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- Spotify adds promised COVID-19 content advisory
- Amazon's second-gen Echo Buds are down to only $50 right now
- HP buys Poly, the company formerly known as Plantronics
- OnePlus as we knew it is dead, here's what next
- Amazon Games chief Mike Frazzini is leaving the company
- The Morning After: Apple TV+ is the first streaming service to win a Best Picture Oscar
- Samsung's $700 Smart Monitor M8 is now available to pre-order
- Apple's AirPods Max headphones fall to $439 at Amazon
- Apple becomes the first streamer to win a Best Picture Oscar with 'CODA'
- ‘Bloodborne Kart’ reimagines FromSoftware’s classic RPG as a PS1-era arcade racer
- Crunchyroll ends free ad-supported simulcast streaming for 2022 spring anime season
- Apple and Google close loophole that allowed Russians to use Mir cards for mobile payments
- Apple may release its next iPad Pro this fall
- A massive DDoS attack leaves ‘Among Us’ unplayable in North America and Europe
- Russia's invasion of Ukraine has destroyed a historic computer museum
- Hitting the Books: The Soviets once tasked an AI with our mutually assured destruction
| Spotify adds promised COVID-19 content advisory Posted: 28 Mar 2022 09:23 AM PDT Spotify has finally acted on its promise to add a COVID-19 content advisory label. As CNBCreports (and Engadget can confirm), you'll now see a tab for a COVID-19 Guide when you visit podcasts and other content discussing the new coronavirus. Tap it and you'll visit a section that points you to authoritative sources (such as the UK's National Health Service and the World Health Organization) as well as trustworthy content, including podcast episodes from BBC News and The Guardian. Engadget We've asked Spotify for comment. The advisory doesn't appear to be available everywhere — we couldn't see it in Canada as of this writing, for instance. The section represents part of Spotify's response to criticism of Joe Rogan's podcast. The host has been accused of spreading COVID-19 misinformation through the Joe Rogan Experience, including a December 2021 episode where Dr. Robert Malone falsely claimed a "psychosis" fooled people into believing vaccines were effective against the virus. Spotify answered the backlash with both a promise of the content advisory as well as public content guidelines, but the label was expected to arrive within days, not months. The content warning might not do much to improve Spotify's image. Numerous high-profile artists pulled or paused their work in protest over the misinformation existing in the first place, including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and author Brené Brown — a label isn't likely to satisfy them and other critics who want Spotify to remove misinformation. While Spotify's efforts have addressed the concerns of some creators, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, there still appears to be some lasting damage. |
| Amazon's second-gen Echo Buds are down to only $50 right now Posted: 28 Mar 2022 08:24 AM PDT Amazon improved its Echo Buds in nearly every way when it came out with the second generation last year, and at $120, they're a solid option for those who don't want to spend a ton on ANC earbuds. Now, Amazon's knocked 58 percent off the second-gen Echo Buds, bringing the models with the standard charging case down to only $50. That's $20 cheaper than they were during the holiday shopping season last year. Buy Echo Buds at Amazon - $50The online retailer learned from the shortcomings of its original Echo Buds and rectified many of them when redesigning the latest models. The buds are 20 percent smaller than the previous models, a bit lighter too, and the entire design is IPX4 rated against water splashes. Sound quality has been massively improved: audio sounds less compressed and you'll be able to hear the differences at low, medium and high volumes. In the Alexa companion app, you can mess around the the EQ if you wish while also customizing the settings for ANC mode, hands-free Alexa and Power Save mode. Amazon switched from active noise reduction to true active noise cancelling on these buds and it made a world of difference. The buds block out surrounding noises and the Passthrough feature, which allows some environmental noise in, sounds more natural than that of other earbuds. Naturally, you're also getting Alexa voice commands on these buds, and the assistant can do more than it could before, controlling music and podcast playback, finding specific shows on Amazon Music and making recommendations for other content you may want to listen to. Battery life is pretty decent as well — you'll get about five hours of listening time before the Echo Buds need more juice, and their case can give you two hours of listening time after only 15 minutes of charging. While call performance could be better, the second-gen Echo Buds are still a good option if you rely on Alexa for a lot of things or if you want a pair of ANC earbuds that won't break the bank. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice. |
| HP buys Poly, the company formerly known as Plantronics Posted: 28 Mar 2022 07:23 AM PDT Plantronics' (now Poly's) long independent streak is coming to an end. Reutersreports HP is acquiring Poly in an all-cash deal worth $3.3 billion including debt. HP said the purchase would bolster its "hybrid work" offerings, such as headsets and videoconferencing hardware. The computing giant didn't say if Poly would still operate as a distinct brand or retain its CEO (we've asked HP for comment), but the deal is expected to close by the end of 2022. Don't expect this to lead to HP-branded consumer headphones or earbuds. When Plantronics rebranded as Poly, the company was already transitioning from personal audio to work-oriented products like meeting room speakers and videoconferencing cameras. Only a handful of items (such as the Voyager headphone range) are designed with home use at least partly in mind. As it stands, HP already targets everyday users with its gaming-focused HyperX brand. Whatever HP's intentions, the buyout closes an important chapter in audio history. Plantronics was one of the first companies to produce Bluetooth headsets, and developed an early reputation as a go-to brand for hands-free calling. However, its attempts at competing with consumer heavyweights like Apple, Bose and Sony never really panned out. While Plantronics created well-made headphones and earbuds that sometimes undercut the competition on price, it never reached the level of hype that helped its rivals succeed. The 2018 acquisition of Polycom and the subsequent Poly rebrand was, in a sense, an acknowledgment that Plantronics' strength was in the office rather than at home. It's also no secret that Poly had entertained buyers. In 2018, Plantronics had been in talks with Logitech about a possible deal. That fell through, but it was already clear the firm was open to a merger. The HP move might represent a happy ending in that light, even if Poly is losing its independence in the process. |
