dead or Alive-level boob physics?). We Met in Virtual Reality begins as a chill hangout flick — we follow a group of friends as they have virtual drinks and go on joyrides in crudely-built VR cars — but it quickly moves beyond the novelty of its setting. One person credits their VRChat girlfriend for helping them to "unmute" after being silent for two years. An exotic performer explains that being able to dance for people in VRChat helped her grieve with a family tragedy and manage a bout of alcoholism.

We Met in Virtual Reality
Joe Hunting

The film chronicles how that exotic dancer, a young woman based in the UK, formed a romantic relationship with another VRChat user in Miami. These sorts of cyber relationships aren't anything new, but the VR platform allowed them to do much more than trade links and memes over IM. They could exist in a space together, go on dates to new environments every night. I won't spoil where things end up for the couple, but I can say that it wouldn't have been nearly as effective outside of VR.

We Met in Virtual Reality effectively conveys why people would gravitate towards VRChat, especially during a pandemic. But it doesn't fully capture the wonder of exploring these environments yourself. Seeing people hop on a virtual rollercoaster isn't nearly as thrilling as doing it, where your entire field of vision is covered and you can easily get vertigo. But I don't blame Hunting too much for that; his job was to boil down the VR experience so people can enjoy it on a 2D screen, and the film is mostly successful in that respect. The film was shot using a virtual camera that could mimic all of the functionality of a typical shooter, from focus points to aperture levels. So even though it's produced in an alien environment most people aren't familiar with, it still feels like a traditional documentary.

Hunting has spent the past few years making VR documentaries, starting with a few short films, as well as the series Virtually Speaking. It's clear from We Met in Virtual Reality that he's not just dropping into the community for a quick story. Instead, he sees the humanity behind the avatars and virtual connections. These people aren't just escaping from their lives  with VR — their lives are being made richer because of it.

Robinhood opens cryptocurrency wallet to beta testers

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 02:57 PM PST

Back in September, Robinhood announced plans to test a cryptocurrency wallet within its app. At the time, the company said it would open the beta to a small number of people before expanding availability ahead of a full-scale release. If you joined the waiting list Robinhood create, you can now test the wallet for yourself – provided you were one of the first 1,000 people to sign up for the beta.

In a blog post the company published today, Robinhood said it would invite 10,000 individuals to the beta by March, with more to follow later. In addition to storing cryptocurrencies, the company's wallet allows you to move them off the app to other external wallets. During the testing period, the company will limit daily withdrawals to a total of $2,999. It will also limit users to 10 transactions per day, and, to take part in the beta, you'll need to enable two-factor authentication. With today's rollout, the wallet supports Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. 

As it works to polish the wallet, Robinhood says it will add "delightful" QR scanning experiences and an improved transaction history interface, among other features. When Robinhood first announced the wallet beta, it told The Verge it planned to make the feature available to everyone sometime in 2022.

Switch versions of 'Life is Strange' remaster and 'Dying Light 2' have been delayed

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 01:51 PM PST

Nintendo Switch owners will have to wait or look elsewhere if they want to play two of February's more notable new releases. In separate announcements, Square Enix and Techland shared they're delaying the Switch versions of Life is Strange: Remastered Collection and Dying Light 2 to beyond next month. Both games will arrive on time on other platforms as previously planned, with the former slated to come out on February 1st and the latter on February 4th.

On Twitter, Square Enix said the Switch version of Life is Strange: Remastered Collection won't be ready until later in the year. Dying Light 2 faces a similarly lengthy delay, with Techland telling Eurogamer it expects to make the title available on Nintendo's portable console through a cloud streaming client "within six months from the original date." Obviously, neither announcement is great news if you were planning to play those games on Switch, but at the very least, you can play them elsewhere.

Meta and Snap sued by mother over alleged role in her daughter's suicide

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 01:30 PM PST

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries.

A Connecticut mother has brought a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, as well as Snap, claiming the platforms to cause the sort of addiction her late daughter suffered prior to taking her own life at age 11 last July. 

