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First trailer for Apple's ‘Shining Girls’ sees Elisabeth Moss hunt a time-traveling killer

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 03:17 PM PST

Apple has shared the first trailer for its upcoming TV+ exclusive Shining Girls. Starring Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale fame as a Chicago reporter in search of the man who assaulted her, the series will debut on April 29th with the first three episodes of the series available to stream that same day. Subsequent episodes will follow every Friday for the next five weeks.

Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, Shining Girls also stars Hamilton actor Phillipa Soo and Wagner Moura, best known for portraying Pablo Escobar in Netflix's Narcos. The story centers around a man named Harper Curtis, a Depression-era drifter who finds a house in Chicago with doors to other time periods. Curtis uses that power to kill young women with bright potential. The protagonist of the tale, Kirby Mazrachi, survives her encounter with Curtis and then turns the tables on him.

Google made a more accessible icon for Chrome

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 02:26 PM PST

If you recently downloaded the latest Canary release of Google Chrome, you may have noticed the icon is different. The change marks the first time in eight years that Google has redesigned the symbol representing its iconic web browser. At first glance, it doesn't look that different, but there's more to the refresh than meets the eye. In a Twitter thread spotted by The Verge, Google designer Elvin Hu details the thought process that went into the redesign.

If you look carefully, you'll notice Google removed the shadows that were part of the icon, opting for a more flat design that's in line with the company's other products. It also changed the proportions of the symbol while brightening up the individual colors that make it up. But the most impactful change the company introduced is that it added subtle gradients to the green and red segments of the icon. Hu says the company found that certain shades of those two colors produced an "unpleasant color vibration" when placed next to one another. You can see a more apparent example of the phenomenon Hu talks about on this website. Either way, the result of the change is an icon that is "more accessible."

Depending on where you use Chrome, you'll see additional subtle changes. That's because Hu says Google spent time customizing the icon to make it more at home in every operating system where you can download Chrome. On macOS, for instance, the symbol will look more three-dimensional. On iOS, meanwhile, there will be a special blueprint version of the icon tied to the beta release of the software. According to Hu, we'll see the refreshed icon roll out over the next few months.

Ford limits production at North American plants due to chip shortages

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 01:19 PM PST

Stop us if you've heard this one before, but a North American automaker is about to temporarily reduce its manufacturing output due to the ongoing global chip shortage. A Ford spokesperson told Reuters on Friday the automaker would cut or suspend production at eight of its factories across the US, Mexico and Canada. The shutdown will start on February 7th. Among other facilities, the decision will affect the Kansas City plant where Ford produces the F-150, one of its most popular and profitable vehicles.

This isn't the first time Ford has felt the chip crunch, nor has it been the only automaker affected by the situation. Last September, General Motors temporarily suspended production at all but four of its North American factories amid component shortages. At the start of the year, the US Commerce Department warned semiconductor-related supply constraints would last until at least the second of half of 2022. "We aren't even close to being out of the woods," Department Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the time. 

Companies like Ford have taken action to address the problem. In November, the company announced a strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries to boost US semiconductor production, but the automaker likely won't benefit from that arrangement for a while. In the meantime, Ford told Reuters it expects its production volume to "improve significantly" in the second half of the year.

HBO Max's revival of 'The Boondocks' has been canceled

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 12:19 PM PST

HBO Max is not bringing back The Boondocks for an additional two seasons. In 2019, before the streaming service was even available, WarnerMedia announced that it had greenlit a 24-episode revival of the beloved Adult Swim animated series that was supposed to debut in the fall of 2020. In the two years since that announcement, there's been almost no news about the series. Until now.

In an interview with the Geekset Podcast spotted by Gizmodo, Tom DuBois voice actor Cedric Yarbrough said the reboot isn't moving forward. "I hate to say this, but right now the show is not coming back," Yarbrough told the podcast. "Sony [Pictures Animiation]… they decided they're going to pull the plug." Yarbrough didn't say why the company made that decision but noted that recording sessions for the show had started. We've reached out to WarnerMedia for comment.

The fact we won't get two more seasons of The Boondocks is interesting in light of all the money WarnerMedia has spent to establish HBOMax as a destination for adult animation. Shortly after announcing the show's revival, the company paid a reported $500 million to secure exclusive US streaming rights to South Park. It's also tapped people like J.J. Abrams to create a new animated Batman series for the platform. The Boondocks was supposed to be one of the first releases in that push.

House passes bill that would put billions toward US chip production

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 11:21 AM PST

On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act of 2022 almost entirely along party lines. Among other measures, the sprawling 2,900-page bill allocates $52 billion in grants to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing. It also authorizes nearly $300 billion for research and development.

If enacted, the legislation would represent the most comprehensive attempt by the US to match China's recent technological and industrial dominance. However, as The New York Times points out, it is unlikely to pass in its current iteration. Much of that comes down to ideological differences between how Democrats and Republicans think the federal government can best position the country to compete against China.

Republicans say the legislation includes too many extraneous provisions to address climate change. For instance, it earmarks $8 billion in contributions to the Green Climate Fund, an initiative created by Paris Agreement to help developing countries deal with the crisis. Republicans also say the bill doesn't do enough to hold China accountable.

However, Democrats and Republicans broadly agree the federal government should spend more money to support local chip production. When Intel announced it was building a $20 billion semiconductor fabrication plant in Ohio last month, the company noted it could eventually invest as much as $100 billion in the facility over the next decade if Congress approves additional support for the industry. According to a recent report from Bloomberg, President Biden sees the lack of domestic chip production as a security issue. Global chip shortages have also played a significant part in fueling inflation in recent months.

With the bill's passing, it's now up to the House and Senate to negotiate a compromise. The legislation must pass both chambers before President Biden can sign it into law. The president urged Congress to move quickly. "I look forward to the House and Senate quickly coming together to find a path forward and putting a bill on my desk as soon as possible for my signature," President Biden said in a statement. "America can't afford to wait."

FBI used Google location data to investigate Seattle arson following BLM protest

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 09:35 AM PST

In 2020, federal police used a geofence warrant to obtain location data from Google as part of an investigation into an attempted arson against a police union headquarters in Seattle, according to recently unsealed court documents posted by The Verge. The attempted arson took place on August 24th, one day after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin prompted a resurgence of racial justice protests across the US. Amid broader acts of civil disobedience in Seattle and parts of the country, two individuals threw makeshift firebombs at the rear entrance of the Seattle Police Officers Guild headquarters.

While the building itself wasn't significantly damaged in the attack, the incident prompted a substantial police response. At one point, the FBI offered a $20,000 reward for any information related to the attempted arson. Court documents show the agency also pressed Google for information on the two suspects. The FBI used a geofence warrant to obtain location data from Android devices that were in the vicinity of the attempted arson before and after it occurred. Google complied with the request one day later.

"As with all law enforcement requests, we have a rigorous process that is designed to protect the privacy of our users while supporting the important work of law enforcement," a Google spokesperson told the outlet. We've reached out to the company for more information.

As The Verge points out, the fact the FBI later made a public appeal for help in the case suggests any location data obtained from Google may have not helped it get any closer to finding the two suspects.

Police use of location data is nothing new, but there's been a substantial increase in the number of geofence warrants issued in recent years. In 2019, The New York Times found Google was fielding "as many as 180 requests" per week. More recently, the company disclosed it received 11,033 geofence requests in 2020, up from 941 in 2018. At the time, Google noted geofence warrants made up 25 percent of all data requests it received from law enforcement. What's more, often the information of innocent bystanders is shared with police when companies like Google comply with those warrants, as was the case of a cyclist who rode by the site of a 2022 burglary in Florida and again in a protest following the death of George Floyd

Hitting the Books: 'Miracle Rice' fed China's revolution but endangered its crop diversity

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 08:30 AM PST

Feeding the planet's 8 billion people is challenge enough and our current industrialized commercial practices are causing such ecological damage that we may soon find ourselves hard-pressed to feed any more. For decades, scientists have sought out higher yields and faster growth at the expense of genetic diversity and disease — just look at what we've done to the humble banana. Now, finally, researchers are working to revitalize landrace and heirloom crop varieties, using their unique, and largely forgotten, genetic diversity to reimagine global agriculture. 

