You can now preorder the Steam Deck in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Valve is expanding Steam Deck shipments to some regions that could take the handheld PC-meets-console to new heights. The company just announced that reservations are now open in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan through Komodo, a site that also sells Valve’s Index VR headset for PC among other games and gaming merchandise. If you visit steamdeck.com in one of those regions, you should be rerouted to Komodo’s site soon, or you can click here and select your language. Valve spokesperson Kaci Aitchison Boyle tells The Verge that the first batch of new reservations will be fulfilled later this year.
Pour one out for our friends in Australia, though, who are still waiting on news of a launch after Valve name-dropped the country during its November 2021 developer summit.
In Japan, the Steam Deck will be priced starting at 59,800 yen (roughly $447), ranging up to 99,800 yen (roughly $746) for the premium 512GB model. In the US, those models cost $400 and $650, respectively. Like before, you only have to pay a tiny refundable amount now to secure your reservation: 1,000 yen (around $7.50).
Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Valve credits its recent upswing in production for making this big expansion possible, and it notes that serving these additional countries will not push back delivery estimates for those who have already reserved a Deck.
If you’re in Kyoto this weekend for the annual BitSummit gaming conference, Valve will apparently have some sort of presence there with Steam Deck as well as at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2022.
Handheld gaming is popular around the globe but particularly so in places like Japan in which huge swaths of the population commute in and out of major cities every day by rail. While access to Steam is nothing new in these regions, having the option to purchase a moderately powerful, well-built, and relatively compact handheld (while huge, compared to the Nintendo Switch) where they can play those PC games is a big deal.
The past couple of months have delivered a lot of good news regarding Deck availability, most prominently that you can reserve one right now and probably get it by the end of the year. Valve announced in late June that it would begin doubling shipments of the Steam Deck, which in turn could lead to many people getting their Deck hardware earlier than anticipated. And more recently, in late July, Valve shared that it was ramping up production to better meet demand after it had cleared some supply chain issues.
From the real story of a virus that took out Iran’s urianium centrifuges to a surprisingly good Dan Brown novel, these are some of the best stories of our new era of ill online deeds
A generation ago cybercrime was as esoteric a subject to write about as quantum mechanics or fluctuations in the derivatives market. Now it’s a central feature of many novels.
Whether it’s criminal gangs phishing to steal sensitive data to sell on the dark web, or that creep from college catfishing people on Facebook, or the daily texts asking us to click a link to claim a prize or verify a payment, we are under continuous attack. Pension scams, identity thefts, all those strangers following our children on TikTok, everywhere we turn, someone is trying to turn the technology on which we rely against us.
YouTube Automation Sprouts Cottage Industry That Promises Fast Money A cottage industry is persuading people to spend thousands to create video businesses on YouTube. Disclaimer: It is harder than it looks.
Instagram rolls back some changes to app after user backlash
Reversal includes toning down algorithm that resulted in users’ feeds being deluged with videos from accounts they do not follow
Instagram is reversing some changes to the app following a user backlash that saw influencer royalty Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian turning on the platform.
The photo and video sharing app was accused of mimicking TikTok at the expense of its most loyal users, after user anger at a series of changes boiled over this week. Instagram said on Thursday it was rolling back some of the changes including a test version of the app that gave a full-screen display to posts.
AT&T’s 3G shutdown catches blame for a major election headache in Michigan
Some Michigan counties can’t immediately report Tuesday night’s election results due to a confusing mix of federal vote reporting guidance and AT&T’s decision to retire its 3G networks this past February.
In a website alert, the Wayne County clerk’s office confirmed that 65 of Michigan’s 83 total counties “are no longer modeming unofficial election results.” Wayne County is where Detroit is located, and it’s the state’s biggest county by population with about 1.8 million residents. It’s unclear how many are due to county officials that did not upgrade their own modems, or if this is due to U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) guidelines advising against using modems. Elsewhere in Michigan, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum told The Verge that to be cyber security conscious, “we have never modemed results. So this did not change our process in Ingham County.”
In section 14.2-E, the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0 established in February 2021 advised against connecting voting systems to the internet. The guidelines cited the risk of ransomware, the ability for attackers to view files within the system, or modify files within it that have to do with election results and ballot records.
“This has significantly delayed the reporting process,” the Tuesday night Wayne County alert read. “We do not have a definitive time of when we will reach 100 percent reporting, but will continue to work throughout the evening and morning until this is achieved.”
AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The office of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson confirmed the widespread issue and said reporting delays “were expected” in a statement to WDIV ClickOnDetroit late Tuesday night. “Many Michigan counties are in the process of or have already phased out the use of modems to transmit election results from cities and townships to their county clerk’s office,” the statement said.
Election Results Update
Based on the recommendation of the Voluntary Voting Systems Guideline 2.0 issued by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, coupled with AT&T’s decision in March 2022 to no longer support 3G modems, 65 out of 83 Counties in Michigan are no longer modeming unofficial election results. This has signficantly delayed the reporting process. We do not have a definitive time of when we will reach 100 percent reporting, but will continue to work throughout the evening and morning until this is achieved.
A man made millions unlocking T-Mobile phones with stolen passwords
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
A jury has found Argishti Khudaverdyan, a former owner of a T-Mobile store, guilty of using stolen credentials to unlock “hundreds of thousands of cellphones” from August 2014 to June 2019 (via PCMag). According to a press release from the Department of Justice and an indictment filed earlier this year, Khudaverdyan made around $25 million from the scheme, which also involved bypassing carrier blocks put on lost or stolen cell phones.
For years, he reportedly used several tactics to acquire the T-Mobile employee credentials needed to unlock phones, including phishing, social engineering, and even getting the carrier’s IT department to reset higher-ups’ passwords, giving him access. The DOJ says he accessed over 50 employees’ credentials, and used them to unlock phones from “Sprint, AT&T and other carriers.”
According to the indictment, Khudaverdyan was able to access T-Mobile’s unlocking tools over the open internet until 2017. After the carrier moved them onto its internal network, Khudaverdyan would allegedly use stolen credentials to access that network via Wi-Fi at T-Mobile stores.