Social media companies have been the target of various lawsuits over the years related to alleged harm to minors — oftentimes for failing to adequately prevent that harm, as in the case of teen who was bullied via an anonymous messaging app within Snapchat, leading to his eventual suicide. Tammy Rodriguez is instead making the case that the sort of "stickiness" these platforms are built to engender is inherently harmful, especially to young users like her late daughter Selena. 

Selena "struggled for more than two years with an extreme addiction to Instagram and Snapchat," the suit notes, a claim apparently backed by an outpatient therapist who had "never seen a patient as addicted to social media" during their evaluation. Although technically too young to be on either platform per their terms of service — Instagram and Snapchat state their minimum age for account creation is 13 — the mother points to the absence of parental controls, as well as the lack of strong age verification checks, which made policing her daughter's access to the services nearly impossible. "The only way for Tammy Rodriguez to effectively limit access to Defendants' products would be to physically confiscate Selena's internet-enabled devices," the suit claims, "which simply caused Selena to run away in order to access her social media accounts on other devices."

Use of the services, Rodriguez alleges, caused her daughter to suffer from depression, sleep deprivation, school absences, eating disorders, self-harm and led to her eventual suicide. 

Rodriguez argues that Snapchat's "unknown and changing rewards" are "akin to a slot machine but marketed toward teenage users who are even more susceptible than gambling addicts." Similarly, Instagram's design decisions "seek to exploit users' susceptibility to persuasive design and unlimited accumulation of unpredictable and uncertain rewards," in the form of likes and followers. These features, it's argued, are highly detrimental to teen and pre-teen users whose brains are still not fully developed, particularly in the realms of "impulse control and risk evaluation."

The claim mirrors, as well as quotes from, some of the concerns voiced by whistleblower Francis Haugen. Among the tranche of documents released to news organizations by Haugen was internal research showing that Instagram might be harmful to the well-being of users, especially young girls, as well as internal documents describing the loss of of this user cohort as an "existential threat" to the business. The effects of Instagram on children's well-being is also the subject of a current investigation by a bipartisan coalition of Attorneys General.  

We've reached out to Snap and Meta for comment and will update if we hear back.

Update 1/21/22 5:17pm ET: "We are devastated to hear of Selena's passing and our hearts go out to her family," a Snap spokesperson told Engadget. "While we can't comment on the specifics of active litigation, nothing is more important to us than the wellbeing of our community." 

Twitter's security leads are leaving the company

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 01:15 PM PST

New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is continuing to revamp the company's leadership. After removing the chiefs of engineering and design last month, Agrawal is bringing in new leaders for the security team.

The company confirmed to The New York Times that former head of security Peiter Zatko has departed, while chief information security officer Rinki Sethi will leave Twitter in the coming weeks. Agrawal is said to have told employees this week that the personnel decisions were made after "an assessment of how the organization was being led and the impact on top priority work."

Twitter hired Zatko, who's known as "Mudge" in the hacker community, in November 2020 in the wake of an incident that compromised many high-profile accounts. He previously worked at DARPA, Google and Stripe, and was a member of hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow in the '90s.

Sethi, a former IBM vice president of information security, also joined the company in the wake of the July 2020 Bitcoin hack. According to the Times, Twitter's head of privacy engineering Lea Kissner is taking over Sethi's former position on an interim basis.

Agrawal, who was previously chief technical officer, has wasted little time in reshaping Twitter after taking over the top job from Jack Dorsey in late November. The following month, Michael Montano and Dantley Davis, the former engineering and design heads, were ousted in service of "setting Twitter up to hit its goals."

The latest 'Star Trek: Picard' season two trailer teases a time-traveling adventure

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 12:42 PM PST

The wait is over. Following a first-look trailer back in June of last year, ViacomCBS has finally released a new clip from Star Trek: Picard. And there's a lot to unpack here. Through the machinations of Q, Picard and the crew of the La Sirena find themselves in 2024. Setting season two of the series in the near future may seem like lazy writing, but if you've seen Deep Space Nine, you know that's an important year in Star Trek's in-universe history that the franchise has explored in the past.

