Sunday, March 27, 2022

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Valve’s summer Steam Next Fest starts June 13th

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 03:01 PM PDT

The dust on Valve's spring Steam Next Fest may have only recently settled, but the company is already turning its attention to the next iteration of the event. On Friday, Valve announced its latest Next Fest would take place between June 13th and June 20th, with the showcase scheduled to get underway at 1PM ET.

As with past versions of Next Fest, Valve is promising that there will be "hundreds" of game demos for people to check out, as well as developer livestreams featuring some of the teams working on the titles the company plans to highlight. Valve hasn't shared a list of demos that will be available in June, but past versions of the event have featured some excellent games, including Sable, Toem and, one of my recent personal favorites, The Wandering Village. The timing of the event means it will likely overlap with this year's E3. While the Entertainment Software Association has yet to set a date for the annual conference, it has historically taken place in early to mid-June.

Instagram may soon allow you to respond to Stories with voice messages

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 02:19 PM PDT

Instagram recently introduced private likes as an additional way to interact with Stories. And it looks like the company could add soon add yet another way to respond to ephemeral clips and images from your friends. According to developer Alessandro Paluzzi, who's known for reverse engineering apps to find evidence of new features, Instagram is working on allowing people to send voice messages in response to Stories. On Saturday, Paluzzi shared a screenshot of the new interface feature.

We've reached out to Instagram for comment. We'll note here not every feature the company works on behind the scenes ends up in a public release. When Instagram introduced private Story likes, it said its motivation was to reduce inbox clutter. Adding the option to send voice messages would run counter to that philosophy, but it would make it easier to do something you can already do within the app.

FCC says Russia’s Kaspersky Lab is a national security threat

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 01:36 PM PDT

On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission added Russia's Kaspersky Lab to its "Covered List," labeling the cybersecurity firm an "unacceptable" national security risk to the US. The move marks the first time the agency has blacklisted a Russian company. 

With the decision, US companies can't use subsidies from the FCC's $8 billion Universal Service Fund for supporting telecom deployments in rural and underserved communities to purchase products and services from Kaspersky. All seven other organizations on the list hail from China, with among the most notable being Huawei and ZTE.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Car said the designation would help the US secure its networks from "threats posed by Chinese and Russian state-backed entities seeking to engage in espionage and otherwise harm America's interests." The two other companies the FCC added to the list on Friday were China Telecom and China Mobile, both of which were already subject to previous restrictions.

"This decision is not based on any technical assessment of Kaspersky products – that the company continuously advocates for – but instead is being made on political grounds," Kaspersky said following the announcement. The company noted it was ready to work with the FCC and other US government agencies to address any regulatory concerns.

The move is partly symbolic. Before Friday's announcement, a 2017 order by former President Donald Trump had already banned the federal government from using Kaspersky software. The FCC did not cite Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine for this most recent move.

Apple reportedly hasn’t complied with a Dutch order to open app payment options

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 12:06 PM PDT

Back in January, the Netherlands ordered Apple to allow locally available dating apps to use third-party systems to collect payments. The company had until January 15th to comply with the ruling or face fines. According to Reuters, the company has yet to adhere to the order in a way that satisfies the country's Authority for Consumers and Markets regulator.

Last week, Apple reportedly submitted a new proposal that the ACM rejected. No details about the offer, including information on how it differed from the company's current approach, were shared by Reuters. When Apple announced it would comply with the ACM's order in January, it said it would take a 27 percent commission from third-party transactions. To date, the regulator has fined Apple to the tune of €45 million (approximately $49 million). According to Reuters, the ACM will fine Apple again next week. At that point, the company could face even higher monetary penalties.

The fines come as Apple and other app store operators face increasing pressure to open their marketplaces to third-party payment systems. Last August, South Korea passed a law requiring all major app stores to offer alternate payment methods. In the last week, that pressure and the increasing likelihood of the US and EU passing similar legislation translated to Google announcing it would work with Spotify to test alternatives to its Play Store billing system. Apple has so far resisted those efforts, arguing they would force new security and privacy risks upon its customers.

Uber secures 30-month London taxi license

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 10:19 AM PDT

Following a years-long dispute with the city's transit regulator, Uber has earned a 30-month license to continue operating in London, Transport for London (TfL) said on Saturday. "Uber has been granted a London private hire vehicle operator's license for a period of two and a half years," a TfL spokesperson told CNBC.

Uber's dispute with TfL dates back to 2017 when the agency said the company wasn't "fit and proper" to operate in the city and went on to revoke its taxi license. Among other issues, TfL said Uber had failed to properly conduct driver background checks and report serious criminal offenses. Uber appealed that decision. And while a court went on to grant it 15 months to clean up its act, TfL eventually revoked the company's license again in 2019, noting at the time it had shown a "pattern of failures" in the past. Subsequently, Uber won another court decision in 2020 that gave it a new 18-month license that came with conditions designed to monitor its adherence to local regulations.

On Twitter, Uber said it was "delighted" by TfL's decision, noting the agency "rightly holds our industry to the highest regulatory and safety standards," and that it was "pleased to have met their high bar." But not everyone is happy about the decision.

"This is yet another tragically missed opportunity for [London Mayor] Sadiq Khan to make worker rights a condition of license for Uber to finally bring an end to the abuse of 100,000 gig workers licensed by Transport for London," the App Drivers and Couriers Union said following the announcement. The group accused the company of failing to comply with a UK Supreme Court ruling from law year that said the company should treat its drivers as workers.