| OnePlus as we knew it is dead, here's what next Posted: 28 Mar 2022 06:30 AM PDT OnePlus began life as a startup making smartphones with high-end specs aimed at enthusiasts. Its first phones were barebones devices that maximized value for money, while still retaining a sense of identity (remember those sandstone backs?). That's something that's not easy for any device, regardless of price. But now after 10 generations, it feels like the OnePlus we knew is gone, and it's probably not coming back. Now, I don't mean to be all doom and gloom. It's only natural that companies evolve over time. Just look at Nintendo, which started out making Hanafuda cards more than 130 years ago, or Nokia, which can trace its roots back to a single pulp mill built way back in 1865. So while OnePlus hasn't been around nearly that long and its pivot isn't nearly as drastic, ahead of the company's next flagship phone's arrival in the US, now feels like a good time to examine how a once sorta plucky smartphone upstart turned into mainstream OEM. Carlo Allegri / reuters Founded in 2013 by Carl Pei and Pete Lau, OnePlus started off as a subsidiary of BBK electronics alongside other well-known Chinese smartphone brands including Oppo, Vivo and, more recently, Realme. So right away there was a lot of shared DNA. But critically, even though OnePlus phones often had similar designs and specs compared to contemporary Oppo devices, the teams behind those phones were separate. (The old joke for years was that the latest Vivo phone would eventually become the next OnePlus device after a few months, but I digress.) This gave OnePlus the freedom to tweak things to suit its core audience: hardcore phone nerds, mostly in the US and western Europe before later expanding to India. Meanwhile, Oppo and Vivo focused more on the Chinese market and other regions in Asia. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, when a new OnePlus phone came out, it often launched first in the US. OnePlus phones also had features like its Alert Slider and OxygenOS that weren't available on phones from its sister companies. And as early as 2015, 60 to 70 percent of the company's sales came from overseas as growth in the west quickly outpaced gains in its home country. More recently in 2020, OnePlus sales in the US grew by 143 percent while practically every other phone maker saw shipments decline due to the pandemic and the silicon shortage that followed soon after. In contrast to Oppo and Vivo, OnePlus carved out its niche overseas, and in some ways, you could even think of OnePlus as a western company that just happened to be based in the east. OnePlus But everything changed last year when OnePlus announced that it was officially merging with Oppo. So now, instead of being an independent company (albeit with the same parent in BBK), OnePlus is being positioned as a sub-brand for its sister company run by Lau, who will jointly oversee both companies while serving as chief product officer. From a business standpoint, the merger makes a lot of sense. Rather than having redundant teams working on similar projects at different companies, combining OnePlus and Oppo helps streamline research and development while also boosting the scale at which the company can produce (and sell) devices. And it's a similar story for the OS powering these devices, because after years of independent development, OnePlus announced that OxygenOS and Oppo's ColorOS would transition to a shared codebase. That means while OxygenOS will still be around, it's closer to being a tweaked and stripped-down skin of ColorOS designed to look OnePlus' old platform. But under the hood, they're the same. And if it wasn't for backlash from fans, Oppo probably would have shelved OnePlus' take on Android entirely in favor of Vivo's platform. OnePlus Unfortunately, this change to the new codebase hasn't been smooth. During a recent roundtable that took place during MWC late last month, OnePlus' head of OS product Gary Chen admitted that the latest iteration of OxygenOS (version 12) "did not meet expectations." On top of that, when asked why the OnePlus 10 Pro launched first in China months before becoming available in other regions, Lau said the OP10 Pro's delayed availability wasn't caused by the ongoing global chip crunch, but instead because "software development takes longer for non-China countries." This is a very different approach to OnePlus' global sales strategy compared to the past. And lest we forget, there still aren't even any plans to make a non-pro OnePlus 10, which just seems odd after years of new phones landing in pairs. Another important factor to consider is all the former employees who have left the company recently, most notably Carl Pei. Not long before the OnePlus/Oppo merger went down, Pei left the company he helped create to launch Nothing. According to Lau, "Pei's departure did not have an impact on the development of OnePlus." And while I understand the desire for a company to put on a stoic face during a major transition, allow me to reserve a bit of skepticism on that one. Steve Jennings via Getty Images Over the course of multiple generations, Pei was often the face of OnePlus, especially for customers in the west. He presented new flagship devices at launch events and regularly popped in to chat with customers or provide updates in the company's forums. And after launching its first product last year (the Ear1 earbuds), Nothing is about to become one of OnePlus' direct competitors now that the company is prepping to launch the Phone 1 sometime this summer. Without getting too deep into any interpersonal drama, I think it's pretty clear that Pei is still very much interested in making gadgets, just not at OnePlus. The brain drain hasn't happened solely at the very top of the ladder either, with other longtime OnePlus execs like chief marketing officer Kyle Kiang having left the company last year in April. And then there are the countless numbers of OnePlus public relations, communication and support staff that have departed as well. Prior to 2020, I basically had the same two or three OnePlus contacts for five years