Owners of 2017 to 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVs should not park their cars indoors or leave them to charge overnight unattended, according to a safety alert issued by The National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA). The warning comes after two Bolt EVs included in GM’s 2020 recall of the vehicle caught fire recently. One blaze happened outside the home of a Vermont state legislator at the start of the month, while the other occurred in New Jersey.
“At GM, safety is our highest priority, and we are moving as quickly as we can to investigate this issue,” a spokesperson for the automaker told CNBC. According to NHTSA, the batteries in the vehicles included in the safety warning can smoke and catch fire.
In the US, GM recalled nearly 51,000 Bolt EVs. The company pushed an update to those cars that limited their batteries to 90 percent of a full charge. More recently, GM said it would install diagnostic software on those cars to prevent future fires. It also promised to assess and replace batteries that featured any “anomalies.” Notably, at the same time, it also removed the charging cap it had implemented when it originally recalled the Bolt.
Part of the reason the ongoing reports of Bolt fires are a cause for concern is due to the fact the 2017 to 2019 models use the same cells at the center of a similar issue with the Hyundai Kona. Both companies sourced the batteries for those vehicles from LG Chem. Last year, Hyundai recalled 25,564 Kona EVs after more than a dozen incidents of fire and then later went on to replace the batteries in 75,680 vehicles.
Virginia will use $700 million in American Rescue Plan funding to expedite broadband buildouts in underserved communities throughout the state, Governor Ralph Northam announced on Friday. With the investment, Virginia says it’s on track to become one of the first states in the US to achieve universal broadband access.
An estimated 233,500 homes and businesses throughout the Commonwealth fall under what the Federal Communications Commission would consider an underserved location. They don’t have an internet connection that can achieve download speeds of 25Mbps down. The state estimates the additional funding will allow it to connect those places to faster internet by the end of 2024, instead of 2028, as previously planned. What’s more, the “majority” of those connections will be completed within the next 18 months.
“It’s time to close the digital divide in our Commonwealth and treat internet service like the 21st-century necessity that it is — not just a luxury for some, but an essential utility for all,” Governor Northam said.
Across nine provisions, President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan provides approximately $388 billion in funding for state and local governments to address the digital divide in their communities. Virginia is only one of the states across the country that plans to use that money to build faster internet infrastructure. In May, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a $7 billion investment in public broadband.
Joe Biden said that Facebook and other social media platforms are “killing people” by allowing misinformation about COVID-19 to spread on their platforms.
Biden’s comments came in response to a reporter who asked the president what his message to “platforms like Facebook” was regarding misinformation about COVID-19. “They’re killing people,” Biden said. “I mean they’re really — look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”
His remarks, one day after the Surgeon general issued an unusual health advisory on the dangers of vaccine misinformation, comes amid mounting pressure for Facebook and other platforms to do more to address misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines. But Facebook has come under particular scrutiny due to its size, and spotty history with countering vaccine falsehoods.
Reporter: "What's your message to platforms like Facebook?"
A widely cited reported from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that much of the vaccine misinformation that spreads online can be linked to just 12 individuals — many of whom remain active on Facebook despite the company’s attempts to crack down on vaccine misinformation in recent months. Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update 7/16/2021 5:17pm ET: A Facebook spokesperson responded with this statement: "We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts. The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period."
In the nine months to July, US customs officials seized $62.2 million worth of fake AirPods and other counterfeit wireless headphones, according to data obtained by The Information. Around 360,000 units were confiscated during that timeframe. The agency said seizures of counterfeit wireless headphones have increased by 50 percent over the past five years “as products such as Apple AirPods gained popularity.”
US Customs and Border Protection impounded 295,000 sets of counterfeit headphones worth $61.7 million during the government's previous fiscal year (which starts in October), so it seems there are more phony headphones flooding into the US market than ever. The value of fake headphones that agents seized in 2019 was comparatively minuscule at $3.3 million.
These figures are likely just a drop in the ocean compared with the number of fakes that sneak past borders. It's nearly impossible to know the exact figures, but estimates made by the US Chamber of Commerce in 2016 suggest officials seize just 2.5 percent of counterfeit goods worldwide.
Given that estimate, The Information suggests counterfeit AirPods could cost Apple billions in lost sales in the US this year alone, assuming that buyers would otherwise scoop up genuine models. Customs agents have seized phony AirPods on at least a dozen occasions across the US in recent years. The products confiscated in four of those seizures would have been worth around $13 million were they genuine Apple products, officials said.