The DOJ says that Khudaverdyan co-owned a T-Mobile store called Top Tier Solutions Inc for a few months in 2017, though the carrier ended up terminating the store’s contract because of suspicious behavior. (The other co-owner, Alen Gharehbagloo, was also accused of fraud and illegally accessing computer systems and has plead guilty.) Throughout the years, the DOJ says that Khudaverdyan marketed his unlocking services via email, brokers, and various websites, telling customers that they were official T-Mobile unlocks.
Khudaverdyan’s indictment describes a few of the purchases he and Gharehbagloo made with the money they got from unlocking phones; properties in California, a $32,000 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch, and a Land Rover. Gharehbagloo and Khudaverdyan are accused of leasing a Mercedes-Benz S 63 AMG and aFerrari 458, respectively. A Rolex Sky-Dweller was also seized from one of the properties.
Khudaverdyan isn’t the only person who’s gotten in trouble with the law for unlocking devices, or otherwise skirting around manufacturer-imposed limits. Last year, a man named Muhammad Fahd was sentenced to 12 years in prison for unlocking around 2 million AT&T phones, and a man named Gary Bowser was recently sent to prison (and charged a $10 million fine) for his role in a company that sold mods for the Nintendo Switch.
In some ways, these types of crimes are sympathetic — it’s hard to feel bad for companies losing out on revenue that they would’ve earned by restricting what customers can do with their devices. I’m not going to be shedding tears because the DOJ says that Khudaverdyan’s unlocks “enabled T-Mobile customers to stop using T-Mobile’s services and thereby deprive T-Mobile of revenue generated from customers’ service contracts and equipment installment plans.”
Of course, the fact that such unlocks are illegal means that it’s difficult to run an unlock scheme without getting your hands dirty. Defrauding T-Mobile employees for their credentials isn’t great, nor is potentially unlocking phones phones for thieves who want to sell them on the black market. But it’d be hard for people like Khudaverdyan or Fahd to build lucrative and shady businesses doing this kind of thing if carriers made it far easier for customers to do it themselves.
Khudaverdyan is facing at least two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, and up to 165 years for the counts related to wire fraud, money laundering, and accessing a computer without authorization. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 17th.
The best Sonos speaker and soundbar deals
The Sonos Roam launched last year is now available in refurbished condition for $139. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Most would agree that Sonos offers some of the best speakers and soundbars currently available. That’s because Sonos makes speakers that — more often than not — boast great sound quality, support for all the major streaming platforms, and simple multi-room functionality. Unfortunately, however, those perks often come at a high price. Sonos products aren’t cheap, and, outside of the occasional rogue discount, they rarely go on sale. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t ways to save at least a few dollars on Sonos gear.
If you’re comfortable buying refurbished, for example, you could save a decent amount. We also occasionally see sales on Sonos’ collaborative series with Ikea and discounted bundles that include Sonos products, which makes it easier to set up an entire home audio system while saving money. And, if you’re a student, Sonos offers a program you can join to get a 15 percent discount when you spend up to $2,500 on full-priced speakers and accessories.
Regardless of their existence, these discounts can be hard to find. That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best Sonos deals you can currently take advantage of. Here, we’ll guide you through the best sales available, helping you to get the best bang for your buck.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The portable Roam offers the best water resistance of any speaker in the Sonos lineup.
The Sonos Roam is one of the clearest, most pleasant portable speakers we’ve ever used, and we’d recommend it as a personal speaker for small gatherings. It offers a rugged design, a relatively durable build, wireless charging, and support for both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s also compatible with Apple’s AirPlay 2, which lets you stream music from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac over your home network. Plus, it’s the first Sonos speaker with an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, which means you could use it in the bathroom or near pools.
Note, however, Sonos won’t let you pair two in stereo when listening over Bluetooth, unlike similar speakers, though you can play Bluetooth audio over your entire Sonos system. The Roam also only offers around 10 hours of battery life, which isn’t that great, and it can be challenging to use the speaker’s Wi-Fi features outside of your home.
Nevertheless, it’s a good portable speaker you can currently buy in refurbished condition from Sonos and Best Buy for around $139 instead of $179, the price you’d normally pay for a new model. Sonos also is selling a couple of discounted bundles containing the Roam if you’re interested in purchasing multiple devices, one of which contains two Roams for $338 ($20 off) and another that pairs a Roam with the recently-released Sonos Ray for $433 ($35 off). Finally, if you don’t mind picking up a Roam without a microphone, you can buy the Roam SL — which is otherwise identical to the Roam — in new condition for $159.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The small Sonos One supports a range of music services and comes with a good microphone.
The second-generation Sonos One is a small smart speaker with a good microphone for voice control. It emits balanced, full-bodied sound that’s impressive for its size while integrating well with existing Sonos products. The 2017 speaker also works with a range of music services and supports both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, however, the process for setting up voice assistants can be complicated. The One offers touch controls, too, as well as support for AirPlay 2 thanks to a post-launch software update.
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
The Sonos One SL is similar to the second-gen Sonos One, but without the always-listening microphones and voice controls.
Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge
The Sonos Arc works well as both a home theater soundbar and music speaker.
The Sonos Arc is an all-in-one home theater soundbar that pairs quite nicely with large TVs, but works well as a music speaker. The 45-inch soundbar boasts powerful, immersive sound and is compatible with Dolby Atmos and a range of other audio formats, including TrueHD (for external Blu-ray players), Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Digital.
Like the Sonos Roam, it also offers built-in support for Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple’s AirPlay 2. One drawback, however, is that you may need a recent 4K TV — likely something released after 2017 — that supports Atmos over HDMI ARC to hear it at its best. We also noticed surround sound doesn’t always work well in large rooms, which means it’s not particularly apartment-friendly, especially when coupled with its size.
Sonos
The newer Sonos Five sounds exactly like its fantastic predecessor, the Play:5.
Sonos Five (2020) deals
The Sonos Five replaced the Play:5 music speaker in 2020 but is actually nearly identical to its excellent-sounding predecessor. It shares the same six custom-designed drivers inside, so it should offer the same high-quality listening experience as the Play:5, which was ideal for large rooms or parties. Other than that, however, there aren’t many noticeable differences. Compared to the Play:5, Sonos says its successor offers increased memory and processing power, as well as a new wireless radio. There are also all-black or all-white options. Note, however, that the Sonos Five lacks a built-in microphone and support for Alexa and Google Assistant — something most other speakers in the Sonos lineup offer.