running. And while my more recent contacts have been nothing short of professional, the amount of internal turnover I've seen feels very much like a changing of the guard. Oppo And then there are smaller moves like pushing Warp Charging to the back burner in favor of 150W SuperVooc charging, which is slated to arrive on an upcoming OnePlus phone sometime in 2022. Now, it's hard to get too upset about getting even faster charging tech, but this is yet another example of how the Oppo side of the company is seeping into OnePlus. But perhaps most importantly is how OnePlus views itself. After shipping more than 11 million phones last year, OnePlus set new sales records in 2021. And while the company says it will continue to support its core markets in the US, India, Europe and China, the company also has aggressive plans to expand its markets later this year to Canada, Mexico and South America (a first for OnePlus). And in the future, OnePlus is eyeing North Africa and the Middle East as well. In short, while longtime enthusiasts probably won't be completely forgotten, 2022 feels like a massive push from OnePlus to become a truly mainstream name. OnePlus In some ways, OnePlus has kinda become the new LG, filling the void in the smartphone landscape left after Samsung's cross-country rival shuttered its mobile business. And while this might seem like selling out (which, remember, is exactly what companies are made to do), there are a number of positive things that have come about as part of the company's maturation. We're talking about stuff like wider retail availability and improved carrier support throughout the US, not to mention a growing ecosystem of gadgets that includes wireless earbuds, smartwatches and more. There's also the company's partnership with Hasselblad to improve its mobile photography, which for OnePlus has consistently lagged behind what you get on phones from Apple, Samsung and Google. OnePlus has even improved the everyday durability of its handsets in recent years thanks to support for IP68 dust and water resistance — even if the company's unlocked models don't explicitly mention this in their specs. And thanks to the Nord series, OnePlus has a larger lineup of affordable devices than ever before. OnePlus So has OnePlus finally turned its back on its longtime customers? Maybe, maybe not. That really depends on what you're looking for in a phone. There's no question that the company's latest flagship devices are very different from what it used to make back in 2014. Heck for the first few year But at the same time, people's preferences and expectations about what makes a good handset have changed a lot during the last eight years too. In its quest for a worldwide presence, OnePlus left a lot of its past behind. And in its place, we're left with a global brand that ranks as the fourth-largest smartphone maker on the planet (and that's not even counting Vivo) that's very hungry to climb even higher. So say goodbye to the old OnePlus and say hello to the rapidly expanding behemoth that's taken its place. |
| Amazon Games chief Mike Frazzini is leaving the company Posted: 28 Mar 2022 05:00 AM PDT Amazon Game Studio head and longtime employee Mike Frazzini is stepping down, he announced in a LinkedIn post. Frazzini cited the desire to spend more time with family and the fact that the studio is finally having some success. "While there's never really a perfect time to step away from a great role, now is a good time," he wrote. "We've launched two top 10 games in the past six months, and have a growing portfolio of promising new games in the pipeline." Amazon Games has struggled over the past few years, notably with the cancellation of its Lord of the Rings MMO and fiasco with its first AAA game, Crucible. The company was also criticized for its policy of claiming ownership of employees' personal games that one engineer called "draconian." One former Game Studios manager said some of Amazon's issues may have come about because Frazzini had no previous experience in gaming, according to the same Bloomberg report. However, the company has had hits of late with New World, one of 2021's biggest money makers on Steam. It has also had ongoing success as the publisher of Lost Ark, made by South Korean developer Smilegate RPG. Frazzini didn't say what he planned to do next. |
| The Morning After: Apple TV+ is the first streaming service to win a Best Picture Oscar Posted: 28 Mar 2022 04:15 AM PDT Almost precisely three years after it launched, Apple TV+ has claimed the Best Picture Oscar for a streaming service with CODA. In another historic moment, Troy Kotsur became the first Deaf male actor to win an Oscar. Apple paid $25 million for the distribution rights to the film, which had a limited theatrical run and is currently streaming on Apple TV+. Reuters It beat Netflix's favorite in the category, The Power of the Dog, which picked up Best Director for Jane Campion. And while Netflix registered a record 27 nominations for this year's Oscars, losing out to Apple for arguably the biggest prize probably smarts after years of campaigning for its movies and shows. — Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed
'Halo' wishes it was 'The Mandalorian'The show can't compete with modern sci-fi TV.Paramount+ Many, many years in the making, the interesting elements of Halo are somewhat outweighed by the show's simplistic writing, stiff acting and sometimes dodgy special effects. If it came out in 2015, when we first expected it to arrive, it would have been more impressive. But with The Mandalorian and other shows like Foundation on Apple TV+, there's a lot of premium sci-fi TV to get into — and that's before we even touch all the myriad Star Trek shows filling up Paramount+, the home of Halo. Apple may release its next iPad Pro this fallThe tablet will reportedly feature a new chip and MagSafe charging.Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects Apple will release its next-generation iPad Pro sometime this fall. Gurman anticipates the new tablet will feature MagSafe charging and Apple's long-rumored but as yet unannounced M2 chip. Apple only just updated the iPad Pro last year, adding 5G, Thunderbolt connectivity and its first-generation Apple Silicon system-on-a-chip. Details on the M2 remain sparse, but it has reportedly gone into production. Uber secures 30-month London taxi licenseThe extension ends a long-running spat with city regulators.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 the ride hailing service had been granted a London private hire vehicle operator's license" for a period of two and a half years." 