In "Past Tense," a two-episode arc from season three of DS9, a transporter anomaly (what else?) sends Commander Sisko, Dr. Bashir and Jadzia Dax to San Francisco circa the early 21st century. After the police leave him and Bashir in the city's "Sanctuary District," a ghetto that houses San Francisco's poor and sick away from its more well-off citizens, Sisko realizes they've arrived on Earth days before the Bell Riots, a moment that's pivotal to Star Trek's worldbuilding. And it's likely that moment Picard references at the start of the trailer. "There are some moments that haunt us all our lives," he says. "Moments upon which history turns."

The two episodes that make up "Past Tense" are widely considered some of the best the franchise has to offer, in large part because they directly address economic and racial injustice in American society. It's hard to say if Picard will have something meaningful to add to that conversation, but it's clear that's part of the intent here. At the very least, fans can look forward to a cameo from Whoopi Goldberg's Guinan.

In the US, season two of Star Trek: Picard will debut on Paramount+ on March 3rd. Amazon Prime Video will carry the series internationally, with the first episode available to stream beginning on March 4th.

Google files motion to dismiss four charges in antitrust lawsuit

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 11:40 AM PST

Google has filed a motion to dismiss most of an ad tech-focused antitrust lawsuit brought forward by a group of state attorneys general. It has requested that a federal court dismiss four of the six charges with prejudice, which would prevent them from being brought back to the same court.

"The complaint misrepresents our business, products and motives, and we are moving to dismiss it based on its failure to offer plausible antitrust claims," Adam Cohen, Google's director of economic policy, wrote in a blog post. The company says the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of wrongdoing for several of their allegations and that much of the suit "is based on outdated information that bears no correlation to our current products or business in this dynamic industry (and in any event never amounted to a violation of antitrust laws)."

The AGs, who are led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, claimed Google abused its power to shore up its position in the online ads market. They said the company agreed a "sweetheart deal" in 2018 that gave Facebook parent Meta a boost in ad header bidding (a type of tech allows publishers to solicit bids from multiple ad exchanges simultaneously) in exchange for support for Google's Open Bidding method of selling ads.

Google said the deal was above board and that it wasn't a secret, as Facebook Audience Network (FAN) was one of several partners for its Open Bidding program. Cohen said the deal "does not provide FAN with an advantage in the Open Bidding auction. FAN competes in the auction just like other bidders: FAN must make the highest bid to win a given impression, period. If another eligible network or exchange bids higher, they win the auction."

The AGs also alleged that Google harnessed at least three programs to manipulate ad auctions. The aim, according to the states, was to push publishers and advertisers into using the company's own tools.

"State Plaintiffs respond to Google's success by seeking to compel Google to share with its competitors the fruits of its investments and innovation," Google wrote in its filing. "They criticize Google for not designing its products to better suit its rivals' needs and for making improvements to those products that leave its competitors too far behind. They see the 'solution' to Google's success as holding Google back, rather than letting market forces urge its competitors forward."

As Reuters notes, the two other charges in the suit are based on state law and were stayed in September. Although Google hasn't asked for those to be dismissed, it reserved the right to make that request at a later date.

Court orders persistent 'Roblox' troll to stay off the platform

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 11:10 AM PST

A court in California has ordered Benjamin Robert Simon to pay $150,000 in damages to the creator of Roblox, reports Polygon. Roblox Corporation sued Simon in November, accusing the YouTuber of harassing its player base and repeatedly skirting its efforts to keep him off the platform. At the time, the company initially sought $1.65 million in damages from Simon.

Roblox Corporation's allegations against Simon, who is better known as Ruben Sim on YouTube, were numerous. The company said it had originally banned him from Roblox for using homophobic and racist slurs, as well as sexually harassing other players and uploading photos of Adolf Hitler.

The court ordered Simon to stay off the platform. He has also agreed not to make or publish "false threats of terrorist activity relating to Roblox." One of the most serious accusations the game's developer leveled against Simon was that he posted "false and misleading terrorist threats" that led to a temporary shutdown of the 2021 Roblox Developers Conference in San Francisco. The company claims it cost $50,000 to investigate the threat and secure the venue.