The Sonos Five starts at $549, though you can buy it in refurbished condition at Best Buy right now for $467.99 in white and $494.99 in black. You can also buy a set of two in new condition for around $1,048 instead of $1,098 from Sonos, B&H Photo, and Best Buy. Sonos is additionally selling a Turntable set, which includes the Sonos Five and a Pro-Ject T1 Phono SB Turntable, for $948 ($50 off).
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The last-gen Sonos Beam offers great TV sound quality but, unlike the second-gen model, lacks support for Dolby Atmos.
Sonos’ previous entry-level soundbar, the first-gen Sonos Beam, functions as both a smart speaker and a soundbar for smart TVs equipped with HDMI ARC. We praised how well it improves TV sound quality in our 2018 review, as well as how simple and easy it is to set up and use. It’s not as great as other standalone speakers in the Sonos lineup for just playing music, but as a general-purpose speaker, it’s a good buy overall, especially if you’re adding it to an existing Sonos setup. The Sonos Beam also offers touch controls and support for Apple’s AirPlay 2, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant, allowing for hands-free commands.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The Sonos Immersive Set comes with the second-gen Sonos Beam, which supports Dolby Atmos and HDMI eARC.
You can also buy a second-gen Sonos Beam — which offers better performance than its first-gen predecessor, supports Dolby Atmos, and comes with HDMI eARC — for $404.99 in refurbished condition at Best Buy instead of $449, the price it sells for new. Keep in mind that only the white model is available in refurbished condition at the moment, however.
The Sonos Move offers a loud, powerful sound similar to the Sonos One, but with slightly more volume. Unlike the One, however, you don’t need to find the right spot in your home for it to hear it well, given it’s better at distributing sound throughout a room. We also found that it sounds terrific no matter whether you’re in the living room or outside at the park.
However, while the Move was Sonos’ can certainly function as a portable speaker, it's better suited for moving about your home. That’s especially true when compared to the newer Sonos Roam, namely because the 10-inch speaker weighs 6.6 pounds and is a bit more challenging to lug around while traveling. Additionally, the fact that its battery can only last 10 hours on a single charge — which is noticeably less than many other Bluetooth speakers on the market — means this doesn’t make for the best portable speaker.
That said, it is a great buy if you want an excellent-sounding Sonos speaker you can pick up and take into your garage, living room, patio, or any other room in your home. It also comes with features like IP56 weatherproofing and support for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s AirPlay 2, not to mention seamless integration with other Sonos devices.
The God of War comes to Xbox, sort of
Kratos, God of Warning. | Image: War Gods Zeus of Child’sXbox Store listing
The big God of War sequel is one of the year’s most anticipated video games, and you can now play it on Xbox. Yes, that’s right, War Gods Zeus of Child, which stars Sony’s video game character Kratos and a horde of identical and generic monster baddies, is currently available for just $4.09 on the Xbox store.
Oh, you thought I was talking about a different game? Nope, War Gods Zeus of Child is definitely an approved and legitimate entry in one of Sony’s most valuable franchises being sold on a competing console platform.
I promise you’ll want to play it just based on the game’s description:
War Gods Zeus of Child is a great war game. Destroy all enemies and creatures with the Zeus War Gods of challange [sic]. Kill them all with your gun. Launch attacks with various combos. Reach the highest monster kills without dying. Feel the power of the warning god.
Alright, I’ll stop joking around now. War Gods Zeus of Child is pretty clearly some kind of God of War ripoff that somehow slipped through the cracks and was published on the Xbox store. I know Sony has been open about wanting to release more games on mobile and PC, but I can’t imagine it has any plans to bring a God of War game to Xbox. And while Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has said that God of War Ragnarok, the actual God of War sequel, is the game he most wants to play next, I don’t think he’d approve of this knockoff game, either.
If the poorly written description and extremely rough video didn’t clue you in, as spotted by Eurogamer, War Gods Zeus of Child’s developer is a company named Dolaka Ltd. that has snuck another blatant ripoff onto the Xbox store: a Fall Guys lookalike called Dinasaur Falling Survival (yes, “dinasaur”).
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
The Xbox Store page for Dinasaur Falling Survival.
Microsoft’s strict certification processes typically don’t allow knockoffs to make it to the store (like we sometimes see on mobile app stores), but Eurogamer speculates that Dolaka’s titles might be sold through the Xbox Creators Program, which lets Xbox developers bypass the typical processes required to publish games. “If your game integrates Xbox services and follows our standard Store policies, you are ready to publish,” Microsoft says on the Xbox Creators Program website.
You don’t have to read far to find an example of how both of Dolaka’s games would violate those standard Store policies, though. Both titles feature characters that are obviously ripoffs of Kratos and a Fall Guys bean, and while I’m definitely not a lawyer, that would seem to violate section 10.1.1: “your product must not use a name, images, or any other metadata that is the same as that of other products unless the product is also published by you.”
We’ve asked Microsoft what might be going on here and if the games will remain for sale. In the meantime, I’m going to watch the trailer for the real God of War sequel again.
Google earnings signal company weathering slowdown better than expected
Parent company Alphabet reports second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than a year ago
Alphabet only narrowly missed estimates for its quarterly revenue on Tuesday, a sign the tech giant may weather an industry-wide slowdown better than expected.
Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than same period a year ago, and nearly in line with the average expectation of $69.88bn among investment researchers tracked by Refinitiv.
F.T.C. Chair Lina Khan Upends Antitrust Standards by Suing Meta Lina Khan may set off a shift in how Washington regulates competition by filing cases in tech areas before they mature. She faces an uphill climb.
Google Search’s built-in timer has disappeared and no one’s saying why
Google Search’s timer feature in 2013 when it was first introduced. | Image: Google
Until recently, one of the most convenient ways to set a timer was to simply search for one on Google. Punch in a query like “10 minute timer” and, hey presto, you’d get a ten minute timer. But last month, reports started to emerge that this feature had disappeared from Google without warning. SEORoundTable was among the first to cover the missing timer on July 20th, citing tweets from around July 18th.
