Adam Mosseri confirms it: Instagram is over
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
You know, I didn’t want to join Instagram, but I had adopted a kitten with an internet following, and the following wanted to know how the kitten was doing. For a while, I dutifully updated once a week. But then Instagram started to change.
Two big things happened in 2016. First, there were the changes to the feed. Algorithmic. Well, all right. Then, the Snapchat imitation: the Story. It was whatever. I didn’t mind it. After a while, I stopped posting photos in favor of posting Stories because more people looked at the Stories. There started to be more ads clogging the Stories, so I stopped watching as many. And I stopped posting photos or Stories as often.
Then came the ham-fisted video stuff: IGTV, which I avoided as much as I could, and the TikTok imitation Reels, which were much more difficult to avoid. This is where the algorithmic feed really bit people. I saw stuff passed around on social media about how to please the algorithm: a certain number of Stories, a certain number of Reels. If you didn’t do what the algorithm wanted, people simply wouldn’t see your posts. But unlike influencers, who have based their businesses on this platform, I could simply choose not to do that. I used Instagram less and spent more time on Reddit since I prefer text to video.
Now, there’s something to make the feed still worse: “discovery.” That’s when a bunch of videos from people you don’t follow get shoehorned into your feed. That’s where we are now with Instagram. The people who I have made an effort to follow — the people whose posts I most want to see — are getting de-ranked for strangers’ videos.
Come now the Kardashians, who have said that the new Instagram sucks. These women make money on Instagram; indeed, the platform wooed them deliberately and built itself around influencers such as the Kardashians. Unlike me, they are actually important constituents of Instagram, and so the platform’s head, Adam Mosseri, responded.
According to Mosseri, Instagram’s users are shifting to video. That may even be true! Certainly, I did not want to switch to video and consequently stopped using the platform as much. Meanwhile, people who use Instagram as a way of making money were forced to post more videos to remain in people’s feeds. Doesn’t seem very organic, if you ask me.
It’s funny to see Instagram Facebookify because no one wants to use Facebook either. (I quit in 2006, rejoined briefly to post Verge stories before we automated our social process, and then quit again.) People talk about Facebook like it’s a drag, and it’s increasingly how they talk about Instagram, too.
The platform changes are upending people’s businesses for two reasons: one, because they have to rejigger everything yet again to try to please the algorithm, but two, because Instagram is driving parts of the audience away. I mean, if I want to watch a TikTok, I will, you know? I literally came to Insta for the cat photos.
But Facebook is in a tough position. It’s renamed itself “Meta” after something that doesn’t yet exist and has to figure out how to keep the lights on while it “builds the metaverse” or whatever. (What is the metaverse’s killer app, pray tell?) And Apple’s privacy push — “Ask app not to track” — has cost $10 billion in lost Facebook revenue.
So the changes suck, and Mosseri is letting us all know that Facebook doesn’t care that the changes suck. It’s just trying to squeeze as much growth-hacky engagement out of its legacy platforms as it can. High-quality photos — the original value proposition of Instagram — matter less than scammy ads for weight loss, speed (oh, sorry, “ADHD treatment”), and ketamine. Quite a way to fall from that first Michael Kors ad! Seems like Instagram is, in some important sense, over.
Look, I’ve quit various social media sites before. I know this feeling well. Instagram is desperate, and no one likes you when you’re desperate. The question is, mostly, where I will go. BeReal is more fun, but it loads slowly, and I hate notifications. Twitter isn’t really meant for cat photos. Can someone just build a simple photo app that isn’t sleazy and let me know where it is so that my friends can join it? I have a lot of cat photos I’d like people to look at.
Nest co-founder Matt Rogers invests in EV conversion company Everrati
Everrati and Irvine, California-based Aria Group take apart a Porsche 911 to begin its EV rebirth. | Image: Everrati
When we last spoke with Everrati CEO Justin Lunny, his UK-based restomod company that converts iconic cars to electric vehicles was expanding into the US market. Since then, the company set up headquarters in Calabasas, California, and in April, it partnered with Irvine-based manufacturer Aria Group to work on state-side electric conversions of Porsches and other prestige vehicles. Now Aria Group is helping build the first Everrati Porsche in California, and the owner of that car is a major investor: former Nest CEO Matt Rogers.
Rogers’ car is a Porsche 911 (type 964) wide body, similar to his father’s that he has fond memories of riding in as a kid. Since then, he promised himself that he’d get one, too, but only if it were electric. The once Apple engineer left Nest in 2018 and has since been focused on technologies to help fight climate change. Rogers heard about Everrati through a UK-based publication and contacted the company to inquire about its business and future — and, of course, about getting his Porsche converted.
That’s where Aria Group comes in: the low-volume manufacturer has worked on bespoke vehicles from Singer Vehicle Design, which makes custom Porsche 911s, and Radford Motors, which outfits luxury vehicles, and now it’s working on the first US-built Porsche 911 (964) wide body Everrati Signature Edition with the performance pack. It uses Everrati’s 700-volt EV powertrain that can go 0-62 mph in under four seconds and can travel up to 200 miles on one charge. Lunny says that demand for their electrified icons is surging globally, and California, with its abundance of sustainability-conscious young professionals, has more interested customers than anywhere. In just the past month, Everrati picked up four more orders of the Porsche 964, Lunny tells us.
This transcript is from an interview on June 23rd and has been lightly edited for clarity.
So, “Restomods.” I guess it’s a term because most shops are still modifying cars; therefore, it’s a modification.
Matt: That’s right.
And they’re restoring, so it’s a restoration. Do you think that’s not giving it enough justice?
Matt: Restoration implies, like, you’re going backwards in time and bringing out the best of what it was. And this [Everrati] is like, you’re bringing out the best of what it was and bringing it forward in the future. And I think that like the original Tesla Roadster, they didn’t really call it a restomod. But in today’s lingo, it totally would be.
Justin, I was interested in hearing what’s changed since we talked last? You’re expanding into the US market, you picked up a partner from gettacar…
Justin: Yeah, that’s right. Amit [Chandarana] joined. He’s very much looking at how we develop some of our commercial operations in North America. You’ll also have seen that we are partnering very closely with Aria. Aria [is] building Matt’s car as we speak, literally.
Matt: I got some fun photos the other day, actually.
Justin: It’s kind of exciting. Because, you know, I understand why things like restomod are used by definition because that is the word. But I suppose, as Matt rightly says, you know, hopefully, the vehicles are going to be better than new, clearly, because they are.
Image: Everrati
Matt Rogers’ Porsche 911 being painted at Everrati partner Aria Group. This image is from about two weeks ago, while the image Rogers had shown during this interview was only primed.
Oh wow, and Aria is building that right now?
Matt: They sent me [that] like a couple days ago.
Justin: So where we are, I suppose as a business, we have a lot of interest now, from people who, I’ll be honest, either have had Singers or are on a waiting list for Singer … two of them said they’re going to cancel that because they don’t believe it’s going to be socially acceptable to take delivery of a million dollar combustion engine vehicle at that point.