In his new book, Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them, BBC food journalist Dan Saladino scours the planet in search of animals, vegetables and legumes most at-risk of extinction, documenting their origins and declines, as well as the efforts being made to preserve and restore them. In the excerpt below, Saladino takes a look at all-important rice, the cereal that serves as a staple crop for more than 3.5 billion people around the world.

Eating to Extinction cover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing

Excerpted from Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them by Dan Saladino. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2021 by Dan Saladino. All rights reserved.

Whereas the global Green Revolution was largely steered by American science and finance, China's push for greater food production was more self-contained. Both efforts happened more or less in parallel. Mao's attempt at rapid industrialization, the 'Great Leap Forward' in the late 1950s, forced farmers off their land, leading to famine and the death of millions. Soon after, an agricultural researcher, Yuan Longping, was given the task of helping China's recovery by increasing the supply of rice. Based in a lab in Hunan, Yuan, like Borlaug in Mexico, spent years working with landraces and crossing varieties in meticulous experiments. By the early 1970s, he had developed Nan-you No. 2, a hybrid rice so productive it had the potential to increase food supply by nearly a third. Farmers were told to replace the old varieties with the new, and by the start of the 1980s, more than 50 per cent of China's rice came from this single variety. But, as with Borlaug's wheat, Yuan's rice depended on huge amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and lots and lots of water.

In the 1960s, in another part of Asia, a team of scientists were also breeding new rice varieties. What became known as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines was funded by the American Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. The IRRI's plant breeders also made a breakthrough drawing on the genetics of a dwarf plant. This new pest-resistant, high-yielding rice, called IR8, was released across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1966. Using the Green Revolution package of irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides, IR8 tripled yields and became known as 'miracle rice'. As it rapidly spread across Asia (with the necessary agrichemicals subsidized by Western foundations and governments), farmers were encouraged to abandon their landrace varieties and help share the new seeds with neighbors and relatives in other villages. Social occasions, including weddings, were treated by Western strategists as opportunities to distribute IR8. A decade later, rice scientist Gurdev Khush, the son of an Indian rice farmer, improved on the 'miracle rice' (IR8 wasn't the tastiest rice to eat and had a chalky texture). A later iteration, IR64, was so productive that it became the most widely cultivated rice variety in the world. But while most of the world was applauding the increase in calories created by the new rice varieties, some people were sounding a note of caution about what was also being lost.

In July 1972, with the Green Revolution in full flow, the botanist Jack Harlan published an article entitled 'The Genetics of Disaster'. As the world's population was increasing faster than at any time in history, Harlan said, crop diversity was being eroded at an equally unprecedented rate. 'These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine,' he argued. 'In a very real sense, the future of the human race rides on these materials.' Bad things can happen at the hands of nature, Harlan reminded his readers, citing the Irish potato famine. 'We can survive if a forest or shade tree is destroyed, but who would survive if wheat, rice, or maize were to be destroyed? We are taking risks we need not and should not take.' The solutions being developed in the Green Revolution would be as good as they could be until they failed – and when they did, the human race would be left facing disaster, he warned. 'Few will criticize Dr. Borlaug for doing his job too well. The enormous increase in . . . yields is a welcome relief and his achievements are deservedly recognized, but if we fail to salvage at least what is left of the landrace populations of Asia before they are replaced, we can justifiably be condemned by future generations for squandering our heritage and theirs.' We were moving from genetic erosion, he said, to genetic wipe-out. 'The line between abundance and disaster is becoming thinner and thinner, and the public is unaware and unconcerned. Must we wait for disaster to be real before we are heard? Will people listen only after it is too late?' It may be nearly too late, but, fifty years on, people are listening to Harlan.

One of them is Susan McCouch, Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University and an expert on rice genetics. Her research includes the less familiar aus rice which evolved in the Bangladeshi delta. 'It has the most stress-tolerant genes of all the rice we know,' says McCouch. 'It grows on poor soils, survives drought and is the fastest species to go from seed to grain.' And yet aus is endangered. Most farmers in Bangladesh have abandoned it and switched to more commercial varieties. Only the poorest people have saved the rice, farmers who couldn't afford to buy fertilizers and build irrigation systems. Its genetics are so rare because, unlike japonica and indica which travelled far and wide, aus stayed put. 'The people who domesticated it never left the river delta,' says McCouch. 'They weren't empire builders, didn't have armies and never enslaved populations.' But by bequeathing the world aus, they have left their mark.

In 2018, McCouch, along with researchers from USDA, released a new rice called Scarlett. It was, the team said, a rice with nutty rich flavors but also 'packed with high levels of antioxidants and flavonoids along with vitamin E'. To create it, McCouch had crossed an American long-grain rice called Jefferson and a rice that was discovered in Malaysia. The reason the new rice was packed with nutrients and called Scarlett was because the Malaysian plant was a red-colored wild species. One person who would have been unsurprised at the special qualities of these colored grains was Sun Wenxiang, the farmer I had visited in Sichuan.

Inside a room on his farm, Sun was packing up small parcels of his special red rice to send to customers in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hangzhou. They order his red mouth rice on WeChat, the Chinese social media app used by more than a billion people across Asia that is part Twitter and part PayPal (and so much more). Some have told him they buy it for its taste or intriguing color, but most buy it for its health properties.

For farmers such as Sun working to save China's endangered foods, help is at hand at the Centre for Rural Reconstruction, a modern day iteration of a movement founded a century ago to empower peasants and revitalize villages. In the 1920s a group of intellectuals and smallholders set up the original Rural Reconstruction Movement to develop farms, improve crops, establish co-operatives and sell more produce in China's towns and cities. After the revolution, and during Mao's rule, it disappeared, but in the 1990s was resurrected. A former government economist named Professor Wen Tiejun believed rural communities across China faced serious decline as manufacturing boomed and millions of people migrated from thousands of villages. By 2010, the country had experienced the largest and most rapid rural-to-urban migration ever witnessed in human history. Professor Wen began to ask what this meant for the future of China's small-scale farmers and the food they produced and, as a result, he launched the New Rural Reconstruction Movement.

The garden surrounding the two-story training center 50 miles north of Beijing is a statement of intent: its raised beds are fertilized with night soil, the nutrients processed from a row of eco-toilets (an ancient technique, as Chinese farmers enriched their fields using human and animal waste for thousands of years). The idea came from a book written a century ago, not by a Chinese agricultural expert, but an American one. Farmers of Forty Centuries by Franklin Hiram King has become essential reading matter for some students at China's Centre for Rural Reconstruction.

In the early 1900s, King, an agronomist from Wisconsin, worked at the United States Department of Agriculture, but he was regarded as a maverick, more interested in indigenous farming systems than the agricultural expansion the department had been set up to deliver. Convinced that he could learn more from peasant farmers than the scientists in Washington, King left the United States in 1909 and set out on an eight-month expedition through Asia. 'I had long desired to stand face to face with Chinese and Japanese farmers,' he wrote in the book's introduction, 'to walk through their fields and to learn by seeing some of their methods, appliances and practices which centuries of stress and experience have led these oldest farmers in the world to adopt.' King died in 1911 before he had completed his book and the work was pretty much forgotten until 1927, when a London publisher, Jonathan Cape, discovered the manuscript and published it, ensuring it remained in print for the next twenty years. It went on to influence the founding figures in Britain's organic movement, Albert Howard and Eve Balfour. The farmers who visit the Centre for Rural Reconstruction and come across King's book, will read an account of how food was produced in China's villages a century ago. Crops grown then, now endangered, are also being resurrected.

Inside a storeroom at the center, now a bank of some of China's rarest foods, I was shown boxes full of seeds and jars and packets of ingredients all produced by farming projects in villages supported by the New Rural Reconstruction Movement. All were distinctive products that were helping to increase farmers' incomes. There was dark green soy from Yunnan in the south; red-colored ears of wheat from the north; wild tea harvested from ancient forests; and bottles of honey-colored rice wine. And among other varieties of landrace rice was Sun Wenxiang's red mouth glutinous grains.