There are, of course, other brands that counterfeiters are copying, and it's not clear what percentage of fake headphones that customs agents confiscate are AirPods knockoffs. Counterfeit headphones aren't exactly new, but having hard numbers on seizures highlight just how pervasive they are. Then again, when even customs agents believe a legitimate Apple competitor's true wireless earbuds are phony AirPods, the extent of the problem might not be too clear after all.
Impossible Foods will debut plant-based chicken nuggets this fall, the company told Bloomberg on Friday. As with its past releases, the startup plans to first sell the food to restaurants, with supermarket availability to follow later. But before all that, it will debut them at a trade show next week.
One thing that will distinguish the nuggets from Impossible’s past products is the absence of heme, a molecule the company says is what makes “meat taste like meat.” But the problem with Impossible’s heme is that the company makes it with genetically engineered yeast. That’s something that has prevented Impossible from selling its burgers and sausages in China and throughout Europe. But when it comes to real chicken, there isn’t a lot of heme in the white meat of the animal. “We found in a nugget format, which is breaded and has some seasoning, it really wasn’t that necessary.” Laura Kilman, a flavor scientist with Impossible, told Bloomberg. The formula the company eventually settled on mostly makes use of soy protein and sunflower oil.
Compared to Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods is late to offer a chicken alternative. “We’ve been busy with other things,” Dennis Woodside, the company’s president, told Bloomberg. To that point, Impossible introduced a pork substitute at CES 2020.
All the same, that might not matter much. Earlier in the week, Popeyes announced it was adding chicken nuggets to its menu in hopes of replicating the success of its chicken sandwich. The latter sparked a “war” between fast food chains as demand for chicken increased in the US and throughout the world. That's something that could help Impossible when its plant-based chicken starts making its way to consumers.
There's a lot to love about Apple's AirPods Max, but their high price tag isn't one of them. At $550, they're more expensive than even competitors from Bose and Sony, but you can get the cans for $100 less right now at Adorama. The online retailer is having a sale on all available colors of AirPods Max, dropping them to $449. That's the best price we've seen on these headphones and $30 less than the sale going on at Amazon right now.
Despite how expensive they are, AirPods Max earned a spot on our favorite headphones list thanks to their excellent sound quality, comfortable fit and good active noise-cancellation, among other things. They have an eye-catching design, but it doesn't impede their comfort — we liked their breathable mesh fabric and large ear cups. They also have a rotating crown of sorts for onboard controls, and while that may be unfamiliar to some, it's quite reliable and easy to use.
AirPods Max sound more natural than other headphones we've tested, and they have bass that's prominent but not overpowering. While we prefer the ANC quality of Sony's WH-1000XM4, AirPods Max can hold their own, blocking out most environmental noise. And just like other AirPods, the Max have Transparency Mode so you can easily join conversations when you need to and quickly go back to jamming out at your desk with no distractions. While these headphones won't support Apple's lossless audio, they do support Dolby Atmos-powered spatial audio on iPhones, iPads, Macs and soon, Apple TV as well.
The kicker for most people when it comes to AirPods of any kind is the H1 chip, which allows them to quickly pair with and switch between Apple devices. The Max has this chip, so you'll be able to use them to go from taking a call on your iPhone to listening to music from your Mac without any hiccups. While the sale price remains high in comparison to competing headphones, a $100 discount is nothing to scoff at. This sale is a good opportunity to grab the AirPods Max at a much friendlier price if you've had your eye on them since launch.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Rivian was supposed to start deliveries of its R1T Launch Edition electric pickup truck this month, but that won’t be the case. The automaker has delayed the initial shipments to September.
Customers will also have to wait longer to get their hands on the R1S electric SUV, as the first deliveries won't take place until the fall. Rivian said in June that deliveries of both vehicles would commence in July, a month later than previously planned. TechCrunch first reported on the most recent delays.
In a letter to customers that Rivian shared with Engadget, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe pointed to the long-tail impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as a major cause of the setbacks. "Everything from facility construction, to equipment installation, to vehicle component supply (especially semiconductors) has been impacted by the pandemic," Scaringe wrote. "Beyond these unforeseen challenges, launching three new vehicles while setting up a multi-vehicle manufacturing plant is a complex orchestra of coordinated and interlinked activities where small issues can translate into ramp delays."
Scaringe said that Rivian, which now employs more than 7,000 people, has built "hundreds of vehicles as part of our validation process, with many of those spotted out in the wild covered in unique vinyl wraps." He noted that the company hasn't yet delivered those since Rivian believes "it is critical to both our long-term success and your ultimate satisfaction that the quality and robustness of our launch products truly sets the tone for what to expect from us as a brand."