Although there are no shortage of timers elsewhere on the web (or provided as stock apps on iOS and Android) Google’s built-in version was a simple, accessible alternative. And, as well as the timer, there was also a stopwatch feature built into the same widget for when you need to count up rather than down. The feature dates back almost a decade, having been introduced in 2013.
Google is yet to formally acknowledge the removal of the feature, so it may be the case that an accidental bug has caused it to disappear. Google’s public search liaison Danny Sullivan first said he’d look into the issue on July 21st, and almost a week later on July 27th said the team was “still checking on it.” If its disappearance is a bug, then it’s one that may be proving hard to squash. A spokesperson from Google did not immediately return The Verge’s request for comment.
Intentionally removing the feature would be a strange move for Google, given it’s spent much of the last decade building more features natively into its search results page. What started out as a simple list of hyperlinks now include everything from rich snippets that attempt to answer your search query directly, to a dedicated box for news stories, and even more specific features like a built-in price comparison tool for airplane flights. None of these appear to be going anywhere.
And, in case you’re wondering, Google Search’s built-in metronome is still alive and ticking, thank goodness.
‘I’m doing puzzles that may take 10 years to solve’: Animal Well, a mysterious video game time capsule
In an industry notorious for neglecting its past, one developer is trying to make a game that will be playable (and enigmatic) long into the future
In January 2020, players of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time stumbled on a buried spaceship: a fully functional “Arwing” fighter from another classic Nintendo game, Star Fox 64. The Arwing was added as a programmer’s shortcut to, essentially, teach a dragon how to fly. Once the dragon was airborne, the ship was hidden away in Ocarina of Time’s source code, where hackers unearthed it 22 years later.
“It’s amazing to me that it was there all this time – it just took a lot of digging to find it,” says Billy Basso, a game developer from Chicago. “It’s completely inessential, but it helps people bond with how games are made, the creators behind them and the time and place. It connects you to history in a way.” Basso hopes to foster similar connections with Animal Well, an eerie pixel-art cave system which its creator hopes will have plenty of secrets left to uncover a decade from now.
Animal Well will debut on PlayStation 5 and Steam; release date to be confirmed
Bear and Breakfast review – a cute management sim … if you bear with it
PC (version tested); Gummy Cat/Armor Games Studios There is delightful presentation as you set up a dysfunctional B&B – but in a genre that usually keeps players busy, this requires real patience
One day while running an errand, Hank the bear and his friends happen upon a derelict cabin and turn it into pretty terrible B&B: they’ve got the bed part figured out, just not the breakfast. But humans immediately come flocking to it as if they had just spent two years quarantined in their homes and will welcome any new sight. Your first guest eagerly takes pictures of the nearby gas station and leaves a five-star review.
While this happens, Hank hasn’t actually done much to make their stay more pleasant. He has traded trash with a possum for some decorative knick-knacks for the cabin (“humans just love knick-knacks!”), but then he’s off on an entirely different mission for the local mouse mafia.
We're coming up on another school year, so it's about time to start shopping for supplies. Let’s talk about some tech-related considerations. Then we’ll close with the product of the week, a new vacuum from LG. The post Sensible Tech Advice for Back to School appeared first on TechNewsWorld.
What does Tim Hortons think your data is worth? A coffee and donut, apparently
Business sign of a Tim Horton’s cafeteria. | Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images
Tim Hortons, the Canadian fast food chain accused of using its mobile app to collect “vast amounts of sensitive location data” in violation of Canadian privacy laws, says it’s reached a proposed settlement in the resulting class action lawsuits, Vice reports. To make up for tracking users, recording their movements “every few minutes” even when the app was closed, the chain is proposing to give affected users… a free hot beverage and a free baked good worth a little under $9 CAD plus tax.
Customers started receiving emails detailing the proposed settlement on Friday, and screenshots were posted to Twitter by James McLeod. “You are receiving this email in connection with a proposed settlement, subject to Court approval, of a national class action lawsuit involving the Tim Hortons app and the collection of geolocation data between April 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020,” the email reads. “As part of the proposed settlement agreement, eligible app users will receive a free hot beverage and a free baked good.”
As well as offering the drink and snack (which hold a retail value of $6.19 CAD and $2.39 CAD plus taxes respectively), Tim Hortons has also committed to permanently deleting all geolocation about group members. Crucially, however, the restaurant chain tells Global News that the proposed settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing, and that the allegations have not been proven in a court of law.
The allegations surfaced in a report from the National Post, when a reporter found that the app had tracked their location over 2,700 times in under five months. A subsequent investigation by Canadian privacy watchdogs said that although the app asked for location tracking permission, it misled users into thinking they would only be tracked while using the app. Instead, they were allegedly tracked throughout their day, allowing Tim Hortons to infer where they lived, where they worked, and to analyze when they visited competing restaurants or major sporting venues.
The company had initially planned to use this information for targeted advertising, but ended up using it to analyze user trends, like working out when they may have switched to rival coffee chains. “Tim Hortons clearly crossed the line by amassing a huge amount of highly sensitive information about its customers,” Canada’s privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said when the report was released. “Following people’s movements every few minutes of every day was clearly an inappropriate form of surveillance.”
“We’re pleased to have reached a proposed settlement, subject to Court approval, in the four class action lawsuits in Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario involving the Tim Hortons app,” a spokesperson for the chain told Vice. “As part of the proposed settlement agreement, eligible app users will receive a free hot beverage and a free baked good.”
“All parties agree this is a fair settlement and we look forward to the Superior Court of Quebec’s decision on the proposal. We are confident that pending the Quebec court’s approval of the settlement, the courts in British Columbia and Ontario will recognize the settlement,” they said.
Landlords evicting tenants for Airbnb and holiday lets, report finds
Rachael Maskell, the York Central MP, has proposed a bill to tackle shortage of private rental housing
Landlords are evicting tenants and switching to Airbnbs and holiday lets because the money is better and they “do not have to worry about bad tenants”.
Research has found a boom in rental properties being used for short-term lets, caused by a rise in domestic holidays and increased regulations for long-term landlords.
After Pixar Ouster, John Lasseter Returns With Apple and ‘Luck’ John Lasseter was toppled five years ago by allegations about his workplace behavior. He’s back with an animated film and a studio that could be Pixar 2.0.