'When we lose a traditional food, a variety of rice or a fruit, we store up problems for the future,' Professor Wen told me. 'There's no question China needs large-scale farms, but we also need diversity.' With 20 per cent of the world's population, China encapsulates the biggest food dilemmas of our times. Should it intensify farming to produce more calories, or diversify to help save the planet? In the long run, there is no option but to change the system. China suffers from wide-scale soil erosion, health-harming levels of pollution and water shortages. As a consequence, land has become contaminated, there are algae blooms around its coastline and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

There are signs of change. In September 2016 China ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Among the specific targets it set was zero growth in fertilizer and pesticide use. To conserve more of its genetic resources and crop diversity, China is one of the few countries investing heavily in new botanic gardens to protect and study endangered species. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has also built a collection of half a million samples of landrace crops, varieties now being researched for future use. This is what Jack Harlan might have called the genetics of salvation. It's a long way from King's Farmers of Forty Centuries, but there is clear recognition that China's current food system can't go on as before.

'We need to modernize and develop, but that doesn't mean letting go of our past,' said Wen. 'The entire world should not be chasing one way of living, we can't all eat the same kind of food, that is a crazy ideology.' And then he shared the famous quote attributed to Napoleon: 'Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.' 'Well,' said Wen, 'we have woken up and we've started to eat more like the rest of the world. We need to find better ways of living and farming. Maybe some answers can be found in our traditions.'

RIAA goes after NFT music website HitPiece

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 08:13 AM PST

HitPiece may have already shut down its website after several artists spoke up about their work being used without their permission, but the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) isn't letting it off the hook. The organization has sent the attorney representing HitPiece a letter demanding the website and its founders to stop infringing on music IPs, to provide a complete list of site activities and to account for all NFTs that had been auctioned off. It also wants to know how much the website earned. HitPiece founder Rory Felton previously said that artists will get paid for sold digital goods that are associated with them, but the artists who spoke up are skeptical that they'll get anything.

In the letter, the group repeatedly called HitPiece a scam operation designed to exploit fans. RIAA's Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow said it used "buzzwords and jargon" to hide the fact that it didn't obtain the rights it needs and to make fans believe they were purchasing an article genuinely associated with an artist. Doroshow added: "While the operators appear to have taken the main HitPiece site offline for now, this move was necessary to ensure a fair accounting for the harm HitPiece and its operators have already done and to ensure that this site or copycats don't simply resume their scams under another name."

Although HitPiece branded itself as a platform for music NFTs, its founders claimed that it didn't actually sell any sound files. The RIAA argues, however, that it still used artists' name, images and copyrighted album art. Further, if it truly didn't sell any sound files, the RIAA says that "likely amounts to yet another form of fraud." 

Amazon and Nike are reportedly thinking of buying Peloton

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 07:04 AM PST

E-commerce and cloud giant Amazon has been consulting its advisers about the possibility of purchasing Peloton, according to The Wall Street Journal. And it may not be the only bigger company that's eyeing the exercise equipment maker: The Financial Times says Nike is thinking of purchasing it, as well. Neither company has held talks with Peloton yet, and they may end up not making an offer at all.

Peloton became a hit at the beginning of the pandemic, when people were looking for fitness alternatives after their gyms closed due to lockdowns. In fact, it reached a market value of $50 billion in January 2021 — a far cry from its current $8 billion valuation. CNBC reported in January that the company had halted its Bike and Tread production amid slowing demand caused by several factors, including stiffer competition. Company CEO John Foley later denied that Peloton was pausing production in a letter to employees, but he admitted that it's "resetting [its] production levels for sustainable growth."

A few days after that report came out, BuzzFeed News published a story about several workers claiming that the company owes them money over unpaid labor. The workers are accusing Peloton of not paying them for overtime and work accomplished during breaks, as well as of not reimbursing them for company expenses. 

If Amazon truly is thinking of acquiring Peloton, it could use the company to expand its health and wellness offerings and make it easier for customers to get their hands on one of its bikes or treadmills. It certainly has the capacity to ensure delivery delays, like what happened to Peloton last year, don't happen again. As The Journal notes, an acquisition would also give Amazon access to users' data, which would be useful for its future health and wellness projects. 

Peloton hasn't dropped any hint that it's looking for a new owner, but activist investor Blackwells Capital is calling for Foley to be ousted and for the company to start finding a potential buyer. Blackwells accused Foley of making decisions that cost the company $40 billion, including misleading investors about certain information and hiring his wife in an executive role.

Recommended Reading: How do we deal with giant space garbage?

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 07:00 AM PST

How to deal with rocket boosters and other giant space garbage

Ramin Skibba, Wired

Since a second-stage booster from one of SpaceX's Falcon 9s could crash into the moon, now is a good time to examine how we can deal with all the huge pieces of "free-flying space junk." 

How Facebook is morphing into Meta

Sheera Frenkel, Mike Isaac and Ryan Mac; The New York Times

Facebook's transition includes urging current employees to apply for new jobs focused on augmented and virtual reality hardware and software. But is the company pivoting without addressing its current problems like extremism and misinformation?

Meet the NSA spies shaping the future

Patrick Howell O'Neill, MIT Technology Review

An interview with Gil Herrera, head of the NSA's Research Directorate. Herrera discusses the future of security and spying, including cybersecurity and quantum computing. 

Spotify deletes over 100 'Joe Rogan Experience' episodes (updated)

Posted: 05 Feb 2022 03:21 AM PST

Spotify has been removing Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) episodes since Friday, and as of this writing, the service has pulled down a total of 113. As first noticed by Gizmodo, around 70 episodes have recently disappeared from the platform. Based on the website dedicated to monitoring which of the show's episodes aren't available on the service, those were removed on February 4th, in addition to the 40 deleted some time ago. However, the newly deleted episodes don't seem to be connected with the COVID-19 controversy surrounding the show and the service right now.

Several artists have exited Spotify recently because of Rogan's COVID-19-related episodes. An open letter addressed to the host from doctors and scientists pointed out that he had made several misleading claims about the virus in the past and promoted the use of ivermectin to treat it. They take the most issue with one specific episode in particular: Episode #1757 with guest Dr. Robert Malone, who claimed that people only believe COVID-19 vaccines are effective due to "mass formation psychosis." That episode is still available. 

Spotify doesn't seem to be deleting episodes in order. It's also unclear what policies the episodes broke to warrant being deleted. Spotify head of global communications Dustee Jenkins reportedly told employees on Slack before that a team reviewed multiple controversial JRE episodes and found that they didn't meet the threshold for removal. Jenkins also said that what Spotify hasn't done is share its policies externally, according to a report by The Verge, which also posted a copy of the service's pretty narrow COVID-19 guidelines. 

The company's CEO admitted that its content policy should've been public before now when he reported Spotify's earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021. As for Rogan, he apologized for the backlash and said he'll do his "best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints."

Update 12:05PM ET: Early this morning, Joe Rogan apologized for "a lot of shit from the old episodes of the podcast that I wish I hadn't said, or had said differently." He directly addressed a compilation of clips from his show where he's using racist language. Rogan said he's not racist but acknowledges you should never use racist language, no matter the context. "Whenever you're in a situation where you have to say 'I'm not racist,' you fucked up," he explained. Engadget has reached out to Spotify for more information as to why the aforementioned episodes were pulled. There hasn't been any direct confirmation that they were removed due to racist language. 

Update 02/05/22 8:40PM ET: We corrected the number of episodes removed and clarified that some weren't part of the current deletions. We apologize for the error. 

The free trial of Apple Music was quietly reduced to a single month

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 02:39 PM PST

Since its debut in 2015, Apple Music has offered one of the more generous free trial periods in the streaming industry. As a first-time subscriber, you could use the platform to listen to music for free for up to three months before the company asked you to start paying. That's no longer the case.

Apple Music
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

In a change spotted by Japanese blog Mac Otakara and subsequently reported by MacRumors, Apple now offers a shorter one-month free trial in many countries where the service is available, including the US, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and Japan. You can already see the change reflected on the Apple Music website. "One month free, then $9.99 per month," the US portal says when you visit.

At the moment, Apple Music pricing remains the same, with the $5 per month Voice Plan as the most affordable way to access the platform's library of tracks. The change broadly aligns Apple with competitors like Spotify, which, outside of promos, typically offer one-month free trials to new subscribers.

While we'll likely never know Apple's official reason for shortening the trial, there's a good chance the decision came down to simple economics. When the company first came out with Apple Music, it didn't pay royalties for tracks users streamed during their free trial period. Apple later famously changed that policy after Taylor Swift published a letter criticizing the company. By shortening the trial period, the company can more quickly recoup the costs of attracting new subscribers to the platform. 