Simon has also been ordered not to go near the company's offices. In its original complaint, Roblox Corporation accused Simon of glamorizing a 2018 shooting incident at YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno, California, and threatening a copycat act of violence at its own office in nearby San Mateo.

Simon told Polygon he plans to upload a video about the complaint on his YouTube channel sometime in the "next couple months." The Roblox Corporation declined to comment on the outcome of the case.

Godzilla is headed to Apple TV+ in the MonsterVerse’s first live-action series

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 10:10 AM PST

Legendary Pictures has been trying to make the MonsterVerse a thing for a while now, and following Godzilla and King Kong's return to the movie theaters back in 2014, kaiju are now heading to the small screen in an upcoming series on Apple TV+.

Not content to simply feature the King of Monsters, the still-untitled show is set after a battle between Godzilla and other Titans reveals new info linking the monsters' attacks to a secretive organization called Monarch. In case you haven't kept up with the MonsterVerse, Monarch has made an appearance in a number of recent Godzilla and King Kong movies dating back to 2014's Godzilla, with Monarch typically serving as the multi-national organization overseeing the research and tracking of MUTOs (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms).

While neither Apple nor Legendary has yet to provide a cast list or release date for its upcoming Godzilla series, the show will be helmed by showrunner Chris Black (Outcast, Star Trek: Enterprise) and Matt Fraction, who is best known for his writing on the 2012 run of Marvel's Hawkeye comics. However, the big deal for kaiju-lovers is that the upcoming Godzilla show on Apple TV+ will be the first live-action series set in the MonsterVerse, and only the second TV show following the upcoming Skull Island anime on Netflix.

Currently, it's unclear how the new Apple TV+ series will tie into existing MonsterVerse movies – particularly last year's Godzilla vs. Kong which saw the big green dino team up with King Kong to battle a range of foes both ancient and modern. And despite 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters sometimes being deemed a disappointment due to middling ticket sales, Godzilla vs. Kong still managed to become one of the top 10 box office draws of 2021 while in the midst of a pandemic, which looks like a good sign ahead of Godzilla's upcoming move to the small screen.

A group of Activision Blizzard workers is unionizing

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 09:47 AM PST

Call of Duty: Warzone quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software have announced plans to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA). They have asked the company to voluntarily recognize their group, which is called the Game Workers Alliance. The 34-person unit had the support of 78 percent of eligible workers, according to Polygon.

"We ask that Activision Blizzard management respect Raven QA workers by voluntarily recognizing CWA's representation without hesitation," CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement. "A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven QA employees a voice at work, improving the games they produce and making the company stronger. Voluntary recognition is the rational way forward."

Workers have given Activision Blizzard until January 25th to respond to their request, according to The Washington Post. If the company fails to do so, the group will file for a union election through the National Labor Relations Board and, because the workers have a supermajority of votes, they'd be able to formalize the union without voluntary recognition from Activision Blizzard. Should the group approve the union in an election, the company would need to bargain with workers in good faith.

Sixty Raven workers went on strike in early December after Activision Blizzard laid off 12 QA contractors, despite a request from Raven leadership to keep them employed. The workers demanded the company convert all Raven QA contractors into full-time employees. So far, Activision Blizzard has reportedly been playing hardball and declining to meet with with the striking workers. Warzone players have been grousing about the game's bugs, which QA workers are tasked with finding and addressing.

"Activision Blizzard is carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company's nearly 10,000 employees," the company told Polygon. "While we believe that a direct relationship between the company and its team members delivers the strongest workforce opportunities, we deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union." It added that it has raised minimum pay for Raven employees by 41 percent over the last few years, extended paid time off and converted over 60 percent of the studio's contractors into employees.

The CWA claims Activision Blizzard has "used surveillance and intimidation tactics, including hiring notorious union busters, to silence workers." Last July, the company hired WilmerHale, a law firm with a history of cracking down on unionization efforts, to review its HR policies.