Matt: I mean, I wouldn’t do it. If you’re gonna invest the time to build something so special, why do a gasoline-powered engine? Just doesn’t make any sense.
Is this something that a lot of the high-end vehicle manufacturers are seeing? Their general customers are coming back to them saying: “Hey, we don’t really want this kind of stuff anymore?”
Justin: Really good question. I think certainly the way, let’s be honest, there’s so many new products out there right now, new EVs and, dare I say, our gateway drug is a [Porsche] Taycan. People that have a Taycan, they kind of think, “Wow, this is an amazing performance EV that drives like a proper car,” ... it’s no wonder Porsche is doing so well with them.
I remember that Everrati engineers and builds a plan for each model car. Is that still what you guys are doing? Is that how Aria Group is doing it right now — that they have a sort of blueprint of a vehicle, and they can repeat the process?
Justin: Completely. I think the big difference with what we do is that our engineers have experience building brand new EVs, right from the Lotus Evija powertrain; Mike, our head of engineering, designed the powertrain for that ... We go about it a very different way. So there are converters out there, and good luck to them. So you look at somebody like EV West or a variety of others where, generally speaking, they’re not necessarily doing a productionized thing. They’re doing one-offs... they’ve really started a really interesting industry. We’re coming from the other side, which is to truly re-engineer what a vehicle is, and the process we call it is “redefined.” It’s got to drive, hopefully, as closely as it could to the original. And that’s kind of our secret sauce, I suppose.
I got to drive in a Ford F-100 Eluminator, which is a converted 1978 vehicle, and they used their crate motor. Do you think that there’s a lot of room to grow in that side of the market, and are you a part of that?
Justin: We’re kind of part of it, but we’re different. So our ethos is very much around in the same way as you might treat a beautiful brownstone house in New York, you’re not going to tear it apart, you’re going to keep the bits that are classic and are important to the structure ... What you’re gonna do is treat it like the work of art it is and try and update it sympathetically — so that it still looks, feels, and drives like an original but is now not emitting any CO2. Let’s be honest, the tailpipe emissions for them things are pretty horrible, you know, they’re pre-catalytic converter, I dread — really horrible — you know, stuff that you do not want around you, let alone your kids, right? It’s just not nice.
Matt, you’re here, you have this extensive design background, and you found out about Everrati. Can you tell me about how that came to be and why you invested in them?
Matt: Yeah. So it’s probably a few years back at this point, like I saw a piece on them in the UK press. And it’s one of those things, as both an environmentalist and clean tech entrepreneur and a Porsche enthusiast — there’s not a lot of intersections of those things. So, I reached out — and at this point, there’s no partnership with Aria — I spoke to Justin and Neil like, ‘oh, maybe we’ll build it in the UK, and we’ll ship it over.’ And, wait, like, there’s a lot of demand in the US — maybe we actually [should] build out some US operations … and yeah, I’m super excited about this, as a car enthusiast — I just can’t see the tailpipe emissions happening anymore. This is the way.
Everybody’s buying EVs in California. You see them everywhere. Do you own an EV right now?
Matt: Yes, I have a Lucid Air — actually, I was one of the first customers for Lucid too. We have an Audi E-Tron, and I used to have a Tesla Model X, but we got rid of that one and used to have a Taycan, which was amazing, but I only had so much garage space. I still have a vintage 911, which I think I’ll probably sell as well once the Everrati is ready.
I started driving an EV in 2016, and despite the really low range on a Nissan Leaf at the time…
Matt: That’s what I had, too! I bought a Nissan Leaf, thinking it was like a 2013 or 2014.
I had the 2013 as well!
Matt: I got like 70 miles of range. It was horrendous. But not ever having to go to a gas station was awesome.
Things are a lot different today.
Matt: Indeed. Technology and scale drive cost down, and even like incremental change, battery technology has gotten better, like 5 to 10 percent per year. But over like a 15-year period, that’s a lot of accumulation, the fact that you can get a car now that has 500 miles of electric range is insane.
Which car do you have in the shop right now getting converted?
Matt: It’s a 964, so it’s like a 1991 911.
So you’ll have two of these vintage Porsches getting converted to EV!
Matt: I’m gonna get rid of the 993, my ’98. I don’t need to have two vintage 911s. I think electric only is the way to go. So my daughter — I have a four-year-old daughter — she sits in the back, and she asked me, “Why is it so loud?” It’s like an era of time.
Justin: Yeah, It’s so funny, my seven-year-old son, we rode in my Taycan on the way to school, and we were following a Panamera Turbo … it’s got fumes coming out of the rear — it’s probably only water, let’s be honest — but he was really upset that this car in front of us was potentially polluting our air. And it’s really interesting how the younger generation are just on board with all of this so quickly — without us trying …
With the rising cost of batteries, how has that affected your market?
Justin: It doesn’t affect us directly because we’re paying such high prices for batteries [already]. Performance is improving on a price per kilowatt hour, actually. And over time, it will definitely go down. So — it’s not really affecting us right now.
What type of cells are you using right now?
Justin: [via email: we use active cooled VDA batteries in the Porsche] In our Land Rover series, we use envision cells — from the Nissan group, effectively. There was some press around Porsche that they don’t want to over-weigh a car — now the Taycan is not light — but a sports car is a sports car, and it should feel alive, essentially.
Matt: 150-200 miles is kind of the sweet spot.
Image: Everrati
Everrati’s GT40 can go more than 125 miles on a charge.
Image: Everrati
60kWh battery pack and 0-60 in less than four seconds.
Justin: We’ve just done some testing on our GT40, and — we’ve got it charging up to 150 kilowatts. If you think about that in a car that is done by a restomod company [comparatively], that’s a 700-volt architecture ... it’s not quite Taycan, in terms of its ability to do multiple performance runs, but it’s not far off. If you’ve got fast charging on the track, you could be charging and back out on the track in 20 minutes, which is actually pretty good, right?
Have the standardizations in the US been affecting you?
Justin: Yeah, we use CCS2 in Europe, and the intention is to use CCS1 in the United States. And in Europe anyway, [Tesla Superchargers], the ones that are opening up to non-Tesla, you can use your CCS port as well. Our hope is that continues to grow in popularity, but we can utilize any potential core.
Matt: Yeah, this is really just a Tesla problem. The rest of the industry is just about one standard. Like the Apple lock-in… I think the tides are turning on that — between what the non-profit environmental community is pushing on and that the industry groups are pushing on, those times are changing.
Justin: Yeah, you’ve seen in the mobile phone space, where in Europe they’re now effectively stopping anybody using different charge connectors, they have to use USB-C. I think that’s good. Unless there’s huge technology benefits for doing something else, then you’re just wasting resources.
Matt: Maybe 15 years ago there was, but today it’s just creating bifurcation in the market just to have it.
Justin: You look at Gen Z, look at millennials, [they] wouldn’t even dream probably of having a non-EV, you know, that’s getting really exciting for us. Just a little tiny story: My wife, I lent her my Taycan, and she did an all-female car tour ... raising money for female charities in South Africa for children. I really missed my Taycan for that week it was away, and I had to drive ... her G wagon. Also, it cost me nearly 500 pounds in three days for a few long trips. The argument has been lost — I think — in terms of sticking with the combustion engine, certainly.
