Google will not have to host third-party Android app stores in the Indian version of its Play Store, following antitrust rulings from January. The company is still facing a $161 million fine from Indian regulators, though they have eased up on how Android should function in the country moving forward. This comes in…
Source: Gizmodo – Google Play Store Wriggles Way Out of Housing Third-Party App Stores in Android’s Biggest Market
The fourth and final keynote for
Everything Open 2023 was given
by Professor Rebecca Giblin of the Melbourne Law School, University of
Melbourne. It revolved
around her recent book, Chokepoint Capitalism,
which she wrote with Cory Doctorow; it is “a book about why creative
“. Giblin had planned
labor markets are rigged — and how to unrig them
to be in Melbourne to give her talk in person, but “the universe had other
plans”; she got delayed in Austin,
Texas by an unexpected speaking slot at the South by
Southwest (SXSW)
conference, so she gave her talk via videoconference from there—at
nearly midnight in Austin.
Source: LWN.net – [$] Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism
Are you looking for a fresh take on the Ubuntu desktop? The final piece in the Ubuntu mosaic has been added, and Cinnamon is now an official flavor.
Source: LXer – Ubuntu Cinnamon Joins the Official Flavor Family
An ex-Tesla factory worker took the stand following a lawsuit he filed against the company for racial discrimination from mid-2015 through 2016. Owen Diaz, a Black former escalator worker at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California claims he was subjected to racially discriminatory comments and actions from his…
Source: Gizmodo – Ex-Tesla Factory Worker Takes the Stand in Racial Discrimination Trial
Enlarge / The Cayenne gets a facelift for model-year 2024, and that includes a lot of Taycan-like touches. But we’re most excited by the fact that Porsche is pulling back from touchscreen overload. (credit: Porsche)
Something many of us can agree on is that there are too many touchscreens in modern cars. They’re distracting to use, particularly when it’s for often-used things like the car’s climate controls. Consider this a feel-good story then, because Porsche has shown us the interior of its next Cayenne SUV, and it seems that in Stuttgart, buttons are back on the menu. Some, at least.
An almost entirely touchscreen user interface was probably Porsche’s only misstep with the otherwise-excellent Taycan. Indeed, when Audi used that car’s platform to make its own electric express, the e-tron GT, it was notable that the climate control touchscreen was gone, replaced with actual buttons to make it hotter or cooler, more or less windy. There’s no need to use a touchscreen to aim the air vents in an e-tron GT, either, unlike in a Taycan.
It is therefore encouraging to see that Porsche’s design team is listening to feedback, because in many other ways the refreshed interior of the Cayenne incorporates a lot of Taycan-like touches.
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Source: Ars Technica – Buttons are back at Porsche as we see the 2024 Cayenne interior
In Star Wars, when you see a creature that reminds you of a specific character, it might not actually be that character. Grogu, for example, is not Yoda, despite what some people originally thought. The Kowakian monkey-lizards hanging around on The Mandalorian aren’t Salacious Crumb. Not every astromech droid is R2-D2.
Source: Gizmodo – Yes, That’s Who You Thought It Was on This Week’s Mandalorian
Fighting game fanatics got their first real look at Bandai Namco’s newest entry in its long-running Tekken series during last year’s PlayStation State Of Play. Now a bunch of hands-on previews for Tekken 8 have dropped, and among the revelations is the fact that Tekken is taking a page out of its rival Street Fighter…
Source: Kotaku – Tekken 8 Has Special Character Intros For Lore Nerds
Opinions on the internet can be misleading. You may have heard a near-universal cheer for the forthcoming federal ban of video-sharing app TikTok. Well, put away the champagne and poppers. The so-called “ban TikTok bill” is a lot more insidious than one may realize.
TikTok is an insanely-popular video sharing site that is available and primarily
Source: Hot Hardware – The RESTRICT Act Could End The Internet, And Freedom, As We Know It
Enlarge / Starliner touches down in December 2019 for the first time. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
NASA and Boeing announced Wednesday that the first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft will now take place no earlier than July 21. This moves the vehicle’s flight, carrying NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, from the previously announced timeframe of April.
The manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, Steve Stich, said the delay was attributable to the extra time needed to close out the pre-flight review process of Starliner and also due to traffic from other vehicles visiting the space station in June and the first half of July.
“When we look at all the different pieces, most of the work will be complete in April for the flight,” Stich said during a teleconference with reporters. “But there’s one area that’s extending out into the May time frame, and this really has to do with the certification products for the parachute system.”
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Source: Ars Technica – NASA delays flight of Boeing’s Starliner again, this time for parachutes
The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2, with its wild center-bump design. [credit:
Lenovo ]
Android manufacturers occasionally try to push this idea of a “gaming smartphone”—usually, these companies try to extend the “PC gamer” design motif to smartphones, with RGB LEDs and aggressive marketing. Since Android games are mostly casual pay-to-win tap fests, though, we often have to ask, does anyone want a gaming smartphone? If you’re Lenovo, the answer is apparently “no,” as Android Authority reports Lenovo is killing the “Legion” gaming phone business.
The site quoted a Lenovo spokesperson:
Lenovo is discontinuing its Android-based Legion mobile gaming phones as part of a wider business transformation and gaming portfolio consolidation. As a leader in gaming devices and solutions, Lenovo is committed to advancing the gaming category across form factors, as well as focusing on where it can bring the most value to the global gaming community.