The Game Workers Alliance said its principles include solidarity, equity, diversity, transparency and sustainability. "Shortened development timelines sacrifice project quality and damage the mental and physical health of our team," it wrote on Twitter. "'Crunch' is not healthy for any product, worker, or company."

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced an agreement to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the biggest deal in video game history. If shareholders and regulators approve the acquisition, which could have enormous ramifications for the industry, the merger should close by June 2023.

In an interview with the Post on Thursday, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer noted that he didn't have much experience with unions personally after working at Microsoft for over three decades. "So I'm not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I'll say we'll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us," he said.

On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing regarding the planned merger that, "To the knowledge of the company, there are no pending activities or proceedings of any labor union, trade union, works council or any similar labor organization to organize any employees of the company or any of its subsidiaries with regard to their employment with the company or any of its subsidiaries." The week that Raven workers went on strike, Activision Blizzard sent its employees a letter imploring them "to consider the consequences" of signing union cards.

As Bloomberg's Jason Schreier noted, the Game Workers Alliance is the first union within a AAA gaming company in North America. Last month, workers at Vodeo Games formed the first video game union in the US. Management at the indie studio voluntarily recognized Vodeo Workers United. Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive signed a collective bargaining agreement with unions in 2020, while Japanese–Korean publisher Nexon recognized a workers' union in 2018.

Leak offers a glimpse at Microsoft's canceled Andromeda OS for dual-screen devices

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 09:26 AM PST

Before Microsoft announced the Surface Duo in 2019, the company spent several years working on an operating system codenamed Andromeda. It was envisioned as a reboot of Windows Phone with an emphasis on inking. The company worked on the software until it eventually decided to instead include Android on the Surface Duo. Until now, we've only seen glimpses of Andromeda in things like patent filing. But Windows Central recently obtained an internal build of the operating system and installed it on a Lumia 950.

Outside of a rare look at an unfinished project, what's interesting about seeing Andromeda after all these years is how many of the ideas Microsoft was working on then either made their way to the Surface Duo or apps the company has released since. On the lock screen, for instance, you can see an early version of the Surface Duo's peek functionality. Meanwhile, a lot of the features you see on the "Journal" home screen eventually made their way to the company's Whiteboard app, and that's something you can download from the Microsoft Store.

At the same time, it's an interesting look at what could have been. Even in the software's unfinished state, there's a lot we see in the video that's genuinely different from anything Android and iOS offer, even to this day. The fact Andromeda allowed you to jot down notes directly on the lock screen, and that they would still be there the next time you unlocked the phone, is something that looks genuinely useful.

Of course, there are probably many good reasons Microsoft ultimately decided not to pursue Andromeda. Launching a device that does something different, let alone a completely new operating system, is no easy task in a mature marketplace. Unless a device does nearly everything right, it's difficult to overcome the fact most people tend to stick with products they know and are comfortable with.

iRobot's Roomba j7+ is $250 off, plus the rest of the week's best tech deals

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 08:45 AM PST

A bunch of new tech sales cropped up at the start of the week for things like robot vacuums, game controllers and more, and many of them are still around today. A trio of iRobot devices remain discounted, with the most affordable of the bunch coming in at $179. Some of Amazon's Fire tablets are up to 50 percent off, while Xbox's Elite Wireless Series 2 controller is back down to $140. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

iRobot Roomba j7+

The new Roomba j7+ is $250 off right now and down to $599 at both Amazon and Wellbots. The higher-end Roomba s9+ is also $250 and down to $850. The former just came out at the end of last year and has 10x the suction power of a standard Roomba plus advanced obstacle avoidance, which means it will avoid things like pet poop more easily than other models. The s9+, on the other hand, has 40x suction power and a more corner-friendly design. Both also support automatic emptying and come with clean bases, too.

Buy Roomba j7+ at Amazon - $599Buy Roomba j7+ at Wellbots - $599Buy Roomba s9+ at Amazon - $849Buy Roomba s9+ at Wellbots - $849

iRobot Roomba 694

The Roomba 694 is down to $179, or $95 off and a return to its record-low price. It earned a spot in our best budget robot vacuums guide thanks to its strong cleaning power, on-device button controls and handy companion mobile app.