Apple will reportedly hold its next hardware event in early March

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 01:26 PM PST

Apple will host its next hardware event sometime on or around March 8th, according to Bloomberg. At the event, the company will reportedly announce the third-generation iPhone SE, a refresh of the 2020 iPad Air and a new Mac computer that will feature an Apple Silicon chip. The date aligns with the March to April timeframe Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously said Apple had set for the SE's debut but warned potential production delays could force the company to change its plans.

As before, the new phone will reportedly feature a 5G modem, a first for the SE line. It's also expected to include a faster processor and a better camera. However, it will retain the iPhone 8-era design of the current model. As for the new iPad Air, it too will get a processor refresh and the addition of 5G connectivity. Bloomberg didn't say much about the new Mac that Apple may announce at the same event, but most recent reports point to the company unveiling a new 27-inch iMac Pro model.

If the idea of a new iPhone SE isn't too exciting for you, the good news is Bloomberg reports Apple also plans to release iOS 15.4 sometime in the first half of March. Among other enhancements, the update is expected to add a feature that will allow you to unlock your iPhone with Face ID even while wearing a mask.

Traders are selling themselves their own NFTs to drive up prices

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 12:28 PM PST

The NFT marketplace is rife with people buying their own NFTs in order to drive up prices, according to a report released this week by blockchain data firm Chainalysis. Known as "wash trading", the act of buying and selling a security in order to fool the market was once commonplace on Wall Street, and has been illegal for nearly a century. But the vast, unregulated NFT marketplace has shown to be a golden opportunity for scammers.

The report tracked instances of the same traders selling the same NFTs back and forth at least 25 times, a likely incident of wash trading. It identified a group of 110 alleged NFT wash traders who have made roughly $8.9 million in profit from this practice. Researchers also discovered significant evidence of money laundering in the NFT marketplace in the last half of 2021. The value sent to NFT marketplaces by addresses associated with scams spiked significantly in the third quarter of 2021, worth more than $1 million worth of cryptocurrency, according to the report. Roughly $1.4 million dollars of sales in the fourth quarter of 2021 came from such illicit addresses.

"NFT wash trading exists in a murky legal area. While wash trading is prohibited in conventional securities and futures, wash trading involving NFTs has yet to be the subject of an enforcement action," wrote the authors of the report.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a new asset class of digital tokens that exist on the blockchain and are primarily purchased with Ethereum, a form of cryptocurrency. The crypto collectibles can consist of anything from a two-dimensional image to a GIF to a song. The NFT marketplace is estimated to be worth anywhere from $7 billion to $44.2 billion. The digital assets skyrocketed in popularity in 2021, and have been embraced by celebrities like Mark Cuban, Tom Brady, and Reese Witherspoon.

Skeptics have questioned the legitimacy and necessity of NFTs as the still relatively new space has spiked in popularity. High-profile NFT sales, such as last year's record-breaking $69 million purchase of the artist Beeple's collection, have been increasingly frequent. But since the digital tokens are not a security, they're not subject to the same US laws and regulations governing stocks, for example. Numerous scams have cropped up in the NFT space in recent months, including counterfeit NFTs and money laundering.

HoloLens is not dead, says Microsoft's mixed reality chief

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 11:57 AM PST

Microsoft has not abandoned development on HoloLens 3, according to the technical fellow who leads the company's mixed reality division. In a tweet spotted by The Verge, Microsoft's Alex Kipman told a concerned fan not to believe everything they read online. "HoloLens is doing great and if you search said internet they also said we had cancalled HoloLens2… which last I checked we shipped with success," he said.

Kipman's tweet came in response to a report Business Insider published this week claiming the company had recently scrapped plans for what would have been HoloLens 3. Microsoft strongly disputed the outlet's reporting. "We remain committed to HoloLens and future HoloLens development," Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw told Business Insider. He added that the device is a "critical part of [the company's] plans for emerging categories like mixed reality and the metaverse."

Like Shaw, Kipman didn't directly address the possibility of Microsoft working with Samsung to co-develop a separate mixed reality device, nor did he touch on the staffing issues Microsoft's mixed reality division has reportedly had to contend with. According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Kipman's team has lost approximately 100 people over the last year, with many of those employees defecting to Meta.

Microsoft, however, seems bullish on its metaverse prospects. "We feel very well positioned to be able to catch what I think is essentially the next wave of the internet," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts last month during the company's Q2 earnings conference.

The Pixel 6's Magic Eraser tool is causing the Google Photos app to crash

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:55 AM PST

The Magic Eraser feature on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro is a handy tool that does a solid job of removing unwanted objects or people from photos. However, users are experiencing a bug that crashes the Google Photos app when they use it.

Folks have flagged the issue on Reddit and Twitter. As Android Police notes, some have tried clearing the Google Photos cache and restarting their handset, but that doesn't seem to resolve things.

Users have experienced other issues with Magic Eraser and Google Photos. An app update in November accidentally removed the feature, but Google swiftly remedied that. Engadget has asked Google when users can expect a fix for the latest problem.

Magic Eraser was touted as one of the most compelling new features in the Pixel 6 lineup and it certainly didn't hurt device sales. Google parent Alphabet said in its earnings report this week that it set an all-time quarterly sales record for Pixel in the last three months of 2021 even in the face of ongoing supply chain issues.

Update 2/4/22 4:34pm ET: Google pointed Engadget to a comment its official account made on Reddit. "Thank you for your patience and bug reports," it reads, "Starting today, we are rolling out a fix, so please update to the latest version of Google Photos (5.76.0.426251772 or higher) in the Play Store."

NBC is streaming parts of the 2022 Winter Olympics in 8K VR

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 10:25 AM PST

With the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing underway, there are more ways than ever to watch Team USA and athletes from around the world compete, including in 8K VR. This month, NBCUniversal and parent company Comcast will stream more than 150 hours of interactive content from the games. To watch that coverage, you'll need a TV Everywhere login and a Quest 2 headset from Meta.

Once you download the NBC Olympics VR by Xfinity app, you can look forward to watching live and on-demand coverage of six sports, including figure skating, hockey and snowboarding from a 180-degree perspective. With some events, NBC will also offer multiple viewpoints of the action. Additionally, the broadcaster plans to stream features and highlights from 10 other sports throughout the Olympics, including alpine skiing, bobsled and speed skating.

If you missed the Opening Ceremony, or want to see it from a new perspective, you can also rewatch the event from the point of view of athletes who took part in the parade of nations. When the 2022 Olympics finish later this month, NBC will offer interactive coverage of the Closing Ceremony too.

If you don't have access to a Quest 2 headset, you can still enjoy the games in 4K HDR and immersive Dolby Atmos audio. NBCUniversal will stream the higher-resolution broadcasts during primetime and Prime Plus, with figure skating, skiing, snowboarding, hockey, bobsled and other sports set to get the special treatment.

Meta adds 'personal boundaries' to Horizon Worlds and Venues to fight harassment

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:41 AM PST

Meta is rolling out a feature called Personal Boundary in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues virtual reality spaces to combat harassment. Each avatar will have a bubble with a radius of two virtual feet, so they won't be able to come within around four feet of each other.

Personal Boundary in Meta Quest's Horizon Worlds and Horizon Spaces virtual experiences
Meta

If someone tries to move into your personal space, their forward motion will halt when they get too close. However, Meta told The Verge that avatars will still be able to move past each other, so users won't get trapped in a corner or doorway.

The Personal Boundary feature, which users won't be able to disable, builds on previous measures Meta added to tackle harassment, such as making an avatar's hands vanish when they enter someone else's personal space. Shortly before Meta opened Horizon Worlds to everyone aged 18 or older in the US and Canada in December, a beta tester said her avatar was groped by a stranger.

Eventually, you may be able to change the radius of your Personal Boundary. Users can still high-five and fist bump other avatars, but they need to extend their arms to do so.

What to expect from Samsung’s Unpacked event

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 09:30 AM PST

In a few short days, Samsung will host its first Unpacked of 2022. While the company is sure to stage many more events throughout the year (too many, if you ask us), the first one is always the most exciting. That's because it's usually where Samsung has announced the next iteration of its flagship Galaxy S line, and Wednesday's Unpacked promises to be no different. On February 9th, the company is expected to unveil the Galaxy S22. No surprise there, but there could be more to that announcement than you might anticipate. Let's break down everything we expect to see from the company later this week.

Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22+ 

Samsun Galaxy S22
Evan Blass

Much like it did in 2021, Samsung is expected to launch a trio of new Galaxy S phones. As you'll see in a few moments, the S22 Ultra is likely to be a significant departure from its predecessor. But as for the S22 and S22+, the expectation is that they'll be more iterative updates.

Prerelease reports suggest they'll feature a similar design with the same "Contour Cut" rear camera housing that you'll find on the Galaxy S21 and its Fan Edition offshoot. As far as upgrades go, most leaks point to the Galaxy S22 featuring a new glass back and both phones coming with 50-megapixel main cameras. More interesting is what could be inside the phones.

Galaxy S22
Evan Blass

As it's done in years past, Samsung is expected to source two different chipsets for the Galaxy S line in 2022. In North America, the phone will likely feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. That would make it one of the first phones to bring Qualcomm's latest flagship SoC to the US and Canada. Meanwhile, in Europe and other parts of the world, the S22 will almost certainly come with Samsung's own Exynos 2200.

Announced in January, the 4nm chip features an "Xclipse" GPU powered by AMD's RDNA 2 architecture. In practice, what makes the Exynos 2200 noteworthy is that Samsung claims it's capable of ray tracing. Early benchmarks suggest the Exynos 2200 could also be faster than its Qualcomm counterpart. All of that would make the potential differences between the North American and European versions of the Galaxy S22 more notable than in years past.

What we're less clear on is how Samsung plans to price the Galaxy S22. In a recent tweet, WinFuture's Roland Quandt said the base model S22 and S22+, both with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, would start at €849 and €1049, respectively. Those prices suggest the company won't charge more for the S22 and S22+ than it did for the S21 and S21+. However, a separate leak from earlier in the month suggested every model in the S22 line could cost $100 more than its S21 counterpart. We'll have until the 9th to get a better sense of those details.

Galaxy S22 Ultra

Galaxy S22 Ultra
Evan Blass

Shortly before Samsung announced it was hosting an Unpacked on February 9th, company president TM Roh teased the event would feature "the most noteworthy S series device we've ever created."

After component shortages and a pandemic-fueled decline in demand for high-end phones led Samsung to skip the Note line in 2021, the fan-favorite phone is coming back this year. In all but name, we expect the Galaxy S22 Ultra will be the Note 20 successor Samsung fans have been waiting to see for nearly two years. But don't TM Roh's or our word for it. In the weeks leading up to Wednesday's Unpacked, images of the S22 Ultra leaked multiple times.

Renders shared by Evan Blass of Evleaks fame suggest the S22 Ultra will feature a dramatically different design from the rest of the S22 lineup. Not only will the phone seemingly come with an S-Pen stylus in the box, but it will also feature a curved display and flat backplate. What's more, judging from photos shared by Front Page Tech, the S22 Ultra will include a slot for storing an S-Pen inside of the phone.

A set of alleged prerelease marketing images shared by Blass suggest the S22 Ultra will feature a quad-camera array with a 108-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel ultrawide and two 10-megapixel telephoto cameras with Samsung's 100x Space Zoom feature built-in. The leaked marketing material also suggests the phone will feature a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and QHD+ resolution.

Internally, the S22 Ultra is expected to include many of the same components found in the S22 and S22+. However, one potential source of drama related to the S22 Ultra may come down to how much RAM you'll find in the base model. According to Roland Quandt, the most affordable S22 Ultra variant will ship with 8GB of memory. At the same time, it will cost as much as the entry-level Galaxy S21 Ultra, which came with 12GB of RAM. Per Quandt, European consumers will need to pay a €100 premium to get the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. It's unclear if Samsung will implement the same pricing strategy in the US.

Galaxy Tab S8 and Tab S8 Ultra

Samsung Tab S8
Evan Blass

Samsung has been making Android tablets long enough for Google to first abandon the form factor and then more recently declare that it's the "future of computing." So it should come as no surprise reports suggest the company will update its Tab line at Unpacked. According to a separate leak from Quandt, we can expect the company to equip the 11-inch Tab S8 with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, 8GB of RAM, up to 256GB of internal storage, an 8,000mAh battery and a 120Hz LCD display.

As for the larger Tab S8+, Quandt suggests it will feature a 12.7-inch OLED display and a bigger 10,090mAh battery while being slightly thinner than its smaller sibling. We'll note here some reports had said the Tab S8+ could feature a 12.4-inch display. Either way, both models are expected to come with a bundled S-Pen stylus.

But that's not all, we also expect Samsung to add a new model to the Tab line. Per Quandt, the company will announce the Tab S8 Ultra on February 9th. It will reportedly feature a monstrous 14.6-inch AMOLED screen, up to 16GB of RAM and dual-front facing cameras housed in an unsightly display cutout. It could also come with a feature that would allow you to use the Galaxy S22 Ultra as a separate color palette when drawing with the S-Pen, which is exactly the sort of parlor trick only Samsung would think of to sell you on its most expensive devices.

Everything else


By all accounts, the first Unpacked of 2022 will see Samsung focus on the Galaxy S22 and Tab S8. The company could surprise us with updates to its foldable and watch lineups, but so far there haven't been any leaks and reports to suggest that will happen. Either way, you'll want to visit Engadget on February 9th. We'll have comprehensive coverage of all the company's biggest news.  

Catch up on all of the news from Samsung's February Unpacked event right here!

The 2021 Apple TV 4K drops to $160, plus the rest of the week's best tech deals

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:45 AM PST

In addition to a bunch of great deals on TVs ahead of the big game, a handful of new tech deals cropped up on the web this week. Roku's Streambar Pro is $30 off and down to $150 right now (and the smaller Streambar has also been discounted) while the latest Apple TV 4K remains on sale for $160. Fitbit's Charge 5 fitness tracker is 34 percent off and down to an all-time low, plus you can still save on a bunch of Eero 6 WiFi systems. Here are the best deals from this week that you can still get today.

2021 Apple TV 4K

Apple TV 4K (2021) Siri Remote
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The latest Apple TV 4K is on sale for $160, or $20 off its normal price. While the 2021 version isn't drastically different from the previous model, its new Siri remote is a big selling point. We gave it a score of 90 for its speedy performance, HomeKit integration and the easy of use that comes with the improved Siri remote.

Buy 2021 Apple TV 4K at Amazon - $160

Apple Watch Series 7

Apple Watch Series 7
Engadget

A bunch of Apple Watch Series 7 models are on sale at Amazon right now. The 45mm GPS Series 7 in midnight is down to a record low of $370, or $60 off, while a few colors of the 41mm GPS Series 7 are down to $350, which is only $10 more than the all-time-low price. Finally, the 41mm GPS + Cellular Watch is $50 off and down to $449.

Buy Series 7 (45mm, midnight) at Amazon - $370Buy Series 7 (41mm) at Amazon - $350Buy Series 7 (41mm, GPS + Cellular) at Amazon - $449

AirPods Max

A few colors of the high-end AirPods Max are $100 less than usual, bringing them down to $449. These cans earned a score of 84 for their excellent, balanced sound, strong ANC and good battery life.

Buy AirPods Max at Amazon - $449

Roku Streambar Pro

Roku Streambar Pro
Roku

Roku's Streambar Pro is on sale for $150, or $30 off its normal price. The regular Streambar is also on sale for $99. The Pro model includes all of the features that the standard soundbar does, plus four 2.5-inch full range drivers, support for private listening and a lost remote finder in the companion mobile app.

Buy Streambar Pro at Amazon - $150Buy Streambar at Amazon - $99

55-inch Hisense U7G Quantum Dot 4K smart TV

Hisense's 55-inch Quantum Dot 4K TV is 30 percent off and down to just under $600. It packs a lot of value into a relatively affordable TV — the set supports a 120Hz native refresh rate, Dolby Vision and Atmos, 1,000 nits of peak brightness and Game Mode Pro, the latter of which makes use of HDMI 2.1, low latency mode, variable refresh rates and more.

Buy 55-inch Hisense U7G 4K TV at Amazon - $600

65-inch Samsung The Frame 4K smart TV

Samsung's 65-inch Frame set is down to a record low fo $1,500, which is $500 off its normal price. In addition to 4K support and Quantum Dot technology, the Frame TVs have Art Mode, which lets you show pieces of art on the screen when you're not using it. The 55-inch model is also back on sale for an all-time low of $1,000.