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 revoked its taxi license. Among other issues, TfL said Uber had failed to properly conduct driver background checks and report serious criminal offenses. Whistleblower says Microsoft spent millions on bribes abroadThe former employee estimates "a minimum of $200 million each year."In an essay published on the whistleblower platform Lioness, former Microsoft manager Yasser Elabd alleged Microsoft fired him after he alerted leadership to a workplace where many regularly engaged in bribery. He further alleges that attempts to escalate his concerns resulted in retaliation within Microsoft and eventual termination from his role. Elabd claims in his essay that he worked for Microsoft between 1998 and 2018 and had oversight into a "business investment fund " — essentially a slush fund to "cement longer-term deals" in the Middle East and Africa. But he grew suspicious of unusual payments to seemingly unqualified partners. Ukraine is selling NFTs to support its militaryThe collection is meant to document the history of the war.Ukraine's Ministry for Digital Transformation has launched an NFT collection to help fund its military. The project was first announced in early March, but the NFT collection of illustrations by Ukrainian and international artists, called "Meta History Museum of War," is now live. The collection is meant to be an "NFT museum" documenting the history of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The collection currently comprises 54 NFTs documenting the events of the first three days of the war. |
| Samsung's $700 Smart Monitor M8 is now available to pre-order Posted: 28 Mar 2022 03:40 AM PDT Samsung's latest Smart Monitor, which we first got a look at during CES, is now available to pre-order. The Smart Monitor M8 has support for streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV, as well as cloud gaming platforms. You won't necessarily need to connect to external speakers, since two built-in 5W speakers and a tweeter will deliver 2.2-channel audio. The display comes with a magnetic, detachable SlimFit Cam that you can use for video calls. The full-HD webcam has face tracking and auto zoom functions, so it can follow you as you move around and automatically focus on your face. There's a far-field microphone as well, which will come in handy if you want to bark instructions at Alexa or Bixby from across the room. What's more, the M8 has an integrated SmartThings hub, which will allow you to control compatible smart home devices. You can connect wirelessly to a Windows PC or Mac and mirror your smartphone screen to the display as well. There's also the option to browse the web, edit documents and work on projects without connecting to a computer, in part thanks to built-in Microsoft 365 support. Samsung The M8 is 11.4mm thick, which Samsung says is around a quarter of the depth of previous displays. The 32-inch display has a UHD resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 and HDR 10+ compatibility. It has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a contrast ratio of 3,000:1. There's support for 1.07 billion colors, which covers 99 percent of the sRGB spectrum. The refresh rate tops out at 60 Hz, which may not cut it for some folks, while the response time is 4ms. On the connectivity front, the display has a one micro HDMI port and two USB-C ports, along with WiFi 5, AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth 4.2 support. It comes with a height-adjustable stand for which you won't have to pay an extra $400. The Smart Monitor M8 starts at $700 for the white model. The spring green, sunset pink and daylight blue models will cost you a little extra at $730. |
| Apple's AirPods Max headphones fall to $439 at Amazon Posted: 28 Mar 2022 02:27 AM PDT Apple's AirPods Max headphones offer excellent sound, solid active noise cancellation (ANC) and good battery life, but the regular $549 price is a bit hard to swallow. Now, you can pick a pair up at Amazon for just $439, or $110 (20 percent) off. That's close to the lowest price we've seen at Amazon, and you can choose between three colors: Sky Blue, Silver and Pink. Buy Apple AirPods Max at Amazon - $439The AirPods Max achieved a solid 84 Engadget review score and made our latest list of favorite headphones, thanks to their high sound quality, effective noise-cancellation and reliable controls. They offer a uniquely Apple-esque design, and despite being slightly heavier than Sony's WH-1000XM4 cans, are comfortable to wear. Once you get used to it, the rotating crown makes it easy to adjust sound. Audio quality is more natural than other headphones we've tried with bass that's accurate and not overpowering. Sony's WH-1000XM4 headphones have more effective ANC, but the AirPods Max come close. Meanwhile, the Transparency Mode lets you quickly disable ANC if you need to hear what's going on. The biggest drawback is the lack of lossless audio support, but they work great with Dolby Atmos surround sound on most Apple devices. The AirPods Max are ideal if you're in the Apple ecosystem, with the H1 chip letting you quickly switch between an iPhone and a Mac, for example. There's no question that they're very expensive at the regular $549 price, so Amazon's latest discount presents a good buying opportunity if you've been eyeing a pair. And if you've been looking for wireless earphones rather than headphones, Apple's third-generation AirPods are still on sale for $150, a savings of $29 and near their lowest price ever. Buy AirPods (3rd gen) at Amazon - $150Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice. |