What about one of your conversion Land Rovers?
Justin: I went to a UK government site who were looking at electrification, and they actually had our Land Rover on site, hence I couldn’t drive it. I turn up with my G wagon, and you can imagine what kind of excuses I had to make. So I showed them a picture of my wife in Barcelona with my EV, so it wasn’t all bad. It just isn’t for me, I genuinely was a true petrol head, but I’m just not there anymore.
Have you had any more US orders?
Matt: I think the backlog is pretty significant at this point
Justin: It’s six Porsche orders in the last five or six weeks. Which is fantastic. And we’re getting Land Rover orders as well, which is a bit different of a market. Our plan was to launch the business in March 2020, and as we all know, that wasn’t the best time for any business, quite frankly. But we persevered ... I think peoples’ view on sustainability, on clean air, during the pandemic really kind of accelerated.
Do you see Everrati evolving to convert pretty much any car?
Justin: What we’re more focused on is the powertrains themselves ... We are in conversation with a company right now that’s likely to want us to build tens, if not hundreds, of Landrovers over the next three years. But we will do the powertrain. We won’t do the whole car. So that’s kind of where the volumes come in for us. We have this concept of ‘Everrati inside’ kind of thing. It’s like the Intel inside … It’s great for us because we’re getting involved in more vehicles. Also, I guess from an economies of scale perspective, we’re buying more batteries, more inverters… we can start to hopefully reduce our own material costs over time as well.
Matt: It’s interesting to hear you say Justin because I think about the Tesla journey and the forks in the road along that journey, and they started kind of in a similar place. They did that Lotus Elise conversion, then they were licensing the powertrain, and then they did a deal with Toyota — and they had that RAV4 EV. Then they kind of went the full Apple way. I think there’s an important market segment for ‘the EV inside.’ It’s a whole new market today that doesn’t really exist.
We’re almost out of time here, but just a quick question for Matt — do you still have the Nest fire truck from 2014?
Matt: Funny you should say that, actually! I got a call from a friend at Google asking if I wanted it. It’s literally sitting in a parking lot in Mountain View on the Google campus. It’s just sitting there.
Can you guys do anything with it?
Matt: An electric fire truck... That actually would be a fun one!
Justin: That’d be a fun one!
Matt: It’s funny you should say that. It’s just sitting there.
As long as the horn still works, we’ll get Nilay in, and he’ll get to honk it as many times as he’d like.
Matt: Oh my gosh, yea, indeed!
Thanks so much for talking with us. I would love to talk to you guys again soon and see where this is all going.
Tiger King star Carole Baskin earns Biden’s support on big cat bill
Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for NightFly Entertainment, Ltd.
On Tuesday, the White House officially threw its support behind a bill pushed by Tiger King star Carole Baskin to restrict exotic animal ownership.
In a statement, the Biden administration said that the Big Cat Public Safety Act “would build on existing laws that protect big cats like tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, and other wild animals living in captivity in the United States” and “limit ownership of these animals to zoos, sanctuaries, universities, and agencies.”
The measure — introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — would formally ban the cub petting industry of lions, tigers, and other big cats featured in Netflix’s hit Tiger King documentary released in 2020. As highlighted in the show, private zoos regularly host events where park-goers are allowed to pet the cubs of small cats.
For years, animal rights activist groups have criticized the practice that they say harms animals and threatens public safety.
“Because cubs can only be ‘handled’ for a few months, this practice results in cubs being prematurely weaned and forcibly separated from their mothers, often resulting in long-term psychological repercussions,” the Animal Legal Defense Fund says in a message of support for the measure on its website.
Private zoos, like the one run by Joe Exotic and other owners featured on the show, benefit from the loosely regulated cub petting and private cat ownership business. The legislation could dramatically affect how businesses like these operate, stripping away a large portion of the revenue earned through petting attractions.
Early last month, the New York Post reported that Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, a private zoo owner featured in Tiger King, was booked by the FBI. No charges were listed, according to The Post, but Antle has faced numerous charges of felonies, including abuse of exotic animals, over the years.
The House is expected to vote on a handful of bills, including the big cats measure, as early as this week.
Zuckerberg says Meta and Apple are in ‘very deep, philosophical competition’ to build the metaverse
Photo by AMY OSBORNE / AFP via Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg believes that Apple and his company are in a “very deep, philosophical competition” to build the metaverse, suggesting the two tech giants are ready to butt heads in selling hardware for augmented and virtual reality.
The Meta CEO told employees earlier this month that they were competing with Apple to determine “what direction the internet should go in,” according to a recording of his comments during an internal all-hands meeting obtained by The Verge. He said that Meta would position itself as the more open, cheaper alternative to Apple, which is expected to announce its first AR headset as soon as later this year.
“This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience,” Zuckerberg said of the brooding rivalry. “And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.”
Since rebranding Facebook’s company name to Meta, Zuckerberg has been pushing for the concept of interoperability for the metaverse, or what he sees as the next major chapter of computing after mobile phones. Meta recently helped stand up the Metaverse Open Standards Group with Microsoft, Epic Games, and others. The idea is to spur the creation of open protocols that will let people easily move through future immersive, 3D worlds with their virtual goods.
Apple is absent from the group, which Zuckerberg called out as not surprising in his comments to employees. He explained how Apple’s approach of building hardware and software it tightly controls had worked well with the iPhone, but that for the metaverse, “it’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better.”
If VR and AR do take off like Zuckerberg hopes, it seems he wants to position Meta as the Android to Apple’s iOS. There is a parallel to draw already: Meta’s Quest headset already allows the side loading of apps that are not approved by Meta’s VR app store, similar to how Google’s Android allows for sideloading. And even though it just increased the price of the Quest by $100, Meta’s hardware is still mostly sold at a loss or breakeven.
Apple and Meta have never really seen eye to eye. The former is currently costing the latter billions of dollars a year in lost ad revenue on iOS, thanks to its prompt that asks people if they want a third-party app to track them for showing ads. Zuckerberg’s remarks suggest that even as he tries to invent his way out of being under Apple’s thumb on mobile, the two tech giants are going to be battling for years to come.
Below is a lightly edited transcript of Zuckerberg’s answer on June 30th to a Meta employee’s question about metaverse competition with Apple:
Employee question: Apple is absent from metaverse standards and are coming out with their own AR glasses. How does that affect Oculus and our ecosystem? Thanks.
Mark Zuckerberg: I think it’s pretty clear that Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product but philosophically. We’re approaching this in an open way and trying to build a more open ecosystem. We’re trying to make more stuff interoperable with Android. We’re trying to develop the metaverse in a way where you can bring your virtual goods from one world to another. We created the Metaverse Open Standards Group with a bunch of other folks that you just mentioned, and Apple didn’t join. But I don’t think that’s a surprise. Apple, for a few generations of computing now, has been the closed provider of computing.
This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience. And we believe that there is a lot to be done in specialization across different companies, and [that] will allow a much larger ecosystem to exist.