Buy 65-inch Samsung Frame 4K TV at Amazon - $1,500Buy 65-inch Samsung Frame 4K TV at Best Buy - $1,500Buy 55-inch Samsung Frame 4K TV at Amazon - $1,000Buy 55-inch Samsung Frame 4K TV at Best Buy - $1,000

Samsung T7 Touch SSD

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 SSD (1TB) at Amazon - $140

Fitbit Charge 5

Fitbit's Charge 5 is on sale for a record low of $120 right now. We gave the fitness tracker a score of 82 for its large, full-color display, built-in GPS, standard Fitbit Pay and long battery life. The Fitbit Sense smartwatch is also on sale for $100 less than usual, bringing the price down to $200.

Buy Fitbit Charge 5 at Amazon - $120Buy Fitbit Sense at Amazon - $200

Xbox Elite Wireless Series 2 controller

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 Elite Wireless Series 2 controller at Microsoft - $140

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 gave the phone a score of 77 for its bright 120Hz display, hi-res selfie cam and long battery life.

Buy Galaxy S21 FE bundle at Amazon - $700

Eero 6 WiFi packs

All Eero 6 WiFi packs are on sale right now, so you can one for as low as $90. The three-pack of routers is down to $244 while the three-pack with one router and two extenders has been discounted to $195. This system supports WiFi 6, up to 5,000 square feet of coverage and it has a built-in Zigbee smart home hub.

Buy Eero 6 (one router + two extenders) at Amazon - $195

Arturia Producer's Day sale

Arturia Pigments 3.5
Arturia

Arturia has discounted a number of its software instruments and effects through February 17. Arguably the highlight of the sale is Pigments, which is 50 percent off and down to $99.

Shop Arturia sale

New tech deals

The Sims 4 games and packs

Amazon has discounted a number of The Sims 4 games, and you can get the Limited Edition base game for only $5. Most expansion packs are down to $20, while bundles like this one with the Sims 4 and the Seasons expansion pack are as low as $24.

Shop The Sims 4 sale at Amazon

Crucial MX500 (1TB)

Crucial's MX500 internal SSD in 1TB is on sale for $90 — not the lowest price ever, but close to it. We like this drive for its decent read and write speeds, AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption and integrated power loss immunity.

Buy Crucial MX500 (1TB) at Amazon - $90

Logitech C922x Pro webcam

This Logitech webcam is down to $80, which is 20 percent off its normal price. Its 1080p/30fps recording quality will be great for both Zoom meetings and game streams, plus it has built-in autofocus and two mics to capture your voice in stereo audio.

Buy Logitech C922x Pro webcam at Amazon - $80

Garmin Forerunner 45s

Garmin's Forerunner 45s running watch is 30 percent off right now and down to $140. The "s" means the case is on the smaller side, making it better for people who don't want a chunky smartwatch. It has a built-in GPS to track and map outdoor runs and it monitors pace, distance, intervals and more.

Buy Forerunner 45s at Amazon - $140

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

Rockstar says development on the next GTA is 'well underway'

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 08:27 AM PST

Rockstar Games has revealed when Grand Theft Auto V fans will be able to get their hands on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions, while teasing what's next for the blockbuster franchise. The current-gen editions will arrive on March 15th. Rockstar previously delayed the release from November to some time in March.

When GTA V and GTA Online hit their third console generation (putting aside the fact previous versions work on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S through backward compatibility), players will have new features to check out. Rockstar is adding several graphics modes, including a frame rate of up to 60 fps, up to 4K resolution, ray-tracing, HDR and upgrades to textures and draw distances. You can also expect faster load times and 3D audio, among other features. The developers are also taking advantage of the DualShock controller's capabilities to offer PS5 plasters "advanced haptic feedback."

Players will be able to skip the GTA V prologue and dive straight into GTA Online if they wish. There's a new tutorial for the multiplayer experience too. Newcomers can access a Career Builder, which allows them to start operating a business as a biker, executive, gunrunner or nightclub owner from the jump. They'll receive a "sizable" bag of in-game currency to kickstart their virtual life of crime as well. Veteran players will have the option to restart their character and hop into the Career Builder at any time.

Those playing the PS4 or Xbox One versions will be able to transfer their progress for both GTA V and GTA Online, as well as their characters from the latter. This is a one-time migration though, so don't expect to be able to bounce back and forth between console generations.

A standalone version of GTA Online is also coming to current-gen consoles on March 15th. PS5 players will have three months of free access. However, Rockstar hasn't revealed pricing for the new versions of GTA V or GTA Online. The upgrade path from the PS4 and Xbox One versions is also unclear.

Meanwhile, in the year's most shocking video game news thus far, Rockstar confirmed that GTA 6 (or whatever the next entry in the series will actually be called) is coming. It says that active development on the game is well underway, and it will share more details when it's ready.

'Wall Street Journal' and its owners hit by cyberattack linked to China

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 07:41 AM PST

News Corp says it was the target of a cyberattack that impacted The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Dow Jones, its UK news operations and other publications and business units. The company says hackers accessed the emails and documents of some employees, including journalists. A cybersecurity consultant News Corp brought in believes that China was connected to the intrusion, and that the aim of the attack may have been to gather intelligence for the country's benefit.

The attack was discovered on January 20th and News Corp disclosed it in a securities filing on Friday. It also informed law enforcement. According to The Journal, the company told staff the threat appears to have been contained and that it's offering support to affected employees. It doesn't appear that systems containing financial and customer data (including details on subscribers) were affected.

It's not the first time The Journal has been the target of a cyberattack. The publication said Chinese hackers aiming to keep tabs on coverage of the country accessed its network in 2013 to snoop on reporters.

This week, FBI director Christopher Wray said China is behind a "massive, sophisticated hacking program that is bigger than those of every other major nation combined." Wray noted the agency has more than 2,000 investigations in progress connected to thefts of US tech or information that were allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese government. On average, the FBI opens two such probes every day.

Billionaire space barons want to build 'mixed-use business parks' in low Earth orbit

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 07:30 AM PST

The Space Race is no longer a competition between the global superpowers of the world — at least not the nation-states that once vied to be first to the Moon. Today, low Earth orbit is the battleground for private conglomerates and the billionaires that helm them. With the Mir Space Station having deorbited in 2001 after 15 years of service and the ISS scheduled for retirement by the end of the decade, tomorrow's space stations are very likely to be owned and operated by companies, not countries. In fact, the handover has already begun.

"We are not ready for what comes after the International Space Station," then-NASA-administrator Jim Bridenstine explained at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee's space subcommittee in October. "Building a space station takes a long time, especially when you're doing it in a way that's never been done before."

NASA is on board with this transference, having drafted and published its Plan for Commercial LEO Development (CLD) in 2019, which calls for "a robust low-Earth orbiteconomy from which NASA can purchase services as one of many customers," as part of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at Johnson Space Center. The CLD plan lays out the agency's necessary steps towards establishing a commercial space station ecosystem. These start with allowing private corporations "to purchase ISS resources," i.e. lease space on the station for commercial activities, "allow companies to fly private astronauts to the ISS," which SpaceX did last April, as well as initiating "a process for developing commercial LEO destinations" and working to "stimulate demand" for those destinations and services.

NASA CLD goals
NASA

"NASA by its very nature is an exploration agency," the space agency wrote in 2019. "We like to challenge the status quo and discover new things. We like to solve impossible problems and do amazing things. NASA also realizes that we need help and do not know everything. We can only accomplish amazing things by teamwork. NASA is reaching out to the US private sector to see if they can push the economic frontier into space."

Space exploration has been a public-private cooperative effort since the founding days of NASA. For example, the expendable launch vehicles that put satellites into LEO from 1963 to 1982 — the Titan by Martin Marietta, the Atlas from General Dynamics, McDonnell Douglas' Delta rockets, and the Scout from LTV Aerospace Corporation — were all built by private aerospace companies as federal contractors but operated by the US government. "The US government essentially served as the only provider of space launch services to the Western world," wrote the FAA. This changed in the '70s when the European Space Agency developed its own ELV, the Ariane, and NASA swapped out its own rockets for the Space Shuttle program, which became the nation's default satellite launch system.