Robotic sensors could help transform prosthetics A pioneering project to develop advanced sensors for use in robotic systems, could transform prosthetics and robotic limbs.
How Some Parents Changed Their Politics in the Pandemic They were once Democrats and Republicans. But fears for their children in the pandemic transformed their thinking, turning them into single-issue voters for November’s midterms.
The Vardy Effect: Going to court to deny something a rock could see is true
Rebekah Vardy probably isn’t buzzing at the ruling, a character assassination that has left her well and truly stung by libel
Oscar Wilde, Barbra Streisand, and now – Rebekah Vardy. When news broke that Vardy had lost her libel case against Coleen Rooney, she joined this heady roster of celebrities who have launched brain-bogglingly misguided and self-wounding legal cases. Like Wilde – who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for revealing his homosexuality – Vardy went to court to deny something that a rock could see was true: she’d passed on private stories about Rooney to the press. And like Streisand – who sued a website for featuring an image of her house, thereby drawing the world’s attention to it – she believed going to court was the best way to control her image. She was wrong.
Vardy traded private details of her husband’s colleagues and their wives in the hope of currying positive coverage in the media. And because of that, Mrs Justice Steyn delivered a verdict that was even more of a character assassination than Vardy’s own memorable description of Rooney to a Daily Mail journalist: “Arguing with Coleen Rooney would be as pointless as arguing with a pigeon: you can tell it that you are right and it is wrong, but it’s still going to shit in your hair.” Well, Rebekah, you’re covered in shit now.
Can artificial intelligence really help us talk to the animals?
A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters
A dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The two trained dolphins disappear underwater, exchange sounds and then emerge, flip on to their backs and lift their tails. They have devised a new trick of their own and performed it in tandem, just as requested. “It doesn’t prove that there’s language,” says Aza Raskin. “But it certainly makes a lot of sense that, if they had access to a rich, symbolic way of communicating, that would make this task much easier.”
Raskin is the co-founder and president of Earth Species Project (ESP), a California non-profit group with a bold ambition: to decode non-human communication using a form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning, and make all the knowhow publicly available, thereby deepening our connection with other living species and helping to protect them. A 1970 album of whale song galvanised the movement that led to commercial whaling being banned. What could a Google Translate for the animal kingdom spawn?
The best instant photo printer you can buy right now
Whether you want the best photo quality or ultra-portability, there’s a printer for you.
The little prints
Instant photo printers are sort of the quieter, less-cool sibling of instant cameras, but they’re arguably more practical. They don’t quite tap into the nostalgia-fueled fun of pulling out an Instax camera at a party, but they’re a more versatile means of getting to the final product: a real, live photo print you can touch and feel. In an age where virtually all of our photos live in digital storage on our devices or on social media feeds, a physical print is kind of magic.
There are plenty of ways to turn the photos on your phone into physical prints, but most of them involve waiting for shipping or finding a kiosk in a brick-and-mortar store, both of which are terrible prospects. Mobile photo printers eliminate the wait — they’re small enough to be carried in a purse or a bag so they can go where you go.
Our top pick, the Polaroid Hi-Print, isn’t exactly the most portable, but it produces the best color and print quality by far. It’s still small enough to fit into a larger purse or bag, but refill cartridges are on the bigger side and are definitely not going to fit into an evening clutch. For better portability and fun social event-friendly features, we like the Canon Ivy.
We tested instant printers that produce 2 x 3-inch photos, which is about the size of a credit card. There are compact printers that work with bigger 4 x 6-inch photo paper that’s better suited to hanging on your wall and other small size formats, like Fujifilm’s wide Instax, but for the purposes of this guide, only 2 x 3 options were considered. All of our picks come with free iOS and Android apps that you’ll need to download in order to use them, and they all worked without problems on both platforms.
Polaroid Hi-Print
The best instant photo printer
The Polaroid Hi-Print is unique because it’s actually a mini dye-sub printer, which is the technology most bigger color photo printers use. It applies yellow, red, and cyan layers in three separate passes. While this happens, the printer’s companion app indicates what’s happening, and you can watch the print move in and out of the printer as different color layers are applied. It’s not the retro fun of watching an instant photo print develop in front of your eyes, but it’s neat. It also results in high-quality prints with rich, accurate color and good contrast. There’s some banding in areas of solid colors if you look really closely, but it’s only visible from about a foot away — much closer than you’re likely to view it.
The Hi-Print app is also very straightforward and easy to use. There’s no way to sync up your Google Photos or social accounts for direct access; if that’s a priority, you’ll want to look at the Zink printer options below. There are also just a few “sticker” options to apply to your image preprint, but the text typefaces are the best-looking among the printers I tested. They made me want to put funny text on my photos. There are also standard color and exposure adjustments available, along with some colorful frames that, like the text options, surprisingly don’t suck.
Print refills include an entire cartridge that produces an unfortunate amount of waste.
One does not simply add more photo paper to the Hi-Print, either. Each refill is actually an entire printer cartridge with a spool and everything. Each one includes 10 sheets of photo paper ready to go, and they’re sold in boxes of two — so 20 prints per package. The photo sheets come with a little detachable tab on the bottom, so you can grab the photo out of the printer without putting your fingers on the image. You can also have a peel-off backing to make your photo print a sticker.
Unfortunately, the Hi-Print’s system makes for a lot of plastic waste. Every time you add a new cartridge, you have to take the old one out and throw it away. (Polaroid’s support page says the company can’t recycle them for you, and my local curbside recycling guidelines rule it out since it uses more than one kind of plastic.) It’s a shame that you can’t reuse it in some way. The cartridges are also much larger than a pack of Zink or Instax paper, so it’s not the most practical option if you want to carry a lot of paper refills with you.
The Hi-Print produces vivid, accurate colors.
Another downside is that this is a proprietary print format — unlike Zink, which is used by many different mobile printer brands. If Polaroid decides to stop making the Hi-Print, you’ll be stuck with a printer that doesn’t work.
