Category: I-phone

No stranger to trying new things, audio brand is introducing its first-ever pair of gaming-focused Bluetooth earbuds. The highlight feature of the company's new Seoul earbuds is a mode toggle that Urbanista claims reduces Bluetooth latency to about 70ms. A dedicated latency toggle isn’t something we’ve seen on a lot of true wireless headphones. Most gaming-oriented earbuds use Qualcomm’s aptX Bluetooth codec to get latency as low as possible.

Urbanista

With the codec’s low-latency variant, Qualcomm claims you get that number down to about 40ms. The downside of aptX is both your earbuds and phone need to support the codec. That’s not a problem with most Snapdragon devices since Qualcomm makes those too, but you won’t find the codec supported on Apple devices. That’s what makes the Seoul earbuds interesting. They give you a device agnostic way to get a low-latency mode.

Aside from that feature, the Seoul earbuds are about what you expect from a pair of mid-range true wireless earbuds in 2021. At $89.90, they feature a claimed eight hours of battery life on a single charge, with the included case allowing you to get another 32 hours of playtime before the entire unit needs to recharge. At that point, you can charge them using either a USB-C cable or Qi charging pad. They’re also IPX4-certified, come with Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity and feature both Google Assistant and Siri integration. Urbanista will sell the Seoul earbuds in four colors: black, blue, purple and white.

Urbanista

For those looking for something more affordable, Urbanista also announced its new Lisbon earbuds. At $49.90, they’re the company’s cheapest true wireless earbuds to date. Looking at the spec sheet Urbanista sent over, they look decent too. Battery life comes in at a claimed nine hours on a single charge. With the included charging case, you can get a total of 27 hours of playtime from them. They don’t feature waterproofing, but you do get Bluetooth 5.2 support and USB-C charging, as well as Google Assistant and Siri integration. They’ll come in five colors: pastel red, beige, pink, green and black.

With more and more people getting fully vaccinated against COVID-19, many single folks are ditching virtual dates for in-person ones. Those looking for love in New York City will soon have a new spot where they can meet up for dates, a café/restaurant/wine bar from dating app Bumble.

Bumble Brew is scheduled to open for breakfast service on July 24th. Lunch and dinner service will start at the Nolita spot in the coming weeks. Along with an 80-seat dining room, there will be a cocktail bar, patio dining and private dining space.

The restaurant, which is decked out in the app's recognizable shade of yellow, can be used for events as well. It has an Italian-inspired menu with pickup and delivery options, and the music is primarily from female artists.

The new venture builds on the Bumble Hive pop-up community spaces where people can hang out, eat and drink and meet others. Bumble Brew doesn't have a direct tie-in with the Bumble app, at least for now. Still, it's easy to imagine Bumble adding a reservation system that pops up when NYC users try to arrange a date.

On early Sunday morning, two Chinese astronauts completed work outside of their country’s Tiangong space station. The event was the second-ever spacewalk in China’s history. As The Guardian points out, it’s also the first time its astronauts have completed a tandem extravehicular activity (EVA).

Shenzhou-12 astronaut Boming Liu left the station at 8:11 PM ET on July 3rd and was later joined by crewmate Hongbo Tang. Meanwhile, Haisheng Nie, the mission’s commander, stayed inside the Tianhe “Harmony of the Heavens” crew module to support them.

The two astronauts went out to do work on the module’s robotic arm while wearing China’s next-generation Feitian EVA suits. The entire time they were about 380 kilometers (236 miles) above the surface of Earth. The components they installed will assist future missions as China looks to complete its new space station sometime in 2022. Liu and Tang went back into Tianhe at approximately 2:57 AM ET, making the entire spacewalk around seven hours.

“The safe return of astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to the Tianhe core module marks the complete success of the first spacewalk in our country’s space station construction,” China’s Manned Space Agency said in a statement.

The last time a Chinese astronaut left their craft was back in 2008 when Zhigang Zhai put China in the history books as the third-ever country to complete a spacewalk. In the past year, the country successfuly landed its first-ever rover on Mars and retrieved rock and soil samples from the Moon. The country’s space agency plans a second spacewalk before the Shenzhou-12 crew returns to Earth later this year.

The pandemic recovery might not be all positive, at least not for the environment. Reutersreports that the International Energy Agency has warned that a post-pandemic resurgence in gas demand could threaten a goal of reaching net zero emissions worldwide by 2050. A projected 3.6 percent increase in gas use for 2021 could not only negate the 2020 decline but "even grow further," according to the IEA.

Demand is expected to taper off to 1.7 percent between 2022 and 2024, but that would still be too steep to stay on track, the IEA said.

This doesn't mean the Paris agreement and other goals are lost causes, however. The IEA believed that projects approved or underway before the pandemic could rein in those emissions. The agency also suggested that the gas industry could help by cutting down on methane leaks that contribute to climate change.

There are positive signs. Renewable energy is outpacing fossil fuels in some countries, and car manufacturers are increasingly committing to all-electric lineups in the next several years. Still, the IEA report lends a sense of urgency to those actions. Humanity might need to temper its eagerness to reestablish normalcy and refocus on green tech, at least if it wants to avoid replacing one global problem with another.

On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including science fiction, horror, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published four ebooks and one paperback anthology of those stories so far.

I’d love to have you as a subscriber to the weekly free story. You can subscribe via email here, or use the form below. Unsubscribe any time, from the link in every issue.