One of the things I think is interesting is that it’s not really clear upfront whether an open or closed ecosystem is going to be better. If you look back to PCs, Windows was clearly the one that had a lot more scale and became the default and norm that people used. And Mac did fine, but I think PC and Windows were, I think, the premier ecosystem in that environment.
On mobile, I would say it’s more the other way. There’s more Android devices than there are iOS devices, but I think in developed countries and places like the US or Western Europe in kind of the high end, [and] a lot of the culture-setters and developers, I do think that skews quite a bit more towards iPhone and iOS. So I’d say on mobile, Apple has really carved out quite a good position for themselves, and that’s why they’re the most valuable company in the world, or maybe one of the couple most valuable companies in the world.
But I just don’t think that the future is written here yet for the metaverse. And I think part of our job is we’re going to continue doing leading research and pushing on this at all levels of the stack. We’re doing VR. We’re doing AR. We basically deliver our devices at cost or at a slight subsidy, or slightly more than cost in some cases. But the bottom line is our business is not primarily taking a premium on the devices. We want as many people to be interacting in there as possible. Part of that is having it be an open ecosystem that’s interoperable.
Our north star is can we get a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade? If we do that, we’ll build a business that is as big as our current ad business within this decade. I think that’s a really exciting thing. I think a big part of how you do that is by pushing the open metaverse forward, which is what we’re going to do.
So yeah, Apple is going to be a competitor. I think that that’s pretty clear, but it’s actually a very deep competitor. It’s not just [that] they have a device that has some more features than us. It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in. And I am proud of the investments that we’re making to help push forward the open metaverse on this and hopefully make the next version of computing a bit more open.
Logitech’s new ‘gender-inclusive’ PC gaming accessories come with the pink tax
The keyboard, headset, and mouse (complete with color add-ons for each) cost a cool $639.97. | Image: Logitech
Logitech has announced a lineup of PC gaming accessories that are designed to be more gender-inclusive — and specifically geared toward women — than any of its previous releases. Companies shouldn’t be trying to market consumer technology by gender in 2022 and should instead recognize the wide variety of tastes and physical needs consumers have. But Logitech’s gone and done it anyway.
And the gadgets in the Aurora collection do seem cool, and notably, they’re new — not just new colorways of existing products. But aside from a few interesting features across the entirety of the Aurora collection, it still feels like a case of the pink tax at work.
With its latest collection of gaming accessories (and the many pricey add-ons you can purchase to customize them), Logitech wants to let you know that it now recognizes under-represented groups... the same groups that it has largely ignored for years.
A wide variety of genders enjoy playing games and using all the accessories required, but many peripheral companies, Logitech included, have spent a very long time designing products for a very specific type of gamer: one with larger than average hands and who is comfortable using peripherals decked out in dark colors and RGB lighting.
Logitech has slowly realized that not everything needs to look like it comes from the office IT department or from wherever the “gamer aesthetic” emerged. It started offering accessories with more rounded corners and funcolors in the last few years. The Aurora collection focused more on gaming than the productivity-oriented peripherals previously launched. Only, in addition to neat looks that lean on “gender-inclusivity” marketing, this collection has beyond-accessible prices and surprisingly lousy battery life claims.
Logitech
The G735 isn’t all that vibrant by default, with just its RGB LEDs.
The head of the class in terms of price and impressive features is the $229.99 G735 wireless headset. It looks like a more whimsical version of the G Pro X model, clad in white with RGB LEDs tracing around the perimeter of its bulbous, rotating earcups. Like the much more affordable ($50 or so) G435 wireless headset, the G735 features braille on each sidearm to identify left from right, which is a great accessibility feature that more companies should copy. Logitech claims that the G735’s design is more inclusive because it can accommodate smaller heads and things like small earrings and glasses. While that’s technically true, it’s weird that it apparently only makes its other headsets for people with giant heads and perfect vision.
The G735 features dual wireless connectivity, the ability to connect via 2.4GHz and, say, your phone via Bluetooth. Logitech says that the G735 can last around 16 hours with the LED lighting on and at 50 percent volume. Most wireless headsets these days tout day-long battery life, at least, so this is a disappointing figure. Turning off the lighting apparently bumps it up to around a 56-hour lifespan per charge.
Logitech
The G715 and G713 include a cloud-shaped wrist rest, which otherwise costs $20 by itself.
The $199.99 wireless G715, alongside the $169.99 wired G713, are tenkeyless models that feature media keys, a volume wheel, and a whole lot of RGB LEDs. In addition to backlighting beneath each of their double-shot PBT keycaps, they have LEDs surrounding the keyboard to give off an aura. Logitech says you’ll be able to choose between tactile, linear, or clicky mechanical GX switches at the time of purchase.
The G715 can tether wirelessly to the included Lightspeed 2.4GHz dongle or connect via Bluetooth. Logitech says you can expect around 25 hours of battery per charge. Like the headset, that’s on the low end of the spectrum for longevity, considering its high price.
Logitech
The G705’s color can’t be changed (outside of its LEDs), but you can purchase a $30 mousepad to brighten things up.
Lastly, the $99.99 G705 wireless mouse is the first mouse that Logitech says was “intentionally” designed for players with smaller hands. From one angle, it looks like your ordinary gaming mouse, but from the angle that exposes its two thumb buttons, it looks more like an ergonomic mouse with its contoured thumb rest. It has a “gaming-grade” sensor (Logitech didn’t confirm the exact sensor ahead of publication) with up to 8,200 DPI of sensitivity, and it can last up to 40 hours with the LEDs enabled. That battery life isn’t great. If it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse, it’s because I am.
Buying Logitech accessories is rarely affordable, and the Aurora collection is no exception. It’ll cost you $499.97 (assuming you bought the wired G713, not the G715 that’s $30 more) to purchase each of the three items, but why stop there? There are add-ons to buy, too!
The G735 comes in white, but you can purchase a different colored boom microphone bundled with two ear pads (in pink or neon green) for $20.
As for the keyboards, you can purchase top plates for either keyboard for $20, and don’t forget a $40 set of keycaps.
For the mouse, there are two accessories to buy, including a $29.99 15.75 x 18-inch mousepad and a $40 heart-shaped carrying case for both the G735 headset and the G705 mouse.
If you’re all in on Logitech’s inclusive lineup and you purchase one of each add-on, you’ll pay at least $649.97.
Many tech companies, including Logitech, love to explain to the press how each of its new gadgets is the byproduct of a lot of user research, testing, and collaboration with the intended audience as if those are the ingredients that will guarantee a great product that’s angled in an authentic way. The team behind this collection seemed excited by the idea that its new products will make some people feel seen, and honestly, that’s great. Design that’s too focused on one very specific group makes for products that feel repetitive and potentially off-putting. Logitech making gaming mice for smaller hands and headsets that can be worn with eyeglasses are all good things. Making gaming less insular is a very good thing.
But it’s the crummy-sounding battery life — because Logitech doesn’t want to solve the problem of smaller gadgets requiring less space for batteries — that’s a problem. It’s the high price that’s a problem.