While gaming phones often seem like a product without a market, we are a bit sad to see Lenovo pack it in since the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 was the most extreme version of the idea. That phone had what must have been the most powerful cooling system ever fitted to an Android phone, with two internal cooling fans, copper heat pipes, and loads of graphite pads. While most passively cooled Android phones would quickly throttle in a graphics-intensive game, this was one of the rare phones with what looked like sustainable cooling. Of course, it didn’t fit into a normal smartphone body—the phone’s center (in landscape) was about twice as thick as normal, but it was a neat product.
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Source: Ars Technica – Lenovo gives up on its dream of Android gaming phones
Reddit released its 2022 transparency report Wednesday, showing how the site has been laying on the “ban” button hard after the company started a crackdown on non-consensual intimate media (NCIM) after a rules change in March of last year. These instances of NCIM include any kind of intimate image posted without…
Source: Gizmodo – Reddit Has Leaned Harder on its Banhammer Over Non-Consensual and Hate Content
Microsoft patched a dangerous security issue in Bing last month just days before it launched a new artificial intelligence-powered version of the search engine. From a report: The problem was discovered by outside researchers at the security firm Wiz. It was created by a mistake in the way that Microsoft configured applications on Azure, its cloud-computing platform, and could be used to gain access to emails and other documents of people who used Bing, the researchers said. Microsoft fixed the problem on Feb. 2, according to Ami Luttwak, Wiz’s chief technology officer. Five days later Satya Nadella introduced the new generative AI capabilities to Bing, bringing a renewed interest in Microsoft’s 14-year-old search engine. Usage of Bing has jumped, rising to more than 100 million daily active users in the month since the upgrade.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Patched Bing Vulnerability That Allowed Snooping on Email and Other Data
The fallout from last month’s disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio is still unfolding. The Environmental Protection Agency continues to oversee clean-up efforts, is still struggling to find suitable treatment sites for contaminated waste water, and is conducting some ongoing environmental monitoring and…
Source: Gizmodo – The EPA Is Investigating Itself Over Its East Palestine Disaster Response
Let’s be honest: you were probably curious about Sackboy: A Big Adventure when it launched alongside the PlayStation 5, but not so much that you were willing to buy that instead of Demon’s Souls or Miles Morales. Thankfully, you no longer have to pay extra to indulge that curiosity. Sony has made the LittleBigPlanet spinoff (also available on PS4) free to all PlayStation Plus members between April 4th and May 1st.
Sackboy is decidedly different than the core franchise. Where Little Big Planet is a 3D-enhanced side-scroller that revolves more around environment interaction and creativity, this game is a 3D platformer that revolves around its namesake hero’s acrobatics. They all share a relatively uncommon co-op mechanic, though. Up to four players can tackle stages together, and some segments require teamwork to move forward. This may be an ideal game to play with your kids.
You have options if Sackboy doesn’t strike your fancy. The newly launched build-and-raid game Meet Your Maker is also available for free on PS Plus this April, as is the hand-drawn RPG Tails of Iron. Both freebies are available for PS4 and PS5.
These new offerings won’t make you regret a PS Plus Extra or Premium subscription. If you pay for those tiers, you recently received high-profile games like Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Tchia. Still, it’s nice to know that you can add one more marquee title to your library with very little effort.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ps5-launch-title-sackboy-is-free-on-playstation-plus-in-april-211530313.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – PS5 launch title ‘Sackboy’ is free on PlayStation Plus in April
There are so many issues that Congress could be focusing on right now. Banking regulations following SVB’s collapse, for example. Or helping Americans who struggle with basic living expenses. Maybe they could be working on a long-overdue fix of our broken healthcare system. Instead, they’re very concerned about the…
Source: Kotaku – Congress Finds Time To Yell At Sony On Microsoft’s Behalf
Denver-based company Lockheed Martin has announced the launch of a subsidiary for the purpose of setting up communication and navigation services around the Moon for future lunar missions.
Source: Gizmodo – New Lockheed Martin Company Wants to Build a Satellite Constellation Around the Moon
Companies rushing to adopt hot new types of artificial intelligence should exercise caution when using open-source versions of the technology, some of which may not work as advertised or include flaws that hackers can exploit, security researchers say. From a report: There are few ways to know in advance if a particular AI model — a program made up of algorithms that can do such things as generate text, images and predictions — is safe, said Hyrum Anderson, distinguished engineer at Robust Intelligence, a machine learning security company that lists the US Defense Department as a client. Anderson said he found that half the publicly available models for classifying images failed 40% of his tests. The goal was to determine whether a malicious actor could alter the outputs of AI programs in a manner that could constitute a security risk or provide incorrect information. Often, models use file types that are particularly prone to security flaws, Anderson said. It’s an issue because so many companies are grabbing models from publicly available sources without fully understanding the underlying technology, rather than creating their own. Ninety percent of the companies Robust Intelligence works with download models from Hugging Face, a repository of AI models, he said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Free AI Programs Prone To Security Risks, Researchers Say
The key figure in a hacker-for-hire scheme that targeted U.S. environmental activists and others is due to receive his prison sentence soon but, despite facing a potentially lengthy stint behind bars, he still won’t name the co-conspirators who hired him.
Source: Gizmodo – Man Behind Hack-for-Hire Campaign That Targeted Environmental Activists Is Keeping His Mouth Shut
After Twitter caught wind of its source code being leaked on GitHub, the only thing on the company’s mind was revenge. Now, Twitter has an ace up its sleeve as the US District Court for the Northern District of California signed off on a subpoena yesterday.
Source: Gizmodo – Court Orders GitHub to Reveal Who Leaked Twitter’s Source Code