As long as Rivian can stick to its latest timeline, it may still be the first automaker to bring an electric pickup truck to market. GMC's Hummer EV pickup likely won't go into production until later this year, while Ford (a Rivian investor) is eyeing next spring for shipments of the electric F-150 Lightning.
Along with the R1T and R1S, Rivian is building commercial vans on a separate production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois. Amazon has ordered 100,000 of those electric vans and has started to test them.
Ubisoft has delayed its two big September releases. Both Rainbow Six Extraction and Riders Republic won’t make their previously announced release dates, the company shared in separate blog posts on Friday. Originally scheduled to come out on September 16th, Ubisoft now plans to release Extraction in January 2022. Meanwhile, it has pushed Riders Republic from September 2nd to October 28th.
Update:
We are delaying the release of Rainbow Six Extraction until January 2022.
We will use this time to ensure that we bring this immersive, cooperative, and thrilling experience to life as we prepare to bring you a truly unique Rainbow Six game.
— Rainbow Six Extraction (@R6Extraction) July 16, 2021
Of the two, Extraction is the more significant delay given the popularity of Rainbow Six Siege and the timeframe involved. “Our ambition with Rainbow Six Extraction is to deliver a full-fledged AAA experience that changes the way you play and think about cooperative games,” Ubisoft said. “We are embracing the opportunity to take additional time to bring this vision to life in the way it deserves in January 2022. We are confident this will ensure Rainbow Six Extraction is the immersive, cooperative, and thrilling experience we set out to create, and the one you aspire to play.”
As for the latter game, Ubisoft said the delay will “give us more time to fine tune the experience and give you another chance to jump in before launch and provide feedback.” At its Ubisoft Forward event in June, the company said players would get a chance to beta test Riders Republic before release.
Neither delay is the first for Rainbow Six Extraction and Riders Republic. The latter was originally supposed to come out at the start of 2021. However, Extraction has had a more complicated development. Ubisoft first announced the game at E3 2019, at which point it was known as Rainbow Six Quarantine. At that point, it was supposed to come out in 2020, but then that didn’t happen. Ubisoft then didn't say much about the game until it revealed it was considering a name change.
Sure, Elgato's Stream Deck MK.2 can organize your desktop apps and make going live on Twitch as easy as pressing a button, but most importantly, it supports a range of adorable faceplates. The Stream Deck MK.2 costs $150 and it's being sold alongside seven new faceplates, priced at $10 each. Elgato showed off the MK.2 today in a new trailer and it's available to order now (yes, so are the faceplates).
The Stream Deck MK.2 has 15 customizable LCD keys that can be connected to PC apps, media tools and specific platforms, with plugins for Twitch, OBS, YouTube, XSplit, Spotify, Philips Hue and others. This allows streamers in particular to set hotkeys for going live, controlling A/V features and interacting with the audience. The icons on the MK.2 are digitally customizable as well.
In June, Elgato rolled out Stream Deck 5.0, a beefy software update that included a new store, icon library, and a selection of DMCA-free music and sound effects.
With just two days before World Emoji Day on July 17th, Emojipedia has shared a list of draft characters the Unicode Consortium will consider for final inclusion in Unicode 14.0. The list includes charming candidates like a melting smiley face, a disco ball, beans and a pointing finger in various skin tones. Not every emoji you see below will make the cut. However, once the Unicode Consortium decides on a final candidate list in September, the remaining ones will make their way to your devices starting in late 2021 and throughout 2022.
Emojipedia
As with almost every potential Unicode release since 2014, the draft list includes characters designed with diversity and inclusivity in mind. In particular, you’ll notice there are several new versions of the handshake emoji. And that’s a big deal. Due to technical limitations, it was one of the few characters you couldn’t modify with a skin tone, but after about two years of work, that’s almost certainly changing with Unicode 14.0.
What’s also notable about the above list is that the Unicode Consortium has been working on it longer than usual. In 2020, the organization delayed the release of Unicode 14.0 due to the pandemic. “This year we simply can’t commit to the same schedule we’ve adhered to in the past,” it said at the time, noting the pandemic had overwhelmed the volunteer contributors it depends on for its work around emoji.
Facebook is testing a change that will let users know when their post was removed as a result of automation. The new experiment comes in response to the Oversight Board, which has said the social network should be more transparent with users about how their posts are removed.