The Hi-Print is also more expensive than other mobile printers. The printer itself costs $100, and a single 20-sheet refill pack costs $17. (Though, at the time of this writing, you can find a three-pack of refills for $50 on Amazon.) That makes the price per print around 85 cents. That’s much higher than the Zink alternatives, which are more like 50 cents per print.
The Hi-Print isn’t the best choice if you’re looking for ultra-portability, an abundance of fun stickers, or the very best cost per print. But the prints are much better than the other options we tested. The text options you can apply to images are modern and fun, and the app is very easy to use. If print quality is a priority, then the Hi-Print is your best option.
Instax Mini Link 2
The best Instax photo printer
Instax film has a certain appeal. For one, it’s really film, so you’ll watch it develop in front of your eyes after your photo leaves the printer. Images have a certain nostalgic look, with inky dark blacks and slight overexposure. Prints also have the classic white frame that holds the film in place. You might associate it with the Polaroid name, but if you want an instant film experience in a convenient package, you’ll want to get familiar with the Instax brand.
That’s all to say that the Mini Link 2 is a unique offering, with plenty of quirks that annoyed me as I tested it, but at the end of the day, it’s Instax. That has a particular draw in itself and for good reason. The prints are very nice, and Instax film is fairly easy to come by at brick-and-mortar retailers and online, though it’s not cheap. Expect to pay around 70 cents per print depending on how you buy refills. The MSRP on a 20-sheet refill pack is about $20, but with current markdowns, it’s selling for $14. Not as expensive as the Hi-Print, but costlier than Zink paper.
The Mini Link 2 has a sensor inside that detects the printer’s orientation, which plays into some of the printer’s quirkier features. Turning the printer on its side or standing it up vertically changes the “mode” the printer uses, which is reflected in the app — print options are organized into “Print mode” and “Fun mode.” But you can use any print feature no matter what mode you’re in, so there’s really no point to this feature. It just ended up annoying me when I moved the printer and changed its orientation without thinking and had to wait for the app to finish an animation signifying the switch to the other mode.
This function also comes into play if you’re using the camera function in the Mini Link app. You can hold the printer and tip it forward and backward to zoom in and out. It works well enough, but it’s sort of the definition of a pointless gimmick because you can just pinch and zoom on the image preview to use zoom, like any other camera app.
The Instax companion app is a bit much.
There are simply too many options here.
The Mini Link app isn’t exactly user-friendly, either. Tapping the settings icon reveals an absolute avalanche of uncategorized menu options. Frame options are also in a different location than stickers and text. Same goes for collage options; they’re different print modes that you can’t easily jump between. If you decide you’d rather use a frame than make a collage, you need to discard the edits you’re working on and start over.
The printed area of an Instax photo is also smaller than the Zink and Polaroid alternatives. It’s a fine size for snapshots, and the frame actually reinforces the image so it lays flat (the others tend to curl slightly along the edges). But collage images get very small very fast. The same goes for text and stickers.
Instax photos have a trademark de-saturated look with rich black tones.
There are a whole lot of other features packed into the Mini Link 2 and its companion app, like a kind of match-making game that rates your “compatibility” with another person and prints it on your photos as a percentage. You can also use the printer’s LED to “draw” a design on a photo or use the app to take a picture of a drawing and convert it to a sticker you can put on images. Some are gimmicky and some are just not for me. Your mileage may vary.
Canon Ivy
The best Zink photo printer
The best mobile printer for parties and social occasions is the Canon Ivy. It takes commonly used Zink paper, and it offers the best photo quality of the Zink printers we tested, with good color reproduction. Its companion app also appears to get timely updates with appealing, seasonally appropriate new “stickers” to apply to photos. When I used the app in late July, it had been updated recently with Pride and Juneteenth art by illustrator Sabrena Khadija.
The printer itself is slimmer and more portable than the Instax or Hi-Print, and it’s more cost-effective, too. The printer retails for $99.99, and 50 sheets of paper cost $24 on Amazon at the time of this writing, working out to about 50 cents per print.
Color accuracy is good, and the sticker options are fun.
I did encounter one problem during testing: using an iPhone 11 running iOS 15.6, the app crashed every time I tapped on the option to connect my Google Photos account. This worked fine on Android, so it seems to be an iOS-specific problem. If you’re an iPhone owner and you rely on Google Photos for image storage, then I wouldn’t recommend the Ivy. I didn’t have any problems accessing photos stored on the iPhone itself or connecting to my Instagram account, which is probably how most iPhone owners would want to use the printer anyway.
Otherwise, the Ivy is a great option for someone looking for portability and value over the best possible print quality.
HP Sprocket
The best cheap instant printer
We considered two Zink printers for this category, the Sprocket and the Kodak Step, both of which are products licensed by C&A Marketing. The $80 HP Sprocket comes out ahead but not by a lot. Print quality is okay, but the printer adds some unattractive sharpening and brightening that looks like a bad HDR effect. It probably won’t bother most people, but if photo quality is a priority, the Canon Ivy is a better choice. But overall color reproduction is acceptable on the Sprocket, and I can’t say the same about the Kodak Step, which adds way too much red to images. You can correct this by adjusting the cyan / red slider in the app, but you need to do this before every single print.
Photo quality isn’t as good, but the Sprocket represents the best value.
The Sprocket has some nice features, too. The onboarding and initial setup that the app takes you through is helpful and clear. Plus, you have the opportunity to rename the printer as it appears in the app and decide which color the printer’s indicator light will glow. It’s not quite as slim as the Canon Ivy, but it is small enough for a large clutch-style purse. A pack of 100 photo sheets retails for $45 on Amazon at the time of this writing, so the cost per print is under 50 cents. If you aren’t too picky about photo quality, then the Sprocket is a good deal.
Today I learned about an easy way to share files between Mac apps
No Finder required.
Apple has made macOS very good at handling drag and drops. For example, I often pull a picture right out of the Photos app or Safari and drop it into iMessage or Slack. One thing that’s always slowed me down, though, is moving around more traditional files, like PDFs or other documents.
But then I learned that quite a few apps, including many of the built-in ones, have a quick shortcut to get at the file you’re viewing. Using this shortcut (which is officially called the proxy icon), you can easily do things like upload a PDF you have open in Preview to Google Drive without having to go looking for the file in Finder. Here’s how it works:
GIF of someone dragging a file from Preview to a Safari window with Google Drive.