Private space launches, like what SpaceX and Northrop Grumman do, got their start in the US way back in 1982 when Space Services sent up its Conestoga rocket prototype, really the repurposed second stage of a Minuteman missile. The size, number and severity of hoops the company had to jump through to get launch clearance was enough to convince members of congress to introduce legislation streamlining the process, eventually leading then-President Ronald Reagan to declare expanding private sector involvement in civil space launches to be "a national goal." We've seen a number of notable milestones in the decades since including the launch of the Pegasus rocket operated by the Orbital Sciences Corporation in 1990, which was the first fully privately developed and air-based launch vehicle to reach space, Dennis Tito's ride aboard a Soyuz rocket to the ISS in 2001 to become the Earth's first space tourist, and the first SpaceX Dragon Capsule mission in 2010, the first time a privately-operated spacecraft was both launched into and recovered from orbit.

The idea of letting private space companies build, launch and operate their own stations grew largely from these earlier cooperative arrangements as well as from partnerships made via the International Space Station US National Laboratory, which is managed by the non-profit organization, the Center for Advancement of Science in Space.

"We leverage our core competencies, facilitate public-private partnerships, and utilize the platform capabilities and unique operating environment of the space station," the ISSNL's mission statement reads. "We create demand, incubate in-space business ventures, provide access for and awareness of fundamental science and technological innovation, and promote science literacy of the future workforce." More than 50 companies have already partnered with the ISSNL aboard the space station and the agency is currently working with 11 others to "install 14 commercial facilities on the station supporting research and development projects for NASA."

Axiom's ISS-grown space station

Axiom AX-1
Axiom Space

At the forefront of this commercialization effort is the Axiom Space corporation. The Houston-based company has been contracted by NASA to construct a habitat module for the ISS, install it aboard the station in September of 2024 and then detach the module for use as an independent space platform once the ISS is eventually deorbited by 2028.

"Axiom's work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research and technology demonstrations in low-Earth orbit," NASA's Bridenstine, said in a 2020 statement.

"We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration," he added. "It is a similar partnership that this year will return the capability of American astronauts to launch to the space station on American rockets from American soil."

Axiom has tapped Thales Alenia Space to build both the module itself and a meteoroid shield for the Axiom Node One (a pressurized segment that will connect the Axiom hub onto the ISS).

"The legacy of the International Space Station structure is one of safety and reliability despite huge technical complexity," Axiom Space CEO, Michael Suffredini, said in a 2020 statement. "We are thrilled to combine Axiom's human spaceflight expertise with Thales Alenia Space's experience to build the next stage of human settlement in low Earth orbit from a foundation that is tried and tested."

Axiom has also struck a deal with SpaceX to ferry four "Axionauts" — yes, that's really what they're calling them — up to the ISS to train for life in microgravity. The 8-day mission, dubbed Ax-1, was supposed to be led by former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who would be joined by a trio of space tourists, each of whom shelled out $55 million to ride along. The trip was originally slated to take place in February, however, it was repeatedly delayed due to "additional spacecraft preparations and space station traffic" and is currently scheduled to take place on March 30th. The company is already at work on missions Ax-2 through -4 and has reserved a set of Dragon capsules, though the crew manifests have not yet been finalized.

In addition to the crew habitat, Axiom is building a secondary commercial capsule for Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE), a startup co-producing Tom Cruise's latest joint which will be shot at least partially in space later this year. The SEE-1 is scheduled for installation in December, 2024 and will host both a production studio and — somehow — a sports arena as well. Bring on the Battle Rooms.

Nanoracks' Starlab

Nanoracks Starlab
Nanoracks

While Axiom Space is trying to bud its orbital platform from the ISS like a polyp, space service company Nanoracks is working to build a free-flying station of its own, with help from Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin, as well as a $160 million CLD contract from NASA. That contract runs through 2025 and "will be supplemented with customer pre-buy opportunities and public-private partnerships," per a recent Lockheed press release.

Nanoracks is already deeply involved in commercial ventures to, from and on the ISS. Founded in 2009, the company has delivered some 1,300 research payloads and small satellites to the station and currently rents space for research modules aboard its Nanoracks External Platform on the outside of the ISS. Its wide-bore Bishop airlock was the first permanent commercial addition to the ISS.

The company is developing a line of smaller self-contained orbital platforms, dubbed Outposts, which could serve a variety of purposes from refueling stations for satellite constellations, to cubesat launchers and advanced technology testbeds to hydroponic greenhouses. The first iteration is expected to be launched by 2024.

The Starlab itself, which should be ready for business by 2027, will consist of an inflatable 340 cubic meter habitat built by Northrop (similar to the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, that was demonstrated on the ISS in 2016) that can accommodate up to four crew members simultaneously. Four solar panels will generate 60 kW of power for the station to use.

With just under half the usable interior space as the ISS, Starlab's operations will be centered around its cutting-edge George Washington Carver (GWC) Science Park which includes a biology lab space, plant habitation lab, materials research lab and an unstructured workbench area enabling the station to offer services ranging from fundamental research and astronaut training to space tourism. However, tourists will take a backseat to scientific endeavors aboard the station. "Space tourism is what captures the headlines, but to have a sustainable business model, you really do need to move beyond that," Nanoracks CEO Jeffrey Manber told TechCrunch last October.

Blue Origin's Orbital Reef

Blue Origin's Orbital Reef
Blue Origin

With the "pay NASA to pay us to ferry Artemis gear to the moon" plan having been thoroughly imploded by the US federal court system, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has set its sights on a goal slightly closer to Earth. The space launch and tourism company has partnered with Sierra Space to build, launch and operate a "mixed-use business park" in space, dubbed Orbital Reef.

The 830 cubic meter structure is still in its early planning stages, having garnered a $130 million Space Act contract from NASA last December for its development, and isn't expected to launch until at least the second half of the 2020s. Few other details have yet been confirmed.

"Now, anyone can establish an address in orbit," Blue Origin declared last October when unveiling the project. "Orbital Reef expands access, lowers the cost and provides everything needed to help you operate your business in space." This from the company that got $28 million for a single seat aboard last year's inaugural New Shepard flight.

Northrop Grumman's Cygnus-based space station

Northrop Grumman Cygnus
NASA

NASA's third Space Act agreement recipient from last December is defender contractor Northrop Grumman, which plans to repurpose one of its existing Cygnus spacecraft for use as an orbital station.

Like Orbital Reef, Northrop's as-of-yet unnamed design is still in its earliest stages of development, though the company does expect the new station to accommodate up to four permanent crew members once it does initiate operations and could at least double that number as the station is expanded throughout its estimated 15-year service life.

Under the terms of the $125 million agreement, "the Northrop Grumman team will deliver a free-flying space station design that is focused on commercial operations to meet the demands of an expanding LEO market," Steve Krein, vice president of civil and commercial space at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement last December. "Our station will enable a smooth transition from International Space Station-based LEO missions to sustainable commercial-based missions where NASA does not bear all the costs, but serves as one of many customers."

Of course, the US and its commercial constituents are far from the only parties interested in colonizing LEO for business interests. China launched the Tianhe core module of its new 3-crew member Tiangong space station into orbit this past April with the remaining Experiment Modules and separate space telescope going up between this year and 2024. Similarly, India's space agency is developing a station of its own with plans to launch it by the end of the decade, following the country's upcoming Gaganyaan mission, the first crewed orbital spacecraft to launch as part of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme.

These propositions are only the start of humanity's expansion into the stars from low Earth orbit, to the Lunar Gateway, to Mars and beyond. But the question isn't so much of when and how we'll do so, but rather, who will be able to afford to?

'Ghostwire: Tokyo' is a creepy and quirky paranormal adventure

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 07:00 AM PST

The magic in Ghostwire: Tokyo is fat and tangible, glowing between Akito's palms and streaming from his fingertips in sturdy golden ropes, binding enemies to one another before exploding them into pieces. From a first-person perspective, Akito rapidly contorts his hands into a series of precise shapes, forming orbs of elemental energy and supernatural strings before unleashing their power on the ghosts and demons sauntering along the streets of Tokyo. Magic isn't the only weapon at Akito's disposal, but it's certainly the most stylish one.

Ghostwire: Tokyo
Tango Gameworks

Developers at Tango Gameworks, the studio founded by Resident Evil and Devil May Cry veteran Shinji Mikami, shared a video on Thursday demonstrating the basic gameplay mechanics of Ghostwire: Tokyo, but they also held a private briefing for press where they showed off about 30 minutes of additional beta footage. The private demo focused on world-building, battle strategies and the mind-melting Utena Spaces that turn some buildings into time-sensitive psychedelic death traps.