If your target audience can’t afford the product or use it for the same amount of time as something cheaper, then how inclusive or accessible is it, really?
Amazon UK to charge £1 more a month for Prime service from September
Monthly subscription to increase by 12.5% to £8.99 in latest sign of rising delivery costs
Amazon is to increase the price of its monthly Prime subscription service by 12.5% – or £1 – to £8.99 from September in the latest sign that delivery costs are rising.
The company said the cost of an annual Prime package, which includes unlimited deliveries for online shopping, access to its video and music streaming services and its Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries, would rise by more – 20%, or £16 – to £95, although this remains a discount on the monthly option.
Florida chef’s pink sauce videos stir up TikTok backlash
Chef Pii’s tips on how to use her $20-a-bottle condiment have won 40m views, she says, but many wonder what goes into it
It’s pink. It’s a sauce. It’s called, rather prosaically, Pink Sauce. And it’s doing a very good job of trying to break the internet right now.
A Florida chef’s TikTok videos showing her dunking fried chicken, french fries and vegetables into her culinary creation have gone viral. Up to 40m views, she claims.
Chess robot breaks seven-year-old’s finger during tournament in Russia
A stock photo of a chess-playing robot in Shanghai — unconnected to this incident. | Photo by Gao Yuwen/VCG via Getty Images
A chess robot broke the finger of a seven-year-old boy playing in a tournament in Russia, according to reports from local news outlets (seen via The Guardian).
The incident happened last week at the Moscow Chess Open, where the robot was hired to play competitors. Video of the incident (below) shows the machine is a standard industrial robot arm customized to move pieces on three chess boards simultaneously.
“The robot broke the child’s finger. This, of course, is bad,” Sergey Lazarev, President of the Moscow Chess Federation, told Russian news agency TASS (translation via Google Translate).
Said Lazarev: “The robot was rented by us, it has been exhibited in many places, for a long time, with specialists. Apparently, the operators overlooked it. The child made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried, the robot grabbed him. We have nothing to do with the robot.”
It’s not clear what explanation —if any — the robot’s creators have offered for this accident, but such incidents are not unusual in scenarios where robot engineers have failed to properly consider safety protocol around humans.
In most industrial environments, robots are essentially unseeing operators. They move along set paths at set times, and often lack sensors to recognize or respond to nearby humans. In other words: if you move into their path, they won’t know you’re there.
This sort of blind collision has been the cause of many robot fatalities. The first such incident is generally thought to have taken place in 1979, when Ford factory worker Robert Williams was crushed by a robot arm. The US Department of Labor logs these deaths, which tally roughly one fatality a year, though the statistics vary based on different companies’ definition of a robot. For example, is a conveyer belt a robot? Or a molding machine?
In the case of the chess robot, it seems the device was designed only to identify and move chess pieces — not respond to the appearance of a human hand in its playing area.
“There are certain safety rules and the child, apparently, violated them. When he made his move, he did not realize he first had to wait,” Sergey Smagin, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, told a Telegram-based news channel Baza, according to The Guardian.
However, it’s more accurate to say that the robot’s designers violated safety rules by creating a machine that could inadvertently hurt humans. A number of basic features could have prevented the accident — from placing a camera above the chess board that disables the robot’s movement if foreign objects appear in frame, to limiting the force that can be output by the robot’s arm.
Although footage of the incident is distressing, according to Lazarev the child was soon recovered enough to continue to play. “The child played the very next day, finished the tournament in a cast, and the volunteers helped to record the moves,” Lazarev told TASS. “The robot operators, apparently, will have to think about strengthening protection so that this situation does not happen again.”
How to save money when you buy video games and consoles
Consider getting physical products, head for sales and beware dodgy resale sites
Downloading games is far more convenient than buying them on a disc these days but if you play on consoles, buying a physical copy often costs substantially less – especially a few weeks or months after a game comes out.
QAnon Candidates Aren’t Thriving, but Some of Their Ideas Are While few with ties to the conspiracy theory are winning their primaries, themes pushed by QAnon followers have become Republican talking points.
Dine like Da Vinci, unleash your inner diva – 101 ways the arts can slightly improve your life
Follow the gospel of Larry David, go gaming on horseback, always carry a cushion, bin your cinema mates and learn Korean off the telly … Guardian writers present their best cultural life hacks
If you’re seeing something long and challenging, remember that having an alcoholic drink beforehand is asking for trouble. So be sure to do it.
Gen Z Designers Made It Big on This App. Now They’re Graduating. Depop, a social shopping app, was a springboard for many young designers during the pandemic. Some are now taking their success elsewhere.
I was charged £72 because of Wizz Air’s own technical glitch
We couldn’t check in online so had to pay to use the airline’s desk
On27 June my partner and I were booked on a 7.55am Wizz Air flight from Gatwick to Athens. On the Saturday before, I received an email telling me to check in online.
After filling in all the necessary details and double-checking the information, the website said “something went wrong” and I was unable to complete the process. I tried several more times but could not get to the end.
Amazon buys US medical provider as it cements move into healthcare
One Medical, the primary care organization, will be acquired by the e-commerce behemoth in a deal valued at roughly $3.9bn
Amazon will acquire the primary care organization One Medical in a deal valued roughly at $3.9bn, marking another expansion for the retailer into healthcare services.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said in a statement Thursday it is buying One Medical for $18 a share in an all-cash transaction. It’s one of Amazon’s biggest acquisitions, following its $13.7bn deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017 and its $8.5bn purchase of Hollywood studio MGM, which closed earlier this year.
Why Big Tech Is Making a Big Play for Live Sports Competing for rights to broadcast games from the N.F.L. and other leagues could be hard for broadcast and cable companies that “aren’t playing by the same financial rules.”
Marvel outlines Phase 6 with Fantastic Four and two new Avengers movies
Marvel is looking far into its future at San Diego Comic-Con. The company confirmed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which just got its first trailer) will end phase four of its cinematic universe on November 11th, and outlined what to expect for phase five. But Marvel also took things one step farther and detailed phase six of the MCU with a trio of movie announcements.
Things will kick off with Fantastic Four on November 28th, 2024; followed by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty on May 2nd, 2025; before wrapping up with Avengers: Secret Wars on November 7th, 2025. Marvel is calling this period of the MCU — phases four through six — the “Multiverse saga,” which will come to a close with Secret Wars.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s first trailer pits Atlantis against the world
Winston Duke as M’Baku in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. | Marvel Studios
More so than any of Marvel’s other big reveals at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s first trailer’s something to legitimately get hyped about.
During Marvel’s big Hall H showcase today, actress Letitia Wright said that her and the rest of the cast and crew’s goal with Wakanda Forever was to honor the legacy that Chadwick Boseman left following his passing. Wakanda Forever’s trailer doesn’t directly acknowledge what’s become of T’Challa in the MCU, but his absence and the recent discovery of a new underwater nation once again have the world — Wakanda in particular — on edge. While Wakandans like Shuri (Wright), Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), and Okoye (Danai Gurira) are seen mourning and seemingly trying to figure out how they’re going to move on, the trailer also spotlights a new group of amphibian humanoids — one of whom is born with winged feet.
