Austria’s coalition government has agreed on a plan to enable police to monitor suspects’ secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country. From a report: Because Austria lacks a legal framework for monitoring messaging services like WhatsApp, its main domestic intelligence service and police rely on allies with far more sweeping powers like Britain and the United States alerting them to chatter about planned attacks and spying.

That kind of tip-off led to police unravelling what they say was a planned attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, which prompted the cancellation of all three of her planned shows there in August of last year. “The aim is to make people planning terrorist attacks in Austria feel less secure – and increase everyone else’s sense of security,” Joerg Leichtfried of the Social Democrats, the junior minister in charge of overseeing the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence (DSN), told a news conference.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Napster, the brand synonymous with the music piracy boom of the early 2000s, has a new copyright challenge. Together with audio giant Sonos, Napster faces a lawsuit demanding over $3.4 million in alleged unpaid copyright royalties. Filed by collective rights management organization SoundExchange, the complaint (PDF) centers on missed payments related to the “Sonos Radio” service, which until 2023 was powered by Napster’s music catalog. […]

Sonos Radio launched in April 2020 with Napster as the authorized agent, submitting the required royalty reports and royalties to SoundExchange. While all went well initially, payments stopped around May 2022. At the time, Napster had been acquired by venture capital firms Hivemind and Algorand, with a focus on “web3” technologies, including cryptocurrencies and blockchain. According to the complaint, the takeover resulted in a “complete breakdown of reporting and payment for the Sonos Radio service.” The alleged payment problems eventually came to light during an audit initiated by SoundExchange in 2023, which concluded that Sonos and Napster owed millions in unpaid royalties.

Sonos and Napster are no longer partners in the radio service, as the audio equipment manufacturer switched to Deezer around April 2023. That appears to have solved the royalty issues, but SoundExchange still believes it is owed more than $3 million. “In total, Sonos, and its agent Napster, have failed to pay at least $3,423,844.41 comprising royalties owed for the period October 2022 to April 2023, interest, late fees, and auditor fee-shifting costs, and subtracting Sonos and Napster’s payments made to date. “Late fees and interest continue to grow,” SoundExchange adds, while requesting compensation in full. The complaint lists one count of “underpayment” of statutory royalties, and one count of “non-payment” of royalties, as determined by the audit. For both Copyright Act violations, SoundExchange requests damages of at least $3.4 million.

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Photo modes are a pretty common feature for video games where players go bounding around an interesting open world. Today, Minecraft joined their ranks, making an in-game camera available in the Minecraft Marketplace as a free add-on called Vibrant Memories. The feature requires a copy of Minecraft’s Bedrock Edition on any platform; the Java version doesn’t appear to support the camera.

As well as capturing the moment as-is and saving particular camera angles to reuse later, Vibrant Memories will let a player decide whether or not to appear in the image. It will also let them set whether the weather is sunny or rainy and if the time is sunrise, sunset, day or night.

That’s a pared-back take on photo mode, but then in many ways, Minecraft is a pared-back game. Sure, it’s gotten loads of new features and creatures over the past 15 years, but at heart, it’s just about mining and crafting.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/minecraft-now-has-a-photo-mode-with-vibrant-memories-215948221.html?src=rss

Critics have long warned that Donald Trump’s pro-cryptocurrency push as president, coupled with his links to his family’s growing crypto empire, creates substantial conflicts of interest that must be probed.

But so far, nothing has stopped Trump’s family from seemingly benefiting from the presidency while expanding their empire. And now, Trump is rushing regulation through Congress that many Democrats fear could create his biggest conflict of interest yet.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a bill that will regulate stablecoins in the US, establishing guardrails and consumer protections that may spur wider crypto adoption nationwide. Unlike more volatile forms of cryptocurrency—like Trump’s controversial memecoin—stablecoins’ value can be pegged to the US dollar. The crypto industry is hoping the House of Representatives will quickly send the bill to Trump’s desk, which Trump has demanded happen by August.

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DENVER—Most smart TV operating system (OS) owners are in the ad sales business now. Software providers for budget and premium TVs are honing their ad skills, which requires advancing their ability to collect user data. This is creating an “inherent conflict” within the industry, Takashi Nakano, VP of content and programming at Samsung TV Plus, said at the StreamTV Show in Denver last week.

During a panel at StreamTV Insider’s conference entitled “CTV OS Leader Roundtable: From Drivers to Engagement and Content Strategy,” Nakano acknowledged the opposing needs of advertisers and smart TV users, who are calling for a reasonable amount of data privacy.

“Do you want your data sold out there and everyone to know exactly what you’ve been watching … the answer is generally no,” the Samsung executive said. “Yet, advertisers want all of this data. They wanna know exactly what you ate for breakfast.”