Nary a Finder window was opened.
The trick is using the title bar, which is the area where Apple puts the traffic light-style window controls and the name of the file you have open as well as other buttons, depending on the app. If you hover over that file name for a second, you may notice that a little icon appears to the left of it. (Some apps don’t require the hover.) This is what lets us do our magic. If you click and drag that icon, you’ll basically be clicking and dragging the actual file as if you were using the file manager.
To be clear, this is not a new feature of the latest macOS beta or anything. I’m pretty sure I learned about it when someone mentioned it in the context of features that have been around so long that young whippersnappers like me have never even heard of them. So, yes, I am a bit late to the party here. But now that I finally learned about it, I use it all the time.
One of my most common use cases is when I have to read through a PDF for work and then upload it to DocumentCloud so I can embed it in an article. I used to do that by minimizing Preview and then hunting around for the document on my crowded desktop, using Quick Look (the thing that previews a document when you press the space bar) to make sure I wasn’t uploading the wrong thing. Now, I can just drag and drop the thing I’m reading straight from Preview, much like I do in the GIF above.
I’ve also found plenty of other ways to use the feature. If I have Finder in a certain mode, I can use it to quickly copy the path of the folder I’m in into Terminal. (Bonus tip: if you drag and drop a file or folder into Terminal, macOS will just insert the path to it.) I even used this feature on QuickTime to make the screen recorded GIFs you’ve been seeing in this article.
Oh yeah, did you know you can just drag files onto the default Choose File button?
While this won’t necessarily apply if you’re just using this feature to share files between apps, I do have one word of caution if you, like me, think “wait, what happens if I drag the file from the title bar into a Finder window?” The answer is that it’ll move the file from wherever it is currently to wherever you dropped it. That’s a reasonable default, I suppose, but it could end up being confusing if you assumed that it would copy and paste the file rather than cut and paste it.
Unfortunately, this isn’t something that every single app can do. I couldn’t find a way to grab files from Obsidian or Photoshop, for example — though the latter isn’t exactly surprising. But there are a fair number of apps that I have been able to use it with, including Pages, Blender, Logic Pro, Nova, and even Microsoft Word of all things. If there’s an app you’re looking at files in frequently, it’s worth checking if it supports this feature; you never know when it’ll come in handy.
But wait, I’ve got one last bonus tip if you’re sticking around in the title bar — though if I’m being honest, it’s a bonus because I haven’t run into any situations where it’d be useful. In addition to being able to drag the file icon, you can also right-click it to see which folder that file lives in (and which folder that folder is in, and so on and so on). From there, you can use the list to quickly open a Finder window navigated to that folder.
Right-clicking on the file icon lets you easily tell where it’s located on your disk.
While discovering this system wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation that 10x-ed my productivity, it has helped cut down on the amount of time I’ve spent searching for files I already have open. And that’s great because having to do that can, ironically, be a real drag.
‘Stop trying to be TikTok’: how video-centric Instagram sparked a revolt
Loyal users and Kardashians forced social network to partially retreat by demanding renewed emphasis on photo-sharing
If you’re going to change a social media platform synonymous with celebrity culture, make sure the Kardashian-Jenners are onboard first.
Instagram was forced into a partial retreat last week as influencer royalty joined a user rebellion against the app, driven by complaints that it had become too video-centric and was pushing content from accounts that people did not follow.
Netflix sues creators behind The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical following sold-out show
Image: Liam Daniel / Netflix
Netflix is suing Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, the duo behind The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical over copyright infringement, as first reported by Deadline. The streaming giant filed the complaint in a Washington, DC district court just days after Barlow and Bear held a live, sold-out show dedicated to their Bridgerton-inspired album.
After Bridgerton’s 2020 debut, Barlow and Bear began creating music based on the Netflix original series and promoting the endeavor on TikTok, where it quickly gained popularity. As fans requested more content, Barlow and Bear soon had enough to create a 15-song album that went on to win a Grammy in April, a first for music originating on TikTok. On July 26th, Barlow and Bear held a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, featuring live performances and music from the National Symphony Orchestra.
Absolutely blown away by the Bridgerton musical playing out on TikTok
In its complaint obtained by Deadline, Netflix alleges that Barlow and Bear’s content “stretches ‘fan fiction’ well past its breaking point” and that it’s a “blatant infringement of intellectual property rights.” Despite praising Barlow and Bear’s work itself, Netflix claims it repeatedly told the pair that Bridgerton-inspired compositions “were not authorized.”
Netflix alleges that the live Unofficial Bridgerton performance also wasn’t approved by the company, and that Barlow and Bear “refused” to negotiate a license that would allow them to distribute their album and hold live performances without issue.
“Barlow & Bear lacked any license, approval, or authorization to exploit Bridgerton intellectual property in connection with the Kennedy Center performance,” Netflix states. “And to the extent Barlow & Bear ever claimed to believe they had such license, approval, or authorization — despite Netflix’s clear statements to the contrary — it has now been unequivocally revoked.”
Netflix goes on to claim that Barlow and Bear explicitly used the Bridgerton brand during its show, and “attracted Bridgerton fans who would have otherwise attended the Bridgerton Experience,” Netflix’s own Bridgerton-themed event that it holds in six separate cities throughout the year. Barlow and Bear currently have plans to perform alongside the BBC Orchestra at the UK’s Royal Albert Hall this September.
“Netflix supports fan-generated content, but Barlow & Bear have taken this many steps further, seeking to create multiple revenue streams for themselves without formal permission to utilize the Bridgerton IP [intellectual property],” Netflix said in a statement. “We’ve tried hard to work with Barlow & Bear, and they have refused to cooperate. The creators, cast, writers and crew have poured their hearts and souls into Bridgerton, and we’re taking action to protect their rights.”
Julia Quinn, the author behind the Bridgerton book series says she was “flattered and delighted” when Barlow and Bear started creating TikToks based on the concept at first. “There is a difference, however, between composing on TikTok and recording and performing for commercial gain,” Quinn says. “I hope that Barlow & Bear, who share my position as independent creative professionals, understand the need to protect other professionals’ intellectual property, including the characters and stories I created in the Bridgerton novels over twenty years ago.”
