Volkswagen is the latest automaker to embrace Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) in electric vehicles. Subsidiaries Audi, Porsche and Scout Motors will implement the NACS in their North American EVs starting in 2025 as well.

The VW brands are also looking into providing owners of existing models with adapters so they can tap into Tesla’s Supercharger network. There are more than 15,000 Supercharger stations in North America. VW’s EVs will be able to charge at those in addition to more than 3,800 DC fast charging outlets run by Electrify America and Electrify Canada.

With so many carmakers adopting the NACS, Tesla’s charging solution is becoming a de facto standard. GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid and others have all pledged to support NACS charging within the next couple of years.

On the other hand, ChargePoint started rolling out support for the NACS across its EV charging network in October. Electrify America plans to offer the NACS connector at its stations by 2025 as well.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-finally-confirms-itll-switch-its-evs-to-teslas-charging-standard-101517391.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Volkswagen finally confirms it’ll switch its EVs to Tesla’s charging standard

After laying off nearly a quarter of its staff last year, e-scooter rental company Bird has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company announced. Existing lenders have agreed to purchase the assets and the company is being kept afloat via a $25 million loan from Apollo Global Management (Yahoo and Engadget’s owner) and second-lien lenders, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

The company will continue to operate as normal and “has sufficient liquidity to meet financial obligations to city partners, vendors, suppliers, and employees during and after the restructuring process, and will operate as usual,” the company wrote. The filing doesn’t affect Bird Canada or Bird Europe, which are separate organizations.

Bird aims to sell off its assets for the highest possible price via a “stalking horse” agreement that will set in motion an auction of sorts. Its current lenders will designate a baseline bid before opening the proceedings to other bidders over the next few months.

Bird went public in 2021 via a “SPAC” (special purpose acquisition company) with an implied valuation of $2.3 billion, but its stock cratered less than a year later. Founder Travis VanderZanden stepped away late in 2022, at which point his stake in the company was worth less than his Miami house, according to a Crunchbase report. Bird was forced to delist from the New York Stock Exchange this year due to a valuation that was too low. 

Bird launched in multiple cities in 2017-18 with a fair amount of hype as e-scooters were seen as a sustainable urban mobility solution. It continued to grow despite a lack of profitability (following the Uber model), but the COVID pandemic forced the company to halt operations in multiple locations around the world. Since then, cities have also become more hostile to e-scooter rentals, with some seeing them now as a potential safety hazard and eyesore. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bird-files-for-bankruptcy-after-going-public-in-2021-092905867.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Bird files for bankruptcy after going public in 2021

Rite Aid will not be able to use any kind of facial recognition security system for next five years as part of its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which accused it of “reckless use of facial surveillance systems.” The FTC said in its complaint that the drugstore chain deployed an artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology from 2012 to 2020 to identify customers who may have previously shoplifted or have engaged in problematic behavior. Apparently, the company had created a database with “tens of thousands” of customer images, along with their names, dates of birth and alleged crimes. Those photos were of poor quality, taken by its security cameras, employees’ phones and even from news stories. As a result, the system generated thousands of false-positive alerts.

Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the technology’s use left Rite Aid’s customers “facing humiliation and other harms.” Employees would follow flagged customers around the store, the complaint said, would publicly accuse them of wrongdoing in front of friends and family and would sometimes get the police involved. Further, the system was more likely to generate false positives in predominantly Black and Asian communities. A Reuters investigation in 2020 revealed that the company used facial surveillance in “largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods.” The FTC noted in its complaint that the technology and “Rite Aid’s failures were likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, especially to Black, Asian, Latino and women customers.”

In addition to prohibiting the use of facial surveillance technologies, the order also requires Rite Aid to delete the photos it collected, notify consumers when their information is registered in a database for security purposes and to provide conspicuous notices if it does use facial recognition or other types of biometric surveillance technologies. It also has to implement a proper data security program to protect the information it collects and will need to have a third party assess it. The proposed order will take effect after being approved by the bankruptcy court, since the company is currently going through bankruptcy proceedings.

Rite Aid, however, said that it “fundamentally disagree[s]” with the agency’s allegations and that it stopped using the surveillance technology years ago.

“We are pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC and put this matter behind us,” the drugstore chain said in a statement. “We respect the FTC’s inquiry and are aligned with the agency’s mission to protect consumer privacy. However, we fundamentally disagree with the facial recognition allegations in the agency’s complaint. The allegations relate to a facial recognition technology pilot program the Company deployed in a limited number of stores. Rite Aid stopped using the technology in this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC’s investigation regarding the Company’s use of the technology began.

Rite Aid’s mission has always been and will continue to be to safely and conveniently serve the communities in which we operate. The safety of our associates and customers is paramount. As part of the agreement with the FTC, we will continue to enhance and formalize the practices and policies of our comprehensive information security program.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftc-bans-rite-aid-from-using-facial-surveillance-systems-for-five-years-053134856.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – FTC bans Rite Aid from using facial surveillance systems for five years

If you were hoping to play Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding: Director’s Cut on a Mac, iPhone or iPad before the year ends, I’m afraid you’ll now have to wait a bit longer. 505 Games, the publisher behind this port, announced on X that it needs “a little more time,” and that it will have “a new release date in early 2024.” Specifically, the Mac App Store now lists January 31, 2024 as the expected date for this post-apocalypse package delivery simulator, which is available for pre-ordering for $40. 

While the game itself is from 2019 (with the director’s cut released in 2021), Apple appears to be keen on leveraging such heavyweight titles to show off its own processors — M1 or later — and 3D graphics capabilities. If you prefer mobile, though, you’re limited to the iPhone 15 Pro line with their A17 Pro chip. Much like the PlayStation versions, this Apple flavor will also feature cross-over content from Cyberpunk 2077 and Half-Life.

Back in June, Kojima said his future games will also be available on the Apple platform, though it’s not clear if that includes Death Stranding 2. More recently, the gaming legend announced that the title will be adapted into a movie, with help from studio A24. “There are a lot of ‘game adaptation films’ out there but what we are creating is not just a direct translation of the game,” Kojima promised.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/death-stranding-directors-cut-for-mac-and-iphone-are-delayed-to-early-2024-045956107.html?src=rss

Source: Engadget – Death Stranding: Director’s Cut for Mac and iPhone delayed to early 2024