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Adobe launched its own take on how smartphone cameras should work this week with Project Indigo, a new iPhone camera app from some of the team behind the Pixel camera. The project combines the computational photography techniques that engineers Marc Levoy and Florian Kainz popularized at Google, with pro controls and new AI-powered features.

In their announcement of the new app, Levoy and Kainz style Project Indigo as the better answer to typical smartphone camera complaints of limited controls and over-processing. Rather than using aggressive tone mapping and sharpening, Project Indigo is supposed to use “only mild tone mapping, boosting of color saturation, and sharpening.” That’s intentionally not the same as the “zero-processing” approach some third-party apps are taking. “Based on our conversations with photographers, what they really want is not zero-process but a more natural look — more like what an SLR might produce,” Levoy and Kainz write.

Adobe

The new app also has fully manual controls, “and the highest image quality that computational photography can provide,” whether you want a JPEG or a RAW file at the end. Project Indigo achieves that by dramatically under-exposing the shots it combines together, and relying on a larger number of shots to combine — up to 32 frames, according to Levoy and Kainz. The app also includes some of Adobe’s more experimental photo features, like “Remove Reflections,” which uses AI to eliminate reflections from photos.

Levoy left Google in 2020, and joined Adobe a few months later to form a team with the express goal of building a “universal camera app”. Based on his LinkedIn, Kainz joined Adobe that same year. At Google, Kainz and Levoy were often credited with popularizing the concept of computational photography, where camera apps rely more on software than hardware to produce quality smartphone photos. Google’s success in that arena kicked off a camera arms race that’s raised the bar everywhere, but also led to some pretty over-the-top photos. Project Indigo is a bit of a corrective, and also an interesting test whether a third-party app that might produce better photos is enough to beat the default.

Project Indigo is available to download for free now, and runs on either the iPhone 12 Pro and up, or the iPhone 14 and up. An Android version of the app is coming at some point in the future.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/adobe-project-indigo-is-a-new-photo-app-from-former-pixel-camera-engineers-213453207.html?src=rss

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Amazon is expanding discounted benefits to more than just students. Now, any “young adult” from 18 years of age up to 24 can get all of the perks of Prime for 50% off. The expansion of the discounted program comes a month before Amazon’s biggest sale of the year, Prime Day, which is set to run from July 8 to July 11.

If you’re lucky enough to be in the ages that Amazon considers a young adult, your Prime Membership will cost your choice of $7.49 per month or $69 per year. And yes, this will include all of the perks that come with a regular subscription. That’s a great value for all of the perks you get. If you don’t believe me, here’s the math.

To get the 50% off subscription, you will first need to finish a six-month free trial (bummer, I know). Afterwards, your membership will automatically renew for $7.49 per month. Keep in mind that you can cancel your membership at any time. But before you do, remember that Prime Day starts next month, and being a member will get you better deals, free shipping, and access to “invite-only” deals. This membership also gets you some other limited-time perks, like 5% cash back on categories like beauty, apparel, electronics, and personal care (it doubles to 10% on Prime Day).

Once you turn 25, you will no longer be eligible for this discounted membership, unless you’re still a student (Amazon will consider you a student for a max of four years if you pass its student verification process).

Facebook now supports passkeys for login, offering users a more secure, phishing-resistant alternative to passwords by using biometrics or a PIN stored on their device. The feature is rolling out to iOS and Android “soon,” while Messenger will get the feature “in the coming months.” Lifehacker reports: Meta seems pretty excited about the news — and not just because the company happens to be a member of the FIDO Alliance, the organization that developed passkeys. Aside from logging into your Facebook account, Meta says you’ll be able to use passkeys to autofill your payment info when buying things with Meta Pay. You’ll also be able to use the same passkey between both Facebook and Messenger, and your passkey will act as a key to lock out your encrypted Messenger chats.

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Tech support scammers have devised a method to inject their fake phone numbers into webpages when a target’s web browser visits official sites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies.

The ruse, outlined in a post on Wednesday from security firm Malwarebytes, threatens to trick users into calling the malicious numbers even when they think they’re taking measures to prevent falling for such scams. One of the more common pieces of security advice is to carefully scrutinize the address bar of a browser to ensure it’s pointing to an organization’s official website. The ongoing scam is able to bypass such checks.

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If you’re looking for an OLED TV, models from LG are widely considered some of the most reliable, high-quality sets on the market. That does mean they cost a bit more, but the quality justifies the price—especially if you can pick one up at a discount. Right now, this 42” LG C4 OLED TV, which cost around $1,500 when it was released in 2024, has dropped to under $700—it’s lowest price ever.