Shonda Rhimes, the producer of the Bridgerton Netflix series issued a separate statement. “What started as a fun celebration by Barlow & Bear on social media has turned into the blatant taking of intellectual property solely for Barlow & Bear’s financial benefit,” Rhimes adds. “Just as Barlow & Bear would not allow others to appropriate their IP for profit, Netflix cannot stand by and allow Barlow & Bear to do the same with Bridgerton.”
Barlow and Bear didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
‘We risk being ruled by dangerous binaries’ – Mohsin Hamid on our increasing polarisation
As we embrace the binary thinking of digital technology the divisions between us are growing ever starker. Can fiction help us imagine a different future?
In 2017, I published my fourth novel, Exit West, and bought a small notebook to jot down ideas for the next one. I thought it would be about technology. I came across an article by Simon DeDeo, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, discussing an experiment he and his colleague John Miller had conducted in that same year. They simulated cooperation and competition by machines over many generations, building these machines as computer models and setting them playing a game together. An interesting pattern emerged. Rather than constant trading for mutual benefit among equals, or never-ending fights to the death among foes, instead a particular type of machine became dominant, one that recognised and favoured copies of itself, and enormous prosperity ensued, built on ever-growing levels of cooperation. But eventually the minute differences that naturally occurred (or were, in the experiment, designed to occur) in the copying process, as they do in organisms when genes are passed on, became intolerable, and war among the machines resulted in near-complete devastation and a new beginning, after which the cycle repeated, over and over.
I remember being struck by this article. Not because I fully understood what the simulation was or even how it worked. No, I was struck by its similarity to a narrative I had already been feeling drawn to myself: that the rise and fall of human society is not merely something that has happened but also something that will continue to happen, that moments of peak cooperation contain within them the tendency for differences to become utterly intolerable, and that the transition from one societal epoch to the next is rarely a series of gently eliding waves, each a bit higher than the previous one – to the contrary, humanity’s trajectory on the way down is often far more steep than it was on the way up.
Police allege that a teenager living in the suburbs of Brisbane created and sold a sophisticated hacking tool used by domestic violence perpetrators and child sex offenders to spy on tens of thousands of people across the globe – and then used the proceeds to buy takeaway food.
Jacob Wayne John Keen, now 24, was 15 years old and living in his mother’s rental when he allegedly created a sophisticated spyware tool known as a remote access trojan (RAT) that allowed users to remotely take control of their victims’ computers.
The Vardy Effect: Going to court to deny something a rock could see is true
Rebekah Vardy probably isn’t buzzing at the ruling, a character assassination that has left her well and truly stung by libel
Oscar Wilde, Barbra Streisand, and now – Rebekah Vardy. When news broke that Vardy had lost her libel case against Coleen Rooney, she joined this heady roster of celebrities who have launched brain-bogglingly misguided and self-wounding legal cases. Like Wilde – who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for revealing his homosexuality – Vardy went to court to deny something that a rock could see was true: she’d passed on private stories about Rooney to the press. And like Streisand – who sued a website for featuring an image of her house, thereby drawing the world’s attention to it – she believed going to court was the best way to control her image. She was wrong.
Vardy traded private details of her husband’s colleagues and their wives in the hope of currying positive coverage in the media. And because of that, Mrs Justice Steyn delivered a verdict that was even more of a character assassination than Vardy’s own memorable description of Rooney to a Daily Mail journalist: “Arguing with Coleen Rooney would be as pointless as arguing with a pigeon: you can tell it that you are right and it is wrong, but it’s still going to shit in your hair.” Well, Rebekah, you’re covered in shit now.
Uber will start showing drivers how much they’ll be paid for accepting a trip
It says it’s trying to make things more flexible for drivers. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Uber says that it’s “completely reimagined the way drivers accept rides” with a feature called “upfront fares,” which shows drivers exactly how much they’ll be paid for a trip and where they’ll end up after dropping a rider off. In its announcement on Friday, the company says the change is part of its push to make driving for the rideshare service more flexible. Uber’s also planning on rolling out a feature that lets drivers see other ride requests in their area, letting them pick specific trips they’d like to do.
For riders, the changes, which have been tested in select locations, could mean fewer canceled trips because a driver doesn’t actually want to go to the destination, or realizes that it won’t be a very profitable trip.
According to an upfront fee support document, the amount shown to drivers before they accept a trip is based on “several factors, including base fares, estimated trip length and duration, pickup distance, and surge pricing.” The document notes that if the rider changes the drop-off address or there’s “unexpected traffic” along the route, the fare will be adjusted. The number also doesn’t include things like tips or wait times.
Image: Uber
Upfront fares makes it clear how much drivers will actually earn for taking a trip.
The document does warn that the switch to upfront fares, set to roll out “to most of the US over the coming months,” could mean that some types of trips earn drivers less. As examples, it lists “long and relatively quick (traffic-free) trips” and “trips to high-demand areas.” However, it also says that the new system will mean drivers earn more on short trips, trips with lots of traffic, trips where they end up in an area with fewer riders, or trips where they have to travel a long way before getting to the rider.
Uber didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on what areas of the US wouldn’t be getting upfront fares.
Image: Uber
Trip radar also shows fares.
Alongside upfront fares, Uber says it’ll be more widely rolling out a feature called trip radar, which gives drivers a list of nearby ride requests. Drivers will be able to pick the trips they want from the list, and if Uber decides it’s a good match, it’ll give them the job. (An article from Uber says that it’ll choose which drivers get their picks based on average wait times for drivers and riders.) Uber also says that drivers will still get individual ride requests, but that they’ll be able to use trip radar to find “another trip that might work better for them.”
Elon Musk countersues Twitter over $44bn deal amid fresh legal action by shareholder
Musk’s 164-page filing is under wraps for now, as Twitter shareholder launches separate action to force entrepreneur to close the deal
Elon Musk has countersued Twitter, escalating his legal fight against the social media company over his bid to walk away from the $44bn purchase.
Musk’s lawsuit was filed on Friday, hours after chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware court of chancery ordered a five-day trial beginning 17 October to determine if Musk can walk away from the deal.
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GIF of someone dragging a file from Preview to a Safari window with Google Drive.
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