Buy Roomba 694 at Amazon - $179

24-inch iMac M1

2021 Apple iMac
Apple

Apple's 8-core GPU iMac is down to $1,399, or $100 off. This is the latest 24-inch, M1 iMac that we gave a score of 89 for its speedy performance, stunning display and impressibly thin design.

Buy 24-inch iMac at Amazon - $1,399

Amazon Fire tablets

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020)
Valentina Palladino / Engadget

A number of Amazon Fire tablets are on sale, with some of the best deals being on the Fire HD 8 and HD 8 Plus, both of which are 50 percent off. The Fire 7 tablet is 30 percent off and down to $35 as well. We think the Fire HD 8 slabs are the better ones to get since they have improved designs, USB-C charging, long battery lives and decent performance.

Buy Fire HD 8 at Amazon - $45Buy Fire HD 8 Plus at Amazon - $55Buy Fire 7 at Amazon - $35

Xbox Elite Wireless Series 2 controller

Microsoft Xbox Elite Series 2 controller
Microsoft

Microsoft's Elite Wireless Series 2 controller for Xbox remains on sale for $140, or $40 less than usual. If you want to treat yourself (or someone else) to a fancy gaming accessory, this is a good option. It comes with six thumbsticks, four paddles, two D-pads, a charging dock, a carrying case and a USB-C cable, and its battery can last up to 40 hours on a single charge.

Buy Series 2 controller at Microsoft - $140

Samsung Galaxy Buds 2

The Galaxy Buds 2 are down to $100 right now, or $50 off their normal price. We gave them a score of 84 for their improve sound quality, adjustable ambient sound mode, comfortable design and support for wireless charging.

Buy Galaxy Buds 2 at Woot - $100

Samsung Galaxy S21 FE

Samsung's latest smartphone, the Galaxy S21 FE, is officially available and starting to ship and Amazon throws in a $100 gift card if you order the handset through the online retailer. We briefly tested the FE at CES 2022 and called it "last year's flagship without the frills," and it includes a 5-nanometer processor, a 120HZ display, a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, a larger battery and more.

Buy Galaxy S21 FE bundle at Amazon - $700

Samsung T7 Touch SSD

Samsung T7 Touch SSD in black and silver against a white background.
Samsung

The Samsung T7 Touch SSD in 1TB is down to a record low of $140 right now. That's even better than the price it was during the holiday shopping season last year. We like the drive's compact design, fast speeds and built-in fingerprint reader for extra security.

Buy T7 Touch (1TB) at Amazon - $140

Libro.fm

Engadget readers can get a total of two free audiobooks when signing up for Libro.fm, the audiobook subscription service that supports local bookstores. Similarly to Audible, a Libro.fm membership costs $15 per month and gives you one audiobook credit per month, plus 30 percent off any audiobooks you buy á la carte.

Subscribe to Libro.fm - $15/month

New tech deals

83-inch Sony A90J Bravia XR OLED smart TV

This massive Sony OLED set is $2,000 off right now, bringing it down to a record low of $6,000. It includes features like Cognitive Processor XR, Motion Clarity, HDMI 2.1 for gaming, Acoustic Surface Audio+, Dolby Vision and more.

Buy 83-inch Sony A90J OLED at Amazon - $6,000Buy 83-inch Sony A90J OLED at Best Buy - $6,000

Elgato Ring Light

Elgato's Ring Light is cheaper than ever at $150 on Amazon. Online content creators like game streamers will probably get the most out of this gadget, but it could be useful if you need better lighting for Zoom calls too. It has a 2500-lumen output, onboard brightness and color temperature controls and integration with Elgato's Stream Deck.

Buy Elgato Ring Light at Amazon - $150

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

'The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask' joins Nintendo Switch Online in February

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 08:19 AM PST

Soon after adding Banjo-Kazooie to Switch Online's Expansion Pack, Nintendo is preparing to bring another classic game to the service. In February, The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask will join the lineup.