| Apple becomes the first streamer to win a Best Picture Oscar with 'CODA' Posted: 28 Mar 2022 12:40 AM PDT Three years and three days after it was first unveiled, Apple TV+ has captured the first ever Best Picture Oscar for a streaming service with CODA. The film also took a historical win for Best Supporting Actor, as Troy Kotsur became the first Deaf male actor to win an Oscar. Writer and director Sian Heder also won for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film, with a mostly Deaf cast, follows Ruby (played Emilia Jones), a high school student who navigates life as the only hearing member of a Deaf family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. "This is a really big moment for the Deaf community. It's a really big moment for the disability community," said Heder in a backstage ABC interview, via an ASL interpreter, as Variety reported. "Marlee Matlin won an Oscar 35 years ago, and not that much has changed in Hollywood, so I want to thank the Academy for making that change. Let this one be the first of many, many films to come out of this beautiful community." Apple paid $25 million for the distribution rights to the film, which made a limited theatrical run and is currently streaming on Apple TV+. It beat out Netflix's The Power of the Dog, which was another favorite in that category. After a record 27 nominations, Netflix didn't go away empty-handed, though. Jane Campion took a historic Best Director Oscar for The Power of the Dog, becoming only the third woman to win the award. (Chloé Zhao took the prize last year for Nomadland, while Katheryn Bigelow previously won for The Hurt Locker.) The Power of the Dog was nominated for 12 Oscars, including in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor/Actress categories, but Campion was the only winner. Brian Snyder / reuters Sci-fi fared particularly well at this year's Oscars. Dune, released simultaneously in the US on HBO Max and in theaters, won no less than six Academy Awards. The highlight was Greig Fraser's win for Best Cinematography, presented live during the telecast (above). However, the film's other awards were presented prior to the ceremony for the first time in Oscar history, something decried by several attendees including Steven Spielberg. They include wins for Best Production Design (Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipod), Best Film Editing (Joe Walker), Best Sound (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill, Ron Bartlett), Best Visual Effects (Paul Lambert) and Best Original Score (Hans Zimmer). Dune doesn't count as a streaming release, though, nor do others like Disney's Encanto, which won Best Animated Feature. Overall, streaming films fared poorer than last year, taking four statues compared to seven at the 2021 Oscar ceremonies. |
| ‘Bloodborne Kart’ reimagines FromSoftware’s classic RPG as a PS1-era arcade racer Posted: 27 Mar 2022 02:55 PM PDT A hunter must hunt, and so too must they race, according to the creator of the recently released PS1 "demake" of FromSoftware's classic 2015 action role-playing game. This week, Bloodborne PSX developer Lilith Walther announced she's working on Bloodborne Kart, a project she plans to release "when it's ready." As you can probably guess from its title, Bloodborne Kart looks to reimagine the sprawling city of Yharnam as the setting for an arcade racer.
The teaser Walther shared didn't include much in the way of gameplay, but we do get to see Bloodborne's protagonist and their slick new motorcycle depicted in the iconic pixelated style of a classic PS1-era game. In an interview with Kotaku, Walther said she hopes it won't take her as long to finish Bloodborne Kart as it did her original demake. That's due in part to the fact she already has existing assets and code to work with. In the meantime, you can follow her progress in an ongoing Twitter thread dedicated to the project's development. |
| Crunchyroll ends free ad-supported simulcast streaming for 2022 spring anime season Posted: 27 Mar 2022 01:46 PM PDT Crunchyroll quietly announced on Friday it is ending one of the primary perks of its free tier. In an update spotted by Anime News Network, the company said it no longer plans to offer ad-supported simulcast streaming of new series. Previously free users could watch new shows shortly after their Japanese debut as long as they were willing to wait a week and sit through commercials. By subscribing to one of Crunchyroll's premium plans, you can watch simulcasts one hour after their premiere in Japan. In the immediate future, Crunchyroll will allow free users to access a "seasonal sampler" that will include a selection of simulcast content from the platform's upcoming spring lineup. That sampler will allow free users to watch the first three episodes of shows like Spy x Family, Dawn of the Witch and Tomodachi Game one week after their platform debut until May 31st. To watch all new and continuing series in their entirety, free users will need to subscribe to one of Crunchyroll's premium tiers, which start at $8 per month. All currently available content will continue to be available to watch for free. "We want to encourage as many fans as possible to explore new shows and see the full benefits of Crunchyroll premium access," the company said. "Crunchyroll makes more than 1,000 hours available for viewers to sample free of charge through our ad-supported tier, and will continue to offer free content going forward." The announcement comes just weeks after Crunchyroll, following Sony's $1.175 billion deal to buy the service in 2020, said it was adding more than 50 Funimation series to its back catalog, and that all future shows acquired by Sony would debut on its service. |
| Apple and Google close loophole that allowed Russians to use Mir cards for mobile payments Posted: 27 Mar 2022 12:14 PM PDT Apple has closed a loophole that had allowed some Russians to continue using its mobile payments service despite the ongoing economic sanctions against Russia. According to Reuters, the company told the country's largest lender on Thursday it would no longer support Russia's homegrown Mir payments system through Apple Pay. "Apple has informed NSPK it is suspending support for Mir cards in the Apple Pay payment service," the National Card Payment System said Friday. "Starting from March 24th, users cannot add new Mir cards to the service. Apple will stop all operations of previously added cards over the next few days." Google took similar action last week as well. According to a separate report from The Wall Street Journal, the company paused a pilot that had allowed Russians to connect their Mir cards to Google Pay. "Google Pay is pausing payments-related services in Russia as a result of payment services disruption out of our control," a Google spokesperson told the outlet. As The Verge notes, the Central Bank of Russia established Mir after the US and other countries imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea in 2014. According to statistics shared by the Central Bank, Mir cards are involved in more than 25 percent of all card transactions within the country. Previously, cards from major Russian financial institutions like VTB Group and Sovcombank stopped working with Apple Pay and Google Pay shortly after the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24th. |