In Marvel’s comics, the kingdoms of Wakanda and Atlantis have clashed on a number of occasions to calamitous effect as their respective monarchs’ egos clashed. Here, the MCU’s Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and the other Atlanteans appear to have ties to Mayan cultures, and their arrival seems to prompt some sort of confrontation with the humans of the surface world. Along with M’Baku (Winston Duke), Ayo (Florence Kasumba), and the rest of the Dora Milaje, Riri Williams (Dominque Thorne) is seen gearing up for the battle Wakanda’s about to face, and judging from the trailer’s shots of mayhem they’re going to need her help.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever also stars Florence Kasumba, Michaela Coel, and Martin Freeman. The movie hit theaters November 11th.
Marvel confirms new Daredevil series for Disney Plus
Now it’s official: a new live-action Daredevil series is coming to Disney Plus. The news was first reported earlier this year, but at Comic-Con this evening Marvel confirmed the series’ existence. It will be called Daredevil: Born Again, and will once again star Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio as Daredevil and the Kingpin. The show is expected to hit Disney Plus in the spring of 2024.
Cox and D’Onofrio will be reprising their roles from the original series which debuted as part of partnership with Netflix; earlier this year, however, all of Netflix’s Marvel series — including Jessica Jones and Luke Cage — left the streamer in order to move to Disney Plus. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin has already made an appearance on Disney’s streaming platform through a role on last year’s Hawkeye.
She-Hulk’s new trailer shows the importance of spandex and yoga
The next big Marvel series on Disney Plus is She-Hulk — and at Comic-Con this evening, Marvel Studios provided a fresh look at the show. The new trailer has a decidedly more lighthearted tone than the first, with Bruce Banner explaining just how important both spandex and yoga are when you’re a gigantic superhero. But it also gets into some legal drama and, of course, includes some cameos from elsewhere in the Marvel cinematic universe.
The trailer was released during a SDCC panel that also detailed the future of the fifth phase of the MCU, which includes films like Blade, Captain America: New World Order, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, alongside Disney Plus series like the second season of Loki. Elsewhere at SDCC, Marvel also showed off its animated slate, including a new trailer for I Am Groot and more details on Spider-Man: Freshman Year and X-Men ‘97.
She-Hulk, meanwhile, hits the streaming service on August 17th.
Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless review: a compact, feature-rich gaming keyboard
This diminuative gaming keyboard ticks a lot of boxes
One of the core appeals of mechanical keyboards is their customizability. With the right keyboard, there’s an almost infinite amount of parts to upgrade, swap out, or customize to get a keyboard that precisely suits your needs. There’s obviously nothing wrong with using a keyboard exactly as it comes out of the box, but sometimes it’s just plain fun to tinker.
Hot-swappable keyboard switches take this customizability a step further. Rather than having each key’s switch soldered to the board (meaning you have to whip out a soldering iron to change it), hot-swappable switches can be removed with a simple pulling tool. It makes replacing them as easy as changing a keycap. The feature has become more and more common on enthusiast boards, but it’s still relatively rare on keyboards from mainstream or gaming brands.
That makes Corsair’s K70 Pro Mini Wireless an interesting accessory. At first glance, it looks a lot like the kinds of mechanical gaming keyboards that Corsair has been producing for years with its aggressive gamer font and RGB lighting. But underneath, it’s the first keyboard from the company that includes hot-swappable switches. It means it offers a potent mix of Corsair’s gaming-focused features like low input latency and the customizability of enthusiast boards.
At $179.99, it’s expensive, and its compact 60 percent layout won’t be for everyone. But it ticks a lot of boxes if you’re willing to pay the price.
The Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless is very recognizably a Corsair product. It’s entirely black aside from its flashy RGB lighting, and each of its keys is styled with an aggressive all-caps font. Up top, there’s a single USB-C port for charging and connectivity, a physical on / off switch, and a small dock for the keyboard’s 2.4GHz USB dongle.
There’s no switch to put the keyboard in a macOS layout mode and no Mac-specific keycaps or legends. This is a Windows-focused keyboard — understandable given Corsair’s focus on gaming. Two feet on the underside of the keyboard let you set it at a steeper angle if you prefer.
Between its USB dongle, the ability to save up to three different Bluetooth connections, and good old-fashioned wired connectivity, there’s a good range of connectivity options. That said, some of them aren’t as responsive as others. You’ll have to use wired connectivity to get the keyboard’s maximum polling rate (where it’ll scan for keystrokes internally at 4,000Hz and report them to your PC at 8,000Hz), but it can only report at 2,000Hz when using its 2.4GHz dongle. Corsair doesn’t say what the keyboard’s polling rate is over Bluetooth, but typically, the wireless standard isn’t known for its low latency.
From left to right: USB receiver, on/off slider, and a USB-C port.
An included switch-puller lets you remove the keyboard’s mechanical switches.
Corsair is only selling the K70 Pro Mini Wireless with either linear Cherry MX Red (which is what my review sample had) or gaming-focused linear Cherry MX Speed Silver switches, but the fact that it’s hot-swappable means you have a lot of other options if you’re willing to buy switches separately. You could swap in alternative Cherry switches, like tactile browns or clicky blues, or even more esoteric community options, like Holy Pandas or Gazzew Boba U4s. The world is, truly, your lobster.
Corsair includes the required switch puller in the box with the keyboard (there’s also a keycap puller) for removing the switches, and I was able to replace a couple with relative ease. The only problem here is that only three-pin (aka plate-mount) switches can fit in the keyboard’s circuit board, meaning that you’ll have to clip the plastic legs off five-pin (PCB-mount) switches to get them to fit. It’s not the end of the world, but it means you’ll have to pick your replacement switches carefully or be prepared to do a little modding. It’s not ideal when the selling point of hot-swap is simplicity.
It’s also, obviously, possible to swap out the K70 Pro Mini Wireless’ keycaps. There’s no immediate need to since the keycaps that come with the keyboard are durable double-shot PBT and allow the keyboard’s RGB backlighting to shine through. Also worth noting is that because each of these keys has a secondary function, there are a lot of additional legends printed on the sides of the keycaps. Replace the keycaps, and you might have a hard time remembering your keyboard shortcuts. Finally, the keyboard’s switches are orientated to be north-facing, which can create compatibility issues with some Cherry-profile keycaps.
North-facing, 3-pin switches.
Almost every key has a secondary function printed on its side.
The K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a very compact keyboard. It uses a 60 percent layout, which means that it lacks additional dedicated keys like a function row, numpad, or even arrow keys. The result is a keyboard that’s optimized for space-confined desks or even large desks when you want to absolutely maximize the amount of space your mouse gets.
If you’re a gamer who sometimes runs out of mouse space because of a big keyboard, a compact model like this can be really helpful. But, for others, such a restrictive layout is less ideal, and I struggled to use the K70 Pro Mini Wireless as a work keyboard over the past week. All of its “missing” keys are accessible via a function key on the bottom right of the keyboard, but having to press two keys just to access arrow keys is tiresome, and it only gets worse when you need to add more modifiers. I frequently had to press as many as four keys simultaneously while working, and it felt very inefficient. I wouldn’t recommend this keyboard for office work.