It'll be interesting to see whether Nintendo has resolved the emulation issues many players had with Ocarina of Time, the predecessor to Majora's Mask, on Switch. Majora's Mask is one of the most highly regarded Zelda games, so it'd be disappointing if the full experience of the N64 title isn't properly replicated on the handheld console.

Nintendo announced Expansion Pack, a higher tier of Switch Online that includes Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games, back in September. It said at the time Majora's Mask was one of the games in the pipeline for the service. Other N64 titles on the way include F-Zero X, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Mario Golf and the original Pokémon Snap.

DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman leaves Google

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 07:20 AM PST

Mustafa Suleyman, a co-founder of artificial intelligence research company DeepMind, has left Google to join venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Suleyman has brought to an end an eight-year run at Google, where he was most recently the company's vice president of AI product management and policy.

He joined Google when it bought DeepMind in 2014 and became the latter's head of applied AI. Suleyman was reportedly placed on administrative leave in 2019 following allegations that he bullied employees. Suleyman, who moved to Google at the end of that year, said on a podcast with Greylock partner Reid Hoffman this week that he "really screwed up" and that "I remain very sorry about the impact that that caused people and the hurt that people felt there."

As The New York Times notes, Suleyman was among those who resisted Google's AI endeavors with the US Department of Defense. Google ended up backing out of that project, though in November it said it was making a bid for the Pentagon's Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability cloud contract.

DeepMind may be best known for its AI systems that can compete with the best human players of certain games. Google has also employed DeepMind's knowhow to improve arrival time estimates in Google Maps, track wildlife and detect breast cancer.

Samsung's 1TB T7 Touch SSD is $50 off at Amazon

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 06:05 AM PST

Samsung's handy T7 Touch portable SSD is cheaper right now than it was during the holiday shopping season just a couple of months ago. The 1TB black model is down to a new low of $140, which is $50 off and the best price we've seen it. Most other versions are also discounted, including the 500GB model for $105, but you'll get the best deal if you go for the black 1TB drive.

Buy T7 Touch (1TB) at Amazon - $140

Storage gadgets are some that are useful to keep around, but often expensive to get your hands on. That's why we recommend waiting for a sale like this one to pick up an extra drive, SD card and the like while you can get them for less. Samsung's T7 Touch is a palm-sized portable SSD with read speeds up to 1,050 MB/s and write speeds up to 1,000 MB/s, plus features like Dynamic Thermal Guard to control heat levels. While the drive supports optional password protection, the kicker here is its built-in fingerprint reader that you can use as an extra layer of security.

The T7 Touch's compact design helps it fit into nearly any bag you may be carrying, plus its shock- and drop-resistant aluminum unibody should protect it from too much damage if it accidentally takes a tumble. We also appreciate that it comes with both USB-C to C and USB-C to A cables, allowing you to use the drive with most laptops, smartphones, tablets and even some game consoles.

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German Bionic's connected exoskeleton helps workers lift smarter

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 06:00 AM PST

We're still quite a ways away from wielding proper Power Loaders but advances in exosuit technology are rapidly changing how people perform physical tasks in their daily lives — some designed to help rehabilitate spinal injury patients, others created to improve a Marine's warfighting capabilities, and many built simply to make physically repetitive vocations less stressful for the people performing them. But German Bionic claims only one of them is intelligent enough to learn from its users' mistaken movements: its 5th-generation Cray X.

The Cray X fits on workers like a 7kg backpack with hip-mounted actuators that move carbon fiber linkages strapped to the upper legs, allowing a person to easily lift and walk with up to 30kg (66 lbs) with both their legs and backs fully supported. Though it doesn't actively assist the person's shoulders and arms with the task, the Cray X does offer a Smart Safety Companion system to help mitigate common lifting injuries.

"It's a real time software application that runs in the background and can warn the worker when the ergonomic risk is getting too high," Norma Steller, German Bionic's Head of IoT, told Engadget. "For example, recommending a break because we know that… the repetition and the overall stress can lead to fatigue, and fatigue can lead to injuries. This is something we want to prevent."