The company revealed the new test in a new report that provides updates on how Facebook is handling the Oversight Board’s policy recommendations. The test comes in response to one of the first cases the Oversight Board took up, which dealt with an Instagram post meant to raise awareness of breast cancer that the company removed under its nudity rules.
Facebook restored the post, saying its automated systems had made a mistake, and updated Instagram’s rules to allow for “health-related nudity.” But the Oversight Board had also recommended that Facebook alert users in cases when a post was removed with automation rather than as a result of a human content reviewer. Facebook previously said it would test this change, which is now in effect.
“We’ve launched a test on Facebook to assess the impact of telling people more about whether automation was involved in enforcement,” facebook writes in its report. “People in the test now see whether technology or a Facebook content reviewer made the enforcement decision about their content. We will analyze the results to see if people had a clearer understanding of who removed their content, while also watching for a potential rise in recidivism and appeals rates.” The company added that it will provide an update on the test later this year.
The report also shed some additional insight into how the company is working with the Oversight Board. The report notes that between November 2020 and March 2021 it referred 26 cases to the board, though it’s only chosen to take up three — one of which was in response to its suspension of Donald Trump. (Notably, the latest report only covers the first quarter of 2021, so it doesn’t address the board’s recommendations in response to Trump’s suspension.)
Though the Oversight Board has only weighed in on a handful of cases, its decisions have resulted in a few policychanges by Facebook that could have a much broader effect. However, in some areas, the company has declined to follow up on its policy suggestions, such as one that Facebook study its own role in enabling the events of January 6th. In a blog post, the company noted that “the size and scope of the board’s recommendations go beyond the policy guidance that we first anticipated when we set up the board, and several require multi-month or multi-year investments.”
On July 16th, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain will open in US theatres. Like many documentaries, the film pieces together archival footage, including interviews and show outtakes, to attempt to tell the story of its subject in their own words. It also includes words Bourdain never spoke to a camera before his death by suicide in 2018, and yet you’ll hear his voice saying them.
In an interview with The New Yorker, the film’s director, Morgan Neville, said there were three quotes he wanted Bourdain to narrate where there were no recordings, and so he recreated them with software instead. “I created an AI model of his voice,” he told the magazine.
It appears that was no easy feat either. In a separate interview with GQ, Neville said he contacted four different companies about the project before deciding on the best one. That company fed about a dozen hours of audio to an AI model. A lot of the work involved deciding the exact tone of Bourdain’s voice Neville wanted the software to replicate since the way the author and travel host narrated his writing changed so much over the years he was on TV.
Compared to some of the other ways we’ve seen AI and deepfakes used to trick people, this isn't the worst example, but the ethics of it are still questionable. The film, as far as we’re aware, doesn’t include a disclosure that AI was used to replicate Bourdain’s voice. “If you watch the film, other than that line you mentioned, you probably don’t know what the other lines are that were spoken by the AI, and you’re not going to know,” Neville told The New Yorker. “We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later.” In his interview with GQ, he said Bourdain’s family told him “Tony would have been cool with that,” adding, “I was just trying to make [the quotes] come alive,”
Twenty two years after the debut of NBA 2K, the basketball sim series will feature a woman on the cover of the game for the first time. Two-time WNBA MVP and 2016 WNBA Finals MVP Candace Parker features on the front of the WNBA 25th Anniversary Special Edition of NBA 2K22.
Parker is one of several basketball stars to feature on NBA 2K22 packaging. Luka Don?i? is the cover athlete on the standard edition of the game, while the NBA 75th Anniversary Edition features Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Extremely proud and humbled to be the first female cover athlete in the history of @NBA2K
I’m honored to work with a company that’s investing in women and betting on us to succeed. I’m hopeful there will be many more badass females to follow ???? pic.twitter.com/WJan4YE7Qt
The WNBA 25th Anniversary Special Edition is a GameStop exclusive (Canadians can pick it up from EB Games). It's a physical edition for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and it features a bundle of seven exclusive in-game WNBA jerseys, including one for Parker. It costs $70 and it will be available on September 10th.
Although it's taken a long time for 2K to put a female athlete on the cover of an NBA game, it's a positive step forward for representation. NBA 2K20 was the first 2K game to feature WNBA teams and players, and a WNBA version of the MyPlayer career mode debuted in NBA 2K21.
Twenty years after being unceremoniously dumped from Microsoft Office, Clippy is ready to make a triumphant return. As part of a broader update to 1,800 emoji, the one-time assistant will replace the paperclip emoji in various Microsoft 365 products, including Office, Teams and Windows. Microsoft is updating its emoji library to make the characters 3D, as well as more colorful and fun. The company told The Verge approximately 900 of the redesigned emoji would feature some sort of animation, which you’ll be able to see in action in apps like Teams.