Nor is it a particularly great keyboard for typing. Although Corsair is using original Cherry switches, which are durable and long-lasting, the construction of the keyboard makes them sound cheap and plasticky, and they don’t feel as good as competing compact keyboards from Epomaker or Keychron. That’s doubly so for larger keys, whose stabilizers sound clinky and metallic.
The K70 Pro Mini Wireless feels a lot more at home when you’re using it for gaming, where you don’t miss the extra keys and (in theory) you have the most to gain from its reduced input latency. But I remain skeptical that most people can feel the benefits of polling rates above 1,000Hz. I tested the K70 Pro Mini Wireless by using it to play Overwatch on a 120Hz OLED display, first in its wired 8,000Hz polling mode (which needs to be manually enabled in Corsair’s iCue software) and then with its 2,000Hz dongle, and I couldn’t perceive any difference between it and a standard 1,000Hz keyboard. It’s reassuring that there seems to be no input lag penalty for using the keyboard wirelessly, but you shouldn’t go in expecting a big upgrade.
One aspect of the K70 Pro Mini Wireless that I didn’t expect to be useful, but were, are its mouse shortcuts. By default, pressing the Fn key along with WASD moves your mouse around the screen, and there are also shortcuts to speed the mouse’s movement up and slow it down, as well as for left and right-clicking. It’s inexact enough that I’d never recommend anyone try playing a game like this, but it’s a neat feature for people like me who have to control a gaming PC underneath their TVs with a wireless keyboard and trackpad. It means the K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a useful little tool that couch gamers might want to use for booting up a game to then play with a controller, although, at $180, it’s very expensive compared to the cheap wireless keyboard / trackpad combos that are readily available.
Battery life is OK but not exceptional, based on Corsair’s estimates (my testing involved regularly plugging the keyboard in via USB to test latency, so I wasn’t able to run it down consistently during my review period). It promises up to 32 hours with backlighting on, rising to 200 hours with it off. So expect to charge it weekly for the privilege of keeping its lights on or a little over once a month otherwise. That’s nothing compared to Logitech’s (otherwise lower-specced) $150 MX Mechanical Mini, which offers 15 days with backlighting on, or 10 months with it off, but roughly in line with the RGB model of Keychron’s $65 K12 (up to 240 hours with backlighting off).
You can adjust the tilt of the keyboard.
My sample came with Cherry MX Red switches.
With its compact 60 percent layout, the K70 Pro Mini Wireless is a keyboard that’s never going to be for everyone. It’s great that Corsair has caught up with the emerging trend towards hot-swappable switches, but if you’re looking for a compact keyboard that you’ll need to use for equal parts productivity and play, then my advice would be to — at a minimum — get a slightly larger 65-percent board that includes an arrow cluster. No amount of customizing switches or keycaps is going to make up for the missing keys.
Used primarily as a gaming keyboard, the K70 Pro Mini Wireless fares a lot better, and it’s nice getting the customizability of an enthusiast mechanical keyboard without giving up the quality of life features of a big brand like Corsair. But $180 is a lot to pay for a keyboard solely for gaming. The Corsair K70 Pro Mini Wireless may be a very customizable keyboard, but ultimately it’s not a very versatile one.
Facebook to restore chronological feed of posts from friends
Firm is splitting its News Feed over two tabs on its iOS and Android apps, separating its algorithmic curation
Facebook is going back to basics, restoring a chronological news feed to its app to make it easier for users to keep up with posts from their friends.
More than a decade after Facebook updated its patented News Feed to default to showing “top stories” rather than a chronological list of posts from friends and pages, the company is restoring the ability to “easily see the most recent posts from your friends, Pages and groups”.
Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient
Company said Blake Lemoine violated Google policies and that his claims were ‘wholly unfounded’
Google has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.
Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) to be “wholly unfounded”.
The engineer who claimed a Google AI is sentient has been fired
The company reportedly says he violated confidentiality policies. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who publicly claimed that the company’s LaMDA conversational artificial intelligence is sentient, has been fired, according to the Big Technology newsletter, which spoke to Lemoine. In June, Google placed Lemoine on paid administrative leave for breaching its confidentiality agreement after he contacted members of the government about his concerns and hired a lawyer to represent LaMDA.
A statement emailed to The Verge on Friday by Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel appeared to confirm the firing, saying, “we wish Blake well.” The company also says: “LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible development.” Google maintains that it “extensively” reviewed Lemoine’s claims and found that they were “wholly unfounded.”
This aligns with numerousAI experts and ethicists, who have said that his claims were, more or less, impossible given today’s technology. Lemoine claims his conversations with LaMDA’s chatbot lead him to believe that it has become more than just a program and has its own thoughts and feelings, as opposed to merely producing conversation realistic enough to make it seem that way, as it is designed to do.
He argues that Google’s researchers should seek consent from LaMDA before running experiments on it (Lemoine himself was assigned to test whether the AI produced hate speech) and published chunks of those conversations on his Medium account as his evidence.
The YouTube channel Computerphile has a decently accessible nine-minute explainer on how LaMDA works and how it could produce the responses that convinced Lemoine without actually being sentient.
Here’s Google’s statement in full, which also addresses Lemoine’s accusation that the company didn’t properly investigate his claims:
As we share in our AI Principles, we take the development of AI very seriously and remain committed to responsible innovation. LaMDA has been through 11 distinct reviews, and we published a research paper earlier this year detailing the work that goes into its responsible development. If an employee shares concerns about our work, as Blake did, we review them extensively. We found Blake’s claims that LaMDA is sentient to be wholly unfounded and worked to clarify that with him for many months. These discussions were part of the open culture that helps us innovate responsibly. So, it’s regrettable that despite lengthy engagement on this topic, Blake still chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information. We will continue our careful development of language models, and we wish Blake well.
T-Mobile agrees to $350 million settlement over its massive 2021 data breach
The hack is costing the company big. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
T-Mobile has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the 2021 hack that it says exposed around 76.6 million US residents’ data. According to the proposed agreement filled on Friday, which you can read in full below, T-Mobile will put $350 million into a settlement fund to go to lawyers, fees, and, of course, to people who file claims. It’ll also be obligated to spend $150 million on “data security and related technology” during 2022 and 2023, in addition to what it had already budgeted for.
In August, the company announced that its systems had been breached, following reports that Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver’s license information for over 100 million of its customers was for sale. While the number proved to be slightly inflated, T-Mobile’s figure of how many people were impacted continued to rise over the rest of the month. T-Mobile’s CEO called this security breach — its fifth in four years — “humbling.”
The proposed settlement agreement still has to be approved by a judge, but if it is, T-Mobile will have 10 days to put money in the fund to cover the costs of notifying people who are eligible to claim. According to the settlement, that covers “the approximately 76.6 million U.S. residents identified by T- Mobile whose information was compromised in the Data Breach,” with a few caveats for some of the carrier’s employees and people close to the judges that presided over the case. In the interest of full disclosure, that could very well mean that I’m eligible to apply for compensation, as I was a T-Mobile customer when the hack occurred.