The SSC not only collects granular telemetry information — what load is being lifted, ergonomic risks such as twisting while lifting, and potential environmental factors — it uses a machine learning algorithm to analyze that data to adapt the exoskeleton to the worker wearing it via OTA software updates. Not only is this data displayed to the workers themselves on an attached monitor, the Cray X also transmits that data up the supervisory chain allowing managers to monitor the movements of their employees to ensure that they are not overexerting themselves.

"Since we are collecting every single step and every single lift, the data that we provide is much more accurate," Steller noted. The data the Cray collects is gathered from real-world use, not lab tests or supervised trials where workers are on their best ergonomic behavior. "Especially in logistics, every single step, every single lift, every single trend is usually planned. But sometimes in the real world, not every plan comes to fulfillment and then we suddenly see workplace performance drop very, very quickly. And with the data we provide, you can actually do an investigation and figure out why [that drop off is occurring]."

The Cray X 5th Generation exoskeleton
German Bionic

Steller sees the Cray X as a "preventative device" designed to ensure workers don't overextend or overexert themselves. "We are a preventative device, so we are preventing injury," Steller added. "We're not considered a medical [device manufacturer]. We consider ourselves an exoskeleton for industrial use." As such, the Cray X is IP54 rated for dust and moisture so it can work in all but the dingiest of warehouse environments.

And though the Cray X is designed to be put on and taken off in under a minute, it can be worn for up to a full work shift without being removed thanks to the 5th generation's new hot-swappable 40V battery system.

"We implemented the hot swapping function so that you can just drop it on the spot without having to turn off the device," Marius Kiss, Head of Mechanical R&D at German Bionic, told Engadget. "You can pull out the [spent battery] for a new one, place the old one on the charger — we use the Makita fast charging stations which charge the battery in like 30 to 40 minutes — and then you can just move on. You could potentially work like eight hours without having to take off the exoskeleton."

For as useful as the current generation of exoskeletal technologies are today, the German Bionic team sees them becoming even more capable, and widespread, in the years ahead. "My feeling is that we will see much more specialized exoskeletons in the future because the technology is more available." Steller said. "I think they will enter our world, not only in the B2B industrial sectors. We will see them basically everywhere because we have the chance to augment our body and usually humans take the chance to do that. We will see them everywhere, without any real limitation but very specialized to the use case."

"I really see everyone on the street wearing an exoskeleton in one form or another," Eric Eitel, German Bionic's Head of Communications, added. "But I think that the exoskeletons that we are looking for in the future are the active ones. I see them being a lot slimmer, smarter and connected."

And even as the technology expands to consumer uses, Eitel believes exoskeletons will likely remain a common sight in industrial settings. "There are still a lot of workspaces that cannot be automated and I think that's going to stay like that for a long time. You still have to rely on people so we don't want to replace all the humans. I really see that technology is going alongside [automation]."

"We see robots more as companions, our product is actually a companion," added Kiss. "I think this can be just another possibility, I mean, there's still situations where automation still makes a lot of sense. When you go into dangerous environments, you should actually automate that. But why should we automate everything?"

Engadget Podcast: James Webb’s eye in the stars, Microsoft buys Activision

Posted: 21 Jan 2022 05:30 AM PST

Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is safely on the way to its orbital home, Cherlynn and Devindra chat about why it's so important with Space.com editor-in-chief Tariq Malik, as well as science and technology journalist Swapna Krishna. They dive into why it's such a big upgrade from Hubble, as well as the discoveries astronomers hope to make about exoplanets, black holes and our own solar system. Also, Senior Editor Jessica Conditt joins to chat about Microsoft's mammoth $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Is more consolidating a bad thing for the video game industry? (Spoilers: Probably.)

Listen above, 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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Topics

  • James Webb Space Telescope post-launch update – 1:07

  • Microsoft buys Activision/Blizzard for $68.7 billion – 31:03

  • Working On – 58:46

  • Pop Culture Picks – 1:01:06

Video livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guests: Tariq Malik and Swapna Krishna
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos and Luke Brooks
Graphic artists: Luke Brooks, Kyle Maack 
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