In Ghostwire: Tokyo, a mysterious fog rolls through the city and devours everyone it touches, trapping their souls in the process, until Tokyo is deserted. Hordes of well-dressed demonic creatures move in, taking the place of the living. Akito is a young man who wakes up in the center of the chaos with a voice named KK inside his head and supernatural powers in his veins, and he begins his mission to save his sister and take back the city.

With a realistic Tokyo as its backdrop, Ghostwire feels like a first-person, paranormal Yakuza. Among the neon signs and abandoned cars, the streets are packed with enemies that resemble Slenderman, floaty tissue-paper ghosts, headless schoolgirls and areas of corruption that Akito needs to cleanse. He travels around the city on foot, but he also has a Tengu ability that allows him to latch onto flying creatures and scale skyscrapers in a single grab.

Ghostwire: Tokyo
Tango Gameworks

Ghostwire: Tokyo uses an upgrade system based on soul power, using the spirits Akito saves throughout the city to make his magic hit harder. There's also the shop, which is housed in a small convenience store and operated by a happy, floating cat (whose name is probably definitely not Garfield). Here, Akito can purchase food for health and other perks, or he can just hang out with an entrepreneurial feline for a while.

The newest bit of the press preview is contained to a single, multistory apartment building. After completing a task in one of the rooms, the world around Akito transforms into a trippy house of horrors, with black goo sliding down the walls and an oil-slick barrier keeping him trapped inside the building. A timer begins ticking down in the upper lefthand corner of the screen, offering Akito less than 10 minutes to clear the distortion before it kills him.

The building around Akito flips upside and sideways as he walks through its halls — the walls, floor and ceiling are covered in amoeba-like textures, then they shift to show a city drenched in static, and then they're dotted with black blobs crawling like cockroaches. This section is reminiscent of the Ashtray Maze in Control, with PT vibes and goo styling by Devil May Cry. In the hands-off press demo, Akito finds the sources of the distortion and destroys them with four minutes left on his timer, leaving him free to explore more.

Ghostwire: Tokyo
Tango Gameworks

In the final stages of the preview, Akito completes a quest given to him by the restless soul of an old woman — he enters her apartment and rescues a helpful spirit from the ethereal clutches of a terrible, creepy landlord. The characters here are transitory, but they still have strong, slightly silly, very spooky personalities, which is perfectly in line with Tango Gameworks' style.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is due to hit PlayStation 5 and PC on March 25. It's a timed exclusive on PS5, and after one year it'll be free to hit other consoles. This is a slightly messy situation, considering the game is being published by Bethesda, a studio that Microsoft purchased for $7.5 billion last year. Moving forward, it'll be likely to see Bethesda games on Xbox platforms first (or only), but Ghostwire: Tokyo snuck its way onto PS5. Ah, the benefits of being a ghost.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival projects we're still thinking about

Posted: 04 Feb 2022 06:30 AM PST

Another Sundance Film Festival has come and gone, and with it we've gotten a close look at some of the films and interactive experiences that'll be the talk of 2022. After Yang, the profound story of a family dealing with the loss of their beloved android, has all the makings of an awards contender. And we have a feeling we'll be hearing more about We Met in Virtual Reality once it's released, as it manages to capture some moving portraits of relationships formed over VRChat.

There were some disappointments too, like TikTok, Boom, which tried and failed to tackle one of the fastest growing social platforms. We didn't have time to cover every single project we encountered at Sundance, but just like last year, we've put together some quick impressions of other films and experiences that stood out.

Cosmogony

I went on quite the trip watching Cosmogony. It was screened in Sundance's virtual cinema, where my stick figure avatar found a seat in the middle of the third row beside some other journalist. As we waited for the show to start, we could see the artists in motion-capture suits walking around and warming up in a studio in Geneva. This behind-the-scenes glimpse was helpful to keep in mind as the show progressed, reminding me it was just three individual dancers of average height putting on the performance.

That's because the characters in Cosmogony get replicated, resized and reskinned throughout the approximately 30-minute live digital performance. The dancers' movements are projected in real time to digital avatars in virtual 3D environments, placing them in scenes like mountains and cities. At first, I thought Cosmogony a little cheesy, especially when the performers took turns jumping off a fake cliff and roaming around some scenic areas.

But about five minutes in, Cosmogony got wild. The avatars took on strange heat-map-looking skins, grew to hundreds of feet tall, then played with tiny replicated versions of themselves. They later morphed into what looked like aggressive Pokemon thugs, before turning into what I can only describe as statues dripping golden showers in space.

It's a ride and a visual spectacle that ended up being an unexpectedly entertaining experience that's also a rumination on what physical boundaries might (or might not) exist in the metaverse. In a space where the laws of physics perhaps don't matter, how might we interpret ourselves? Free from the limits of the real world, how would you express yourself or choose to appear to others? It's an intriguing concept, and I appreciate that the team behind Cosmogony never once uttered the word "metaverse," leaving it up to you to make your own connections. In a Sundance where the words "metaverse" and "NFT'' appeared far too often for my liking, the freedom that Cosmogony affords its viewers is liberating. — Cherlynn Low, Deputy Editor

Neptune Frost

Part musical, part Afro-cyberpunk fairy tale, Neptune Frost presents a unique vision of the future via Africa, a continent typically ignored by traditional science fiction. The film follows a transgender hacker, who comes across a mystical commune filled with other people who find comfort in technology. That's not to say they shun humanity. Instead, through its characters clad in keyboards and old motherboard components, Neptune Frost shows us a techno-utopia that celebrates community while also railing against Big Tech and a dystopian government dubbed The Authority.

"Death surrounds us," a coltan miner says during a poetic moment at the beginning of the film. "The worker pays the price it seems. Metal precious currency. Third and first world currency. Black market currency. Drum-beat heartbeat currency. That old black body currency. Every martyr currency. All that you pay not to see."

Co-directed by Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, Neptune Frost's experimental narrative isn't always easy to parse, but its inventive costume design and gorgeous visuals make it truly memorable. It's no surprise that Lin-Manuel Miranda is among the film's producers: It's ultimately about a group of disenfranchised people shouting for recognition through music and art. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Editor

Neptune Frost will be released by Kino Lorber globally, but it doesn't yet have a release date.

The State of Global Peace

Sundance 2022 State of Global Peace
Sundance

In this Oculus Quest VR experience, you play the role of a prime minister who's gearing up to deliver a speech at the United Nations. But as you struggle to read some generic fluff from the teleprompter (something you're asked to do aloud in VR), your presentation is hacked by a group of students. Their mission: to force you to recognize the devastating impact of climate change, income inequality, and rising militarism.

As I was going through the experience, I couldn't help but think of how I'd eventually explain the sad state of the world to my own daughter. How could things go so fundamentally wrong? And did I do enough to help, when I had the chance? While The State of Global Peace isn't exactly subtle, its strong message is the sort of thing every leader and so-called titan of industry should be forced to confront. — D.H.

Seven Grams

Seven Grams was one of only two New Frontier projects at Sundance this year that involved AR and it honestly didn't need to be in that format. The experience, which you can download as an app on iOS and Android, shows you where some mineral components are in your phone, while director Karim Ben Khelifa takes you through how they're mined. It's an eye-opening piece that sheds light on the "conditions under which the rare materials needed to make [smartphones] are extracted, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)."

I appreciated seeing an iPhone and its exploded bits float in front of me, as well as being able to move around to see it from other angles through my camera, but I quickly grew tired of having to hold up my phone. Whenever I placed my device down with the camera obstructed, the app paused, only resuming when I picked it up again. I could have just as easily been shown where the components are through an onscreen diagram.

Thankfully, only part of the experience was in AR, and I could put my phone down to watch the rest, which was told through animations. Ben Khelifa shared a gripping tale of a boy named Chance, who spent six years against his will as a child soldier for militia groups in the DRC. He was also forced to mine for gold and cassiterite, having to sleep in claustrophobic underground holes.

The project ends by calling the viewer to pledge to "repair, recycle and buy refurbished smartphones," as well as to demand ethically manufactured smartphones with transparent and clean supply chains. It's an important call to action and a message that more people and companies need to hear. — C.L.
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