Powered by LG’s Alpha 9 Gen‑7 AI processor and featuring a built-in Alexa, this compact smart TV has a small footprint that’s ideal for tight spaces (it’s particularly great for adding a second monitor to your work or gaming setup). Using AI tools, it can automatically optimize picture, brightness, and sound settings, while also offering content suggestions based on your viewing preferences. 

2024 42” LG C4 OLED TV

$699.99
at Amazon

$866.99
Save $167.00

$699.99
at Amazon

$866.99
Save $167.00

The OLED self-lit pixels offer better contrast performance compared to QLED and Mini-LED competitors. Gamers benefit from a 144Hz refresh rate, NVIDIA G-Sync, and AMD FreeSync Premium, which should ensure smoother gameplay

Design-wise, this TV has a slim silhouette compared to clunkier, similarly sized sets from competitors like Vizio. While many Amazon reviewers are impressed with the clarity of the  Dolby Atmos sound system and multiple sound modes, some recommend an additional soundbar if you want room-filling audio.

It runs the updated webOS 24 operating system, which offers new features (especially in the area of accessibility), enhanced personalization options, and a refreshed home screen design, but some users complain that the interface is cluttered and sometimes sluggish, with too much space taken up by ads and promos. Some users also report minor bugs during or following system updates. 

Still, for under $700, the 2024 42” LG C4 OLED TV comes highly recommended by reviewers. Overall, it offers a solid combination of smart, customizable features, a sleek design, and an immersive viewing experience for a small-screen OLED TV.

With ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the country’s top health position, use of a long-approved vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella/chickenpox (MMRV) as well as flu shots that include the preservative thimerosal will now be reevaluated, putting their future availability and use in question. The development seemingly continues to vindicate health experts’ worst fears that, as health secretary, Kennedy would attack and dismantle the federal government’s scientifically rigorous, evidence-based vaccine recommendations.

Discussions of the two types of vaccines now appear on the agenda of a meeting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) scheduled for two days next week (June 25 and 26).

ACIP’s overhaul

On June 9, Kennedy summarily fired all 17 members of ACIP, who were rigorously vetted—esteemed scientists and clinicians in the fields of immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, obstetrics, internal and family medicine, geriatrics, infectious diseases, and public health. Two days later, Kennedy installed eight new members, many with dubious qualifications and several known to hold anti-vaccine views.

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Waymo plans to relaunch its robotaxi service in New York City, starting with safety driver testing while lobbying to change state law to eventually allow fully autonomous vehicles without human operators. The company has applied for a permit and will begin mapping in Manhattan, though legislative hurdles and skepticism from lawmakers remain. The Verge reports: A bill was introduced in the New York State Legislature earlier this year that would permit autonomous vehicles without safety drivers “provided that the automated driving system is engaged and the vehicle meets certain conditions.” The bill is currently under consideration by the state Senate’s transportation committee.

New York City also has some of the most dangerous, congested, and poorly managed streets in the world. They are also full of construction workers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and double- and sometimes even triple-parked cars. In theory, this would make it very difficult for an autonomous vehicle to navigate, given that AVs typically rely on good weather, clear signage, and less aggressive driving from other road users for safe operation. And it’s not clear that the state will amend its laws to allow for fully driverless vehicles, with some lawmakers expressing reservations. “This kind of testing hasn’t even been completed in other parts of the country,” state Senator John Liu told Daily News last year after the city announced its new permitting process. “It would behoove New York City to wait to see some of those other results of driverless technology in less dense urban settings. This is an example of something where New York City does not have to be first.”

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If you have a Switch 2, you might remember configuring the HDR setting during the initial setup process. It’s a big new feature for the Switch 2, as many modern games take advantage of HDR to increase the contrast of their visuals. When configured correctly, HDR games can look great. Unfortunately, it seems the Switch 2 is quite difficult to configure correctly, and unless you’re an HDR expert, you might not have set yours up properly.

If you recall during the Switch 2’s setup screens, the HDR settings presented you with two sun icons. You were instructed to increase the brightness of the screen until only one sun was visible. This might have worked for you if you have the right TV configured to the right setting, but if not, you might have been misled. The YouTube channel HDTVTest dove into this issue in a video posted on Monday. As they explain, the Switch 2 HDR “sun” setting only really works properly if your TV’s Dynamic Tone Mapping is set to HGiG, an HDR standard with gaming in mind. (Your TV may call this something like “Game HDR.”) You can see the difference when HDTVTest turns the setting on and off: With HGiG disabled (or not present at all), you need to boost the brightness a lot in order to follow Nintendo’s instructions. With HGiG enabled, it requires much less brightness to achieve the proper HDR settings.