| Apple may release its next iPad Pro this fall Posted: 27 Mar 2022 11:01 AM PDT Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman expects Apple will release its next-generation iPad Pro sometime this fall. In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says he anticipates the new tablet will feature MagSafe inductive charging and Apple's long-rumored but as yet unannounced M2 chip, corroborating a previous report from 9to5Mac. As of the company's most recent hardware event, the iPad Air and iPad Pro both feature M1 chips. Apple last updated the iPad Pro in 2021 to add 5G and Thunderbolt connectivity, and its first-generation Apple Silicon system-on-a-chip. The iPad Pro has more or less featured the same design since 2018 when the company refreshed the tablet to give its now-iconic edge-to-edge display. Since then, Apple has filtered out that design to most of its other tablets, including the iPad mini and the aforementioned iPad Air. Details on the M2 remain sparse, but as of last April, it had reportedly gone into production. Most reports suggest the M2 will feature the same eight-core CPU layout as its predecessor while being faster and more efficient thanks to TSMC's new 4-nanometer fabrication process. |
| A massive DDoS attack leaves ‘Among Us’ unplayable in North America and Europe Posted: 27 Mar 2022 09:51 AM PDT Since late Friday afternoon, Among Us developer Innersloth has been trying to contain a DDoS attack against both its North American and European servers, leaving the popular game unplayable for many. "Service will be offline while the team works on fixing it, but might take a bit, hang tight! Sorry!" Innersloth said on Friday in a tweet spotted by Eurogamer.
As of the writing of this article, Innersloth has managed to restore some servers, but the situation does not appear to be fully resolved with the game's official Twitter account still stating "Among Us servers down" in its profile. "Can't believe I'm working on a Saturday right now, I was supposed to go and get a croissant," Innersloth said in one particularly desperate-sounding update over the weekend. Thanks to its popularity, Among Us is no stranger to disruptive hacking attacks. In 2020, the game experienced a far-reaching spam attack that affected as many 5 million players after an individual named "Eris Loris" found a way to hack millions of games. The event led to no small amount of grief and frustration among the game's community, with many taking to Reddit to vent their frustration at the hacker. |
| Russia's invasion of Ukraine has destroyed a historic computer museum Posted: 27 Mar 2022 08:41 AM PDT Earlier this week, Club 8-bit, one of Ukraine's largest privately-owned computer museums, was destroyed during the siege of Mariupol. Kotaku spotted news of the event after its owner, Dmitry Cherepanov, took to Facebook to share the fate of Club 8-bit.
"That's it, the Mariupol computer museum is no longer there," he said on March 21st. "All that is left from the collection that I have been collecting for 15 years are just fragments of memories on the FB page, website and radio station of the museum." Club 8-bit's collection included more than 500 pieces of computer history, with items dating from as far back as the 1950s. Gizmodo visited the museum in 2018, describing it at the time as "one of the largest and coolest collections" of Soviet-era computers to be found anywhere in the world. It took Cherepanov more than a decade to collect and restore many of the PCs on display at Club 8-bit. What makes the museum's destruction even more poignant is that it documented a shared history between the Ukrainian and Russian people. Thankfully, Cherepanov is alive, but like many residents of Mariupol, he has lost his home. If you want to support Cherepanov, he has opened a PayPal account accepting donations to help him and other Ukrainians affected by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since the start of the war, nearly 10 million people have been displaced by the conflict, making it the fastest-growing refugee crisis since the second world war. |
| Hitting the Books: The Soviets once tasked an AI with our mutually assured destruction Posted: 27 Mar 2022 07:00 AM PDT Barely a month into its already floundering invasion of Ukraine and Russia is rattling its nuclear saber and threatening to drastically escalate the regional conflict into all out world war. But the Russians are no stranger to nuclear brinksmanship. In the excerpt below from Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie's latest book, we can see how closely humanity came to an atomic holocaust in 1983 and why an increasing reliance on automation — on both sides of the Iron Curtain — only served to heighten the likelihood of an accidental launch. The New Fire looks at the rapidly expanding roles of automated machine learning systems in national defense and how increasingly ubiquitous AI technologies (as examined through the thematic lenses of "data, algorithms, and computing power") are transforming how nations wage war both domestically and abroad. MIT Press Excerpted from The New Fire: War, Peacem, and Democracy in the Age of AI by Andrew Imbrie and Ben Buchanan. Published by MIT Press. Copyright © 2021 by Andrew Imbrie and Ben Buchanan. All rights reserved. THE DEAD HANDAs the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union reached their apex in the fall of 1983, the nuclear war began. At least, that was what the alarms said at the bunker in Moscow where Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was on duty. Inside the bunker, sirens blared and a screen flashed the word "launch."A missile was inbound. Petrov, unsure if it was an error, did not respond immediately. Then the system reported two more missiles, and then two more after that. The screen now said "missile strike." The computer reported with its highest level of confidence that a nuclear attack was underway. The technology had done its part, and everything was now in Petrov's hands. To report such an attack meant the beginning of nuclear war, as the Soviet Union would surely launch its own missiles in retaliation. To not report such an attack was to impede the Soviet response, surrendering the precious few minutes the country's leadership had to react before atomic mushroom clouds burst out across the country; "every second of procrastination took away valuable time," Petrov later said. "For 15 seconds, we were in a state of shock," he recounted. He felt like he was sitting on a hot frying pan. After quickly gathering as much information as he could from other stations, he estimated there was a 50-percent chance that an attack was under way. Soviet military protocol dictated that he base his decision off the computer readouts in front