Apple's latest AirPods are on sale for $150 right now

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 08:21 AM PDT

Apple's third-generation AirPods may only be a few months old, but you can purchase them right now for 16 percent off their suggested retail price. Amazon has discounted the company's latest earbuds to $149.98. That's only $10 more than their all-time low of $140.

Buy AirPods (3rd gen) at Amazon - $150

While you could buy Apple's second-generation AirPods for less money, we think the new model is a better purchase for most people. We gave Apple's latest earbuds a score of 88, noting they were "better in nearly every way" from their predecessor. They feature a new design that we found a lot more comfortable. Sound quality is likewise improved with the third-generation AirPods capable of delivering rich bass. Battery life was another highlight, with the included charging case providing up to 30 hours of listening time. Apple's H1 chip enables a handful of handy features, including hands-free Siri, support for spatial audio with head tracking and seamless pairing with Apple devices.

Of course, they're not perfect. Their one-size-fits-all design won't be for everyone, and they don't come with active noise cancellation, a feature that would make them ideal for commuting. Still, if you own an iPhone, it's hard to go wrong with the third-generation AirPods.

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

Recommended Reading: Telegram is playing with fire

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 07:00 AM PDT

Telegram's dangerous game

Casey Newton, Platformer

Telegram was almost banned in Brazil because it missed some emails from the local authorities. In his newsletter, Newton explains why this is the latest in a series of troubling decisions from a platform with over 500 million users. "When you're providing critical communications infrastructure to tens of millions of people, though, you have more responsibility," he writes.

Here's how an algorithm guides a medical decision

Nicole Wetsman, The Verge

Artificial intelligence is being used for all sorts of things in medicine, one of which is predicting if a patient is at risk for conditions like diabetes or cardiovascular issues. However, it can be difficult for us as members of the public to understand how these algorithms work. The Verge guides us through one called Sepsis Watch, a system that monitors patients for a potentially deadly condition following an infection.

Ukraine's engineers battle to keep the internet running while Russian bombs fall around them

Thomas Brewster, Forbes

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are helping to provide internet access in Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing Russian invasion, but crews on the ground are venturing into dangerous areas to fix equipment that was already in place that's being damaged by bombings. 

Gene losses allow vampire bats to live solely on a diet of blood

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 03:28 AM PDT

While bats have been closely associated with vampires for centuries, there are actually only three species of bats that drink blood. Most of them eat fruits, insects, nectar and small animals, like frogs and fish, instead. Blood is low in calories, while being rich in iron, protein and little else, making it a terrible, terrible food source. Now, a team of scientists has figured out how and why those vampire bat species are the only mammals that can live solely on a diet of blood.

Upon comparing the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other species, the scientists found 13 genes in the blood-sucking mammals that either no longer work or are missing. Three of those losses had been reported in another study published in 2014, with all of them indicating a reduced sense of taste reception in vampire bats. The remaining 10 gene losses are new discoveries, according to the team.

The loss of a gene called REP15 indicates enhanced iron uptake in the animals' gastrointestinal cells, which they also shed and excrete quickly. This prevents iron overload that can have severe detrimental effects. The absence of two other genes allow glucose to remain longer in the bats' bodies and prevent hypoglycemia, since blood contains minimal carbohydrates. Another absent gene might also be the consequence of the "extensive morphological and physiological modifications" in the stomach of common vampire bats. Instead of being a muscular organ, their stomachs are expandable structures used to store large amounts of liquid and serve as a major site of fluid absorption. 

The loss of one gene even contributed "to the evolution of vampire bats' exceptional social behaviors." Since they can't survive too long without feeding, seeing as blood is very low in calories, vampire bats can regurgitate their meals and share with others. They can also keep track of who shared with them in the past and will extend extend help to them in the future if needed. Hannah Kim Frank, a bat researcher at Tulane University, told AP: "It's totally bizarre and amazing that vampire bats can survive on blood — they are really weird, even among bats."

The study revealing the loss of genes that allow them to live off blood doesn't make vampire bats any less weird, or intriguing. You can read the whole study in the Science Advances journal.

FAA extends environmental review of SpaceX Boca Chica launch site (again)

Posted: 26 Mar 2022 12:29 AM PDT

SpaceX has to wait even longer to find out if it can launch Starship flights out of its Boca Chica facility in Texas. The US Federal Aviation Administration has delayed its decision on the environmental review of the launch site yet again, pushing back its target date of completion to April 29th. SpaceX must secure the FAA's approval, along with a vehicle operator license, before it can launch Starship missions out of Boca Chica as planned. 

Specifically, the agency is looking into whether launching the massive reusable vehicle out of the facility will have a significant environmental impact on the area and will be a public safety threat. Its original target date for completion was December 21st, 2021, but it pushed the date back to February 28th, 2022 and then again to March 28th. On the official page for the environmental assessment, the FAA said it's updating its target date to April 29th "to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations." The FAA received 19,000 comments for the draft version of the review published last year.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk recently revealed that the company hopes to send Starship into orbit for the first time in May. If the FAA finishes its review on time, and with a favorable result for the company, then there's a chance the launch could happen in a couple of months. It's worth noting that Musk's timeline could be too optimistic.

In case the Boca Chica site fails the FAA's environmental review or if the agency issues an environmental impact statement (EIS) to dig deeper into the company's plans over the next few years, then SpaceX could shift to its backup plan. During a Starship presentation earlier this year, Musk said SpaceX already has approval to launch the Starship from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The move would delay the vehicle's first flight by six to eight months since the company has to build a launch tower at the site, but at least the wait wouldn't last for years. 
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