But this is only one of two settings pages on the Switch 2’s HDR setup. On the following screen, Nintendo invites you to adjust the HDR reference white level, or paper white level—though the company just calls this “brightness.” If you moved through setup too fast, you may have even missed this screen, since you need to press the Y button to pull up the adjustment slider. HDTVTest found the default paper white setting produces a much flatter image than you’d expect from HDR, even comparing it to SDR video.

But the paper white adjustment screen is dependent on the settings on the first HDR settings page with the two suns. As you change the brightness on that first screen, you change the amount of nits the slider on the second screen adjusts the picture by. I’m glossing over many of the technical details here, but the short answer is this: These HDR settings are confusing, and not only highly dependent on the TV you have, but how you have that TV (and Switch 2) configured.

Can you properly calibrate HDR on your Switch 2?

If we take HDTVTest at their word, it’s not easy to set up HDR the right way on your Switch 2. First, you’ll need to determine whether your TV supports HGiG. If it does, make sure to enable the feature, then redo your Switch 2 HDR settings. You’ll want to carefully adjust the brightness on the two sun test until the moment the sun on the right disappears. Click “Next,” then press the Y Button to bring up the paper white slider. For this step, HDTVTest recommends identifying the MaxTML value of your TV, which can be found with an Xbox Series X, then performing some math to figure out the proper position for the slider. If the number is under 1,400, divide 6,000 by the number. This will tell you the number of clicks you need to move the slider. They recommend setting the paper white level at 200 nits, but 250 nits might work better for users playing in brighter spaces.

For users without an HGiG TV, HDTVTest recommends you set your sun test to 1,000 nits, and paper white settings to 200 nits. Based on the video, it looks like you can achieve this by moving the sun test a few clicks past when the sun on the right becomes invisible, then move the slider to roughly 40%.

The slider appears to be around 40% of the way forward.
Credit: HDTVTest/YouTube

Here’s the thing. I don’t have a way to measure the nits here, because I don’t have an Xbox Series X, nor do I have a separate instrument to measure specific brightness levels of my TV. (I also don’t have a Switch 2, but that’s beside the point.) If you don’t have this separate console, or don’t feel like going through all these convoluted steps just to play your games as they were meant to be displayed, this is a frustrating situation to be in. The HDTVTest video was posted to the Nintendo subreddit, and the discussion has over 300 comments at this point, with some excited about the HGiG setting, others asking about settings for their specific TV models, and others still wondering if these recommended settings make their Switch 2’s display too dark.

I’m far from an HDR expert, but when I inevitably get a Switch 2, I think I’m going to do my best with the information provided by HDTVTest. My TV doesn’t support HGiG, so I can bump up the sun test a bit past where Nintendo recommends, then set my slider to where the video sets it, and call it a day. If my picture looks too wonky, maybe I’ll play around with the sliders. But I think this speaks to a great issue with HDR in general—companies like Nintendo, as well as display manufacturers, need to figure out these things on their end. It shouldn’t be up to consumers to become HDR experts and manually configure each and every setting to make sure their games look right. We should be able to follow simple setup instructions, and get playing.

The 2009 discovery of footprints (human and animal) left behind in layers of clay and silt at New Mexico’s White Sands National Park sparked a contentious debate about when, exactly, human cultures first developed in North America. Until about a decade ago, it seemed as if the first Americans arrived near the end of the last Ice Age and were part of the Clovis culture, named for the distinctive projectile points they left behind near what’s now Clovis, New Mexico. But various dating methods indicated the White Sands footprints are 10,000 years older. Now there is a fresh independent analysis that agrees with those earlier findings, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances.

As previously reported, earlier archaeological evidence had suggested the Clovis people made their way southward through a corridor that opened up in the middle of the ice sheets between 13,000 and 16,000 years ago. Subsequent archaeological evidence—such as a 14,500-year-old site in Florida and stone tools dating to 16,000 years ago in western Idaho—suggested that the Clovis people were actually not the first to arrive. It also made it look much more likely that the first Americans had skirted the edge of the ice sheets along the Pacific Coast.

The White Sands footprints further muddled the narrative. In 2019, Bournemouth University archaeologist Matthew Bennett and his colleagues excavated the White Sands area and found a total of 61 human footprints east of an area called Alkali Flat, which was once the bed and shoreline of an ancient lake. Over time, as the lake’s edge expanded and contracted with shifts in climate, it left behind distinct layers of clay, silt, and sand. Seven of those layers, in the area Bennett and his colleagues excavated, held human tracks along with those of long-lost megafauna.

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