of him, the ones that said an attack was undeniable. After careful deliberation, Petrov called the duty officer to break the news: the early warning system was malfunctioning. There was no attack, he said. It was a roll of the atomic dice. Twenty-three minutes after the alarms—the time it would have taken a missile to hit Moscow—he knew that he was right and the computers were wrong. "It was such a relief," he said later. After-action reports revealed that the sun's glare off a passing cloud had confused the satellite warning system. Thanks to Petrov's decisions to disregard the machine and disobey protocol, humanity lived another day. Petrov's actions took extraordinary judgment and courage, and it was only by sheer luck that he was the one making the decisions that night. Most of his colleagues, Petrov believed, would have begun a war. He was the only one among the officers at that duty station who had a civilian, rather than military, education and who was prepared to show more independence. "My colleagues were all professional soldiers; they were taught to give and obey orders," he said. The human in the loop — this particular human — had made all the difference. Petrov's story reveals three themes: the perceived need for speed in nuclear command and control to buy time for decision makers; the allure of automation as a means of achieving that speed; and the dangerous propensity of those automated systems to fail. These three themes have been at the core of managing the fear of a nuclear attack for decades and present new risks today as nuclear and non-nuclear command, control, and communications systems become entangled with one another. Perhaps nothing shows the perceived need for speed and the allure of automation as much as the fact that, within two years of Petrov's actions, the Soviets deployed a new system to increase the role of machines in nuclear brinkmanship. It was properly known as Perimeter, but most people just called it the Dead Hand, a sign of the system's diminished role for humans. As one former Soviet colonel and veteran of the Strategic Rocket Forces put it, "The Perimeter system is very, very nice. Were move unique responsibility from high politicians and the military." The Soviets wanted the system to partly assuage their fears of nuclear attack by ensuring that, even if a surprise strike succeeded in decapitating the country's leadership, the Dead Hand would make sure it did not go unpunished. The idea was simple, if harrowing: in a crisis, the Dead Hand would monitor the environment for signs that a nuclear attack had taken place, such as seismic rumbles and radiation bursts. Programmed with a series of if-then commands, the system would run through the list of indicators, looking for evidence of the apocalypse. If signs pointed to yes, the system would test the communications channels with the Soviet General Staff. If those links were active, the system would remain dormant. If the system received no word from the General Staff, it would circumvent ordinary procedures for ordering an attack. The decision to launch would thenrest in the hands of a lowly bunker officer, someone many ranks below a senior commander like Petrov, who would nonetheless find himself responsible for deciding if it was doomsday. The United States was also drawn to automated systems. Since the 1950s, its government had maintained a network of computers to fuse incoming data streams from radar sites. This vast network, called the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE, was not as automated as the Dead Hand in launching retaliatory strikes, but its creation was rooted in a similar fear. Defense planners designed SAGE to gather radar information about a potential Soviet air attack and relay that information to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which would intercept the invading planes. The cost of SAGE was more than double that of the Manhattan Project, or almost $100 billion in 2022 dollars. Each of the twenty SAGE facilities boasted two 250-ton computers, which each measured 7,500 square feet and were among the most advanced machines of the era. If nuclear war is like a game of chicken — two nations daring each other to turn away, like two drivers barreling toward a head-on collision — automation offers the prospect of a dangerous but effective strategy. As the nuclear theorist Herman Kahn described: The "skillful" player may get into the car quite drunk, throwing whisky bottles out the window to make it clear to everybody just how drunk he is. He wears very dark glasses so that it is obvious that he cannot see much, if anything. As soon as the car reaches high speed, he takes the steering wheel and throws it out the window. If his opponent is watching, he has won. If his opponent is not watching, he has a problem; likewise, if both players try this strategy. To automate nuclear reprisal is to play chicken without brakes or a steering wheel. It tells the world that no nuclear attack will go unpunished, but it greatly increases the risk of catastrophic accidents. Automation helped enable the dangerous but seemingly predictable world of mutually assured destruction. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union was able to launch a disarming first strike against the other; it would have been impossible for one side to fire its nuclear weapons without alerting the other side and providing at least some time to react. Even if a surprise strike were possible, it would have been impractical to amass a large enough arsenal of nuclear weapons to fully disarm the adversary by firing multiple warheads at each enemy silo, submarine, and bomber capable of launching a counterattack. Hardest of all was knowing where to fire. Submarines in the ocean, mobile ground-launched systems on land, and round-the-clock combat air patrols in the skies made the prospect of successfully executing such a first strike deeply unrealistic. Automated command and control helped ensure these units would receive orders to strike back. Retaliation was inevitable, and that made tenuous stability possible. Modern technology threatens to upend mutually assured destruction. When an advanced missile called a hypersonic glide vehicle nears space, for example, it separates from its booster rockets and accelerates down toward its target at five times the speed of sound. Unlike a traditional ballistic missile, the vehicle can radically alter its flight profile over longranges, evading missile defenses. In addition, its low-altitude approach renders ground-based sensors ineffective, further compressing the amount of