The settlement agreement doesn’t contain estimates on how much each claimant can expect to receive, though it’s difficult to estimate that kind of thing until it’s clear how many people will make claims.
The lawsuit that T-Mobile is hoping to settle here accused the company of failing to protect its past, present, and prospective customers’ data, not properly notifying people who may have been impacted, and overall having “inadequate data security.” T-Mobile denies these allegations in the agreement, saying that the settlement doesn’t constitute an admission of guilt. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the carrier says it “has the right to terminate the agreement under certain conditions” laid out in the proposed agreement but says that it anticipates having to pay out the claims.
Outside of this lawsuit, there have been other responses to T-Mobile’s data breach and others like it. The FCC proposed new rules surrounding such attacks, which aim to improve how a company communicates with people about their data.
Now Microsoft Office is blocking macros by default
Image by Alex Castro / The Verge
There’s been a bit of back and forth since the change was originally announced, but this week Microsoft started rolling out an update to Microsoft Office that blocks the use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros on downloaded documents.
Last month, Microsft was testing the new default setting when it suddenly rolled back the update, “temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability.” Despite saying it was temporary, many experts worried that Microsoft might not go through with changing the default setting, leaving systems vulnerable to attacks. Google Threat Analysis Group leader Shane Huntley tweeted, “Blocking Office macros would do infinitely more to actually defend against real threats than all the threat intel blog posts.”
Now the new default setting is rolling out, but with updated language to alert users and administrators what options they have when they try to open a file and it’s blocked. This only applies if Windows, using the NTFS file system, notes it as downloaded from the internet and not a network drive or site that admins have marked as safe, and it isn’t changing anything on other platforms like Mac, Office on Android / iOS, or Office on the web.
We’re resuming the rollout of this change in Current Channel. Based on our review of customer feedback, we’ve made updates to both our end user and our IT admin documentation to make clearer what options you have for different scenarios. For example, what to do if you have files on SharePoint or files on a network share. Please refer to the following documentation:
While some people use the scripts to automate tasks, hackers have abused the feature with malicious macros for years, tricking people into downloading a file and running it to compromise their systems. Microsoft noted how administrators could use Group Policy settings in Office 2016 to block macros across their organization’s systems. Still, not everyone turned it on, and the attacks continued, allowing hackers to steal data or distribute ransomware.
Users who try to open files and are blocked will get a pop-up sending them to this page, explaining why they probably don’t need to open that document. It starts by running through several scenarios where someone might try to trick them into executing malware. If they really do need to see what’s inside the downloaded file, it goes on to explain ways to get access, which are all more complicated than what happened before, where users could usually enable macros by pressing one button in the warning banner.
This change may not always stop someone from opening up a malicious file, but it does provide several more layers of warnings before they can get there while still providing access for the people that say they absolutely need it.
Apple reportedly will curb hiring next year in response to rocky economy
The company joins other tech firms in slowing hiring as fears grow that inflation will lower consumer demand
Apple is reportedly planning to slow hiring and spending growth next year to cope with an economic downturn, which would place it in the company of American tech companies including Facebook, Amazon and Google in enacting similar measures.
The changes, first reported by Bloomberg, would not affect all teams, and Apple is reportedly still planning a major product launch scheduled for next year that includes a mixed-reality headset, its first significant new category since the Apple Watch in 2015.
MOCVD tool to advance gallium-oxide semiconductor research Cornell engineers and materials scientists have added a state-of-the-art tool to their suite of laboratory equipment to help in the study of gallium oxide, a material commonly viewed as the heir apparent to silicon carbide and gallium nitride as the go-to semiconductor for many power electronics applications.
Neopets security breach: users’ data reportedly stolen
Virtual pet site launches investigation but has not confirmed the scale of the alleged breach, amid reports hacker has taken database with user details
The popular virtual pet website Neopets says it has launched an investigation after a hacker breached its databases, with one website claiming the personal data of up to 69 million users may have been stolen.
“Neopets recently became aware that customer data may have been stolen … it appears that email addresses and passwords used to access Neopets accounts may have been affected,” the website said in a statement issued on its official Twitter account on Thursday.
Uncomfortable day for aviation as Farnborough runway hits 50C
Climate crisis highlights need for net zero flights as industry pins its hopes on emerging hydrogen technologies and ‘sustainable’ fuel
The temperature of the runway hit 50C at the Farnborough airshow this week. Officials checked for melting tarmac between the aerospace industry showing off its wares, with flights by passenger jets including the Boeing 777X and Airbus A350, assorted military aircraft and flypasts by the Red Arrows display team.
The heat on Monday was yet another reminder, if one were needed, of the urgency of decarbonising aviation, responsible for about 3% of global emissions. The threat of climate crisis has taken the shine off an industry that was once the height of glamour, and zero-emissions flight presents a technical challenge far greater than decarbonising most other parts of the economy.
The Last of Us’ PS5 remake includes a speed run mode and smarter AI
Who doesn’t want to know what it’s like to pet a giraffe? | Image: Sony
Sony released a ten-minute-long trailer for The Last of Us Part 1 on Thursday, where the game’s directors talk through some of the improvements coming in the PlayStation 5 remake of Naughty Dog’s iconic game. The trailer takes plenty of opportunities to show off the improved graphics (which look as nice as they have in the leaked screenshots, but it’s not like the game was ugly on the PS3 or PS4), but the most interesting involve changes to the gameplay — Naughty Dog says that the AI for enemies and companions will be improved, that there will be some extra gameplay modes, and that the game’s cutscenes will have audio descriptions for accessibility.
When it was originally released in 2013, The Last of Us’ AI was nothing special. The remake, however, apparently builds off of The Last of Us Part 2’s more modern system for controlling NPCs, making them better at working together and coming up with tactics more complex than “run straight at the man with the shotgun.” According to Neil Druckmann, creative director of both Last of Us games, this makes for more intense fights. Your companions’ AI has also apparently gotten an upgrade, which should hopefully avoid immersion-breaking experiences where Ellie or Henry run right in front of an enemy who then has to act like they didn’t notice.
In terms of gameplay modes, the remake will apparently include a permadeath mode for those who want to really try their hand at surviving a zombie (er, sorry, “infected”) apocalypse. There’s also a speed run mode, though the trailer offers pretty much no details on that other than that the game will display a timer in the upper right corner.
The trailer includes some other neat details as well — apparently the character animation system has gotten an overhaul, the game will have improved haptics that’ll supposedly make it feel like you’re actually petting a giraffe in that one famous scene, and Naughty Dog details some of the things it’s doing with the adaptive triggers, one of the PS5’s best features. If you’re at all interested in the remake I’d recommend checking it out.
Personally I’m still not sure whether all of this is enough to make me want to replay the game (I’ve already gone through it once on the PS3, and then played the PS4 remaster), but it does seem like it’ll be worth picking up for people who have never experienced it, or who have been looking for an excuse to do another playthrough. The Last Of Us Part 1 is set to release for PlayStation 5 on September 2nd, and for PC at some point in the future.
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