Microsoft / The Verge
The company said it plans to roll out the new characters to Windows and Teams sometime in the upcoming holiday season. They will then make their way to other Office apps, including Yammer and Outlook, sometime after that.
If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy. pic.twitter.com/6T8ziboguC
Microsoft teased Clippy’s return earlier this month when it said on Twitter it would replace the paperclip emoji in Office if at least 20,000 people liked its tweet. As of the writing of this article, that message has 151,000 likes and counting. The tweet was an about-face for Microsoft. In 2019, a group of employees released a Teams sticker pack dedicated to the Office assistant on GitHub, only for the company to remove it a day later. This time, it appears Clippy is here to stay for good.
Though it’s still best known for its capture cards, Elgato is working toward taking over your entire streaming setup. The past half decade has seen the introduction of the Stream Deckline for easily initiating macros during a broadcast; different kinds of lighting; and, last year, the company’s first gaming microphones. The one thing missing in this list was a webcam — until today’s introduction of the Elgato FaceCam.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
On its surface, the $200 camera is not that unique. It’s a chunky rectangular box that can be easily clipped on top of a monitor, or connected to Elgato’s multi mount system. It shoots 1080p at 60fps, with a Sony-made STARVIS CMOS sensor. It may not be 4K, but most streamers don’t need that kind of resolution right now. The FaceCam makes up for it with a robust suite of settings in its dedicated Camera Hub program. Yes, you’ll have to download another piece of software for this camera to run alongside Game Capture, Stream Deck, Wave Link (for the mics) and Control Center (for the lighting), which is a little annoying. Other companies bundle all their different drivers and settings into one tool, but I suppose keeping them separate probably makes sending out updates easier.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
In the Camera Hub you’ll have easy access to things like contrast, exposure and white balance. (The latter two can be set to automatic so you have one less thing to fuss over.) The automatic white balance was a little warm for my taste, but it was easy enough to turn it off and knock the number down to a cooler 4000K. The software also comes with zoom options, but it’s nothing to write home about, as the camera is fixed focus. You’ll always be sharp as long as you always remain between 12 inches (30 cm) and 47 inches (120 cm) from the camera. That should take care of anyone working at a desk; anyone who moves further back would be better served with something a little more portable with advanced settings.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
The biggest draw of the Camera Hub is the real-time ISO reading, which makes it a lot easier to detect and react to changes in your lighting. Maybe your lights are too bright, or maybe the natural light from outside vanished with an oncoming thunderstorm (which is exactly what’s happening as I type this). The exposure and white balance can adjust automatically, or you can tweak the settings yourself on the fly. There’s a Stream Deck plugin available, which should make it possible to adjust the settings with the touch of a button. Of course, that’s dependent on you having smart lighting in the first place, like Elgato’s Key Light or Ring Light.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
There’s a definite sense that you’re meant to go all-in on Elgato’s streaming lineup, probably best evidenced by the lack of a microphone in the FaceCam. The company says it didn’t bother since most gamers tend to use headsets anyway, but let’s face it: Elgato would rather you pick up one of its Wave:1 or Wave:3 mics. They do indeed sound great, but they’re not my preferred microphones thanks to some issues I had with getting the Wave:3 to work while I was wearing a headset — yes, even one made by Elgato’s parent company Corsair.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
For the most part, the FaceCam has a lot fewer kinks. My biggest problem was plugging it in, as it must be plugged into your system directly and not via a hub. And that’s tough with many modern laptops, which may only have two USB-C ports. The FaceCam comes with a USB-C to USB-A cord, and the company recommends you use the included wire instead of providing your own. I was forced to search around for a converter dongle. While I commend companies for finally embracing USB-C in their gaming accessories, we need some solutions on the software side to ensure that they can actually be used with hubs. My Logitech C920 works with a hub and it comes with a built-in mic, so it’s likely to remain my default webcam for most purposes.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
Still, the FaceCam is off to a promising start. The video quality is crisp and free of noise, and when it’s not there’s a built-in filter you can enable. I haven’t needed it to, though, as the camera has handled my Google Hangouts and Zoom calls with ease. The price is a bit steep, but still on par with Logitech’s Brio 4K and Razer’s Kiyo Pro, both of which cost $200. What your money gets you here is the assurance that it will work seamlessly with your Elgato Stream Deck — a piece of equipment that, right now at least, has no real competition.