time for decision-making. Some military planners want to use machine learning to further improve the navigation and survivability of these missiles, rendering any future defense against them even more precarious. Other kinds of AI might upend nuclear stability by making more plausible a first strike that thwarts retaliation. Military planners fear that machine learning and related data collection technologies could find their hidden nuclear forces more easily. For example, better machine learning–driven analysis of overhead imagery could spot mobile missile units; the United States reportedly has developed a highly classified program to use AI to track North Korean launchers. Similarly, autonomous drones under the sea might detect enemy nuclear submarines, enabling them to be neutralized before they can retaliate for an attack. More advanced cyber operations might tamper with nuclear command and control systems or fool early warning mechanisms, causing confusion in the enemy's networks and further inhibiting a response. Such fears of what AI can do make nuclear strategy harder and riskier. For some, just like the Cold War strategists who deployed the expert systems in SAGE and the Dead Hand, the answer to these new fears is more automation. The commander of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces has said that the original Dead Hand has been improved upon and is still functioning, though he didn't offer technical details. In the United States, some proposals call for the development of a new Dead Hand–esque system to ensure that any first strike is met with nuclear reprisal,with the goal of deterring such a strike. It is a prospect that has strategic appeal to some warriors but raises grave concern for Cassandras, whowarn of the present frailties of machine learning decision-making, and for evangelists, who do not want AI mixed up in nuclear brinkmanship. While the evangelists' concerns are more abstract, the Cassandras have concrete reasons for worry. Their doubts are grounded in storieslike Petrov's, in which systems were imbued with far too much trust and only a human who chose to disobey orders saved the day. The technical failures described in chapter 4 also feed their doubts. The operational risks of deploying fallible machine learning into complex environments like nuclear strategy are vast, and the successes of machine learning in other contexts do not always apply. Just because neural networks excel at playing Go or generating seemingly authentic videos or even determining how proteins fold does not mean that they are any more suited than Petrov's Cold War–era computer for reliably detecting nuclear strikes.In the realm of nuclear strategy, misplaced trust of machines might be deadly for civilization; it is an obvious example of how the new fire's force could quickly burn out of control. Of particular concern is the challenge of balancing between false negatives and false positives—between failing to alert when an attack is under way and falsely sounding the alarm when it is not. The two kinds of failure are in tension with each other. Some analysts contend that American military planners, operating from a place of relative security,worry more about the latter. In contrast, they argue that Chinese planners are more concerned about the limits of their early warning systems,given that China possesses a nuclear arsenal that lacks the speed, quantity, and precision of American weapons. As a result, Chinese government leaders worry chiefly about being too slow to detect an attack in progress. If these leaders decided to deploy AI to avoid false negatives,they might increase the risk of false positives, with devastating nuclear consequences. The strategic risks brought on by AI's new role in nuclear strategy are even more worrying. The multifaceted nature of AI blurs lines between conventional deterrence and nuclear deterrence and warps the established consensus for maintaining stability. For example, the machine learning–enabled battle networks that warriors hope might manage conventional warfare might also manage nuclear command and control. In such a situation, a nation may attack another nation's information systems with the hope of degrading its conventional capacity and inadvertently weaken its nuclear deterrent, causing unintended instability and fear and creating incentives for the victim to retaliate with nuclear weapons. This entanglement of conventional and nuclear command-and-control systems, as well as the sensor networks that feed them, increases the risks of escalation. AI-enabled systems may like-wise falsely interpret an attack on command-and-control infrastructure as a prelude to a nuclear strike. Indeed, there is already evidence that autonomous systems perceive escalation dynamics differently from human operators. Another concern, almost philosophical in its nature, is that nuclear war could become even more abstract than it already is, and hence more palatable. The concern is best illustrated by an idea from Roger Fisher, a World War II pilot turned arms control advocate and negotiations expert. During the Cold War, Fisher proposed that nuclear codes be stored in a capsule surgically embedded near the heart of a military officer who would always be near the president. The officer would also carry a large butcher knife. To launch a nuclear war, the president would have to use the knife to personally kill the officer and retrieve the capsule—a comparatively small but symbolic act of violence that would make the tens of millions of deaths to come more visceral and real. Fisher's Pentagon friends objected to his proposal, with one saying,"My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the president's judgment. He might never push the button." This revulsion, ofcourse, was what Fisher wanted: that, in the moment of greatest urgency and fear, humanity would have one more chance to experience—at an emotional, even irrational, level—what was about to happen, and one more chance to turn back from the brink. Just as Petrov's independence prompted him to choose a different course, Fisher's proposed symbolic killing of an innocent was meant to force one final reconsideration. Automating nuclear command and control would do the opposite, reducing everything to error-prone, stone-coldmachine calculation. If the capsule with nuclear codes were embedded near the officer's heart, if the neural network decided the moment was right, and if it could do so, it would—without hesitation and without understanding—plunge in the knife. |
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