Continue reading “Weekly Short Story: Biometrics”

FaZe Clan is once again reeling from drama, and this time the damage might be longer-lasting. Decryptnotes that FaZe has punished four players for alleged involvement in a pump-and-dump scheme involving the Save the Kids cryptocurrency project. The eSports team suspended Jarvis (pictured), Nikan and Teeqo, and has permanently removed Kay from the organization.

Save the Kids (aka KIDS) was pitched as a charity that would donate 1 percent of each transaction fee (which itself is 3 percent of the total transaction) to a child-oriented foundation. The creators got influencers at FaZe to promote KIDS ahead of its launch in early June, only to watch as the price crashed by almost 90 percent.

The affected clan members have denied any deliberate involvement. Kay said he had "no ill intent" in promoting KIDS, and that he made a mistake in participating without vetting the effort with the team.

This isn't even the first time FaZe team members have faced accusations of joining in scams. Kay and clan co-founder were paid to promote another coin, BankSocial, in May — only to sell shortly before exiting the partnership. Banks didn't reveal the financial connection in Twitter posts he has since deleted.

The crackdown highlights the growing number of eSports players making money outside of competitive gaming, both individually and as a team. Gucci made a Fnatic-badged dive watch, for instance. While it's not surprising given how players are quickly gaining the kind of celebrity status commonly associated with conventional sports stars, that opens them to similar temptations.

Elon Musk's Boring Company is still trying to sell cities on transit loops, and it might just have a significant buyer. As The Vergereports, the Boring Company has submitted a bid for a transit tunnel loop that would link the downtown with the beach. The Las Olas Loop would be an "innovative and unprecented" way to manage traffic congestion and transit demands, Mayor Dean Trantalis claimed.

The City Commission will vote on the proposal on July 6th. It also plans to establish a process where other companies can offer rival projects. Specific details won't be available until after the competition is over, the city said.

A successful bid would establish the Boring Company's first East Coast tunnel. The only existing tunnel, in Las Vegas, launched in June.

It would be a crucial win. Musk's outfit hasn't had much success pitching cities on passenger loops, and has even shifted some of its attention to larger freight tunnels. A Fort Lauderdale contract would give the passenger system more credibility and might encourage other cities to consider tunnels of their own — at least, so long as the tunnels prove to be useful.

It didn't take long for Porsche's rumored Taycan recall to become official. The German car maker has recalled about 43,000 Taycan and Taycan Cross Turismo EVs worldwide over a sudden power loss issue. You'll have to take your electric sports sedan to a workshop to receive an hour-long software update (over-the-air isn't an option this time), although Porsche said you could continue driving until the update is ready.

The bug has already been addressed for models rolling off the line, Porsche said.

The recall was prompted by an NHTSA investigation of nine incidents where power shut off while the cars were in motion, with six of the cars refusing to restart. Autoblognoted that Porsche found the problem in 130 cars after conducting its own investigation. There haven't been reports of collisions or injuries.

The recall is a blow (if minor) to Porsche, which has generally enjoyed strong sales for the Taycan. The EV is now popular enough in the US that it's outselling the 911, 718 and Panamera. While this isn't likely to tank sales, it comes as Porsche is still trying to persuade buyers that it's worth ditching the company's legendary gas engines for electric motors — it might face some hesitancy after this, even if EVs are likely to be more reliable.

Broadcom is facing a major antitrust crackdown. Gizmodoreports that the Federal Trade Commission has charged Broadcom with "illegally monopolizing" the markets for broadband and TV chips, including WiFi parts. The FTC claimed that Broadcom struck exclusive deals with vendors and service providers that prevented them from buying chips from rival suppliers.

The FTC also accused Broadcom of obtaining "exclusivity and loyalty commitments" for chip supplies, making it difficult for companies to compete on their own merits. The vote was near unanimous, although newly installed Commissioner Lina Khan bowed out.

The Commission's proposed action would forbid Broadcom from negotiating certain exclusivity and loyalty deals, bar the company from conditioning chip access based on commitments, and ban retaliation against customers who buy from Broadcom's competitors.

Broadcom signalled to Engadget that it might cooperate on a settlement. It still disagreed with the FTC's portrayal and claimed that it didn't break the law. You can read the full statement below.

The chipset giant hasn't exactly won favor from regulators in recent years. It spent 2017 and 2018 aggressively trying to buy Qualcomm, only to give up after the White House blocked the deal. We wouldn't expect regulators to make too many concessions as a result, even if a settlement seems likely. Broadcom hasn't been shy about wanting to dominate the chip business — the FTC will want assurances the company won't push boundaries in the future.

"We are pleased to move toward resolving this Broadband matter with the FTC on terms that are substantially similar to our previous settlement with the EC involving the same products. While we disagree that our actions violated the law and disagree with the FTC’s characterizations of our business, we look forward to putting this matter behind us and continuing to focus on supporting our customers through an environment of accelerated digital transformation. We are equally pleased that the FTC investigation into our other businesses has been closed without action."

Tesla won't sit by the wayside as electric trucks like the Hummer EV and Rivian R1T lure customers with special features. Elon Musk has revealed that Tesla is adding rear-wheel steering to the Cybertruck to help the EV maneuver with "high agility." It's a rough answer to the Hummer's "Crab Mode" and R1T's tank turns, in other words. You might not have much trouble with a tight U-turn or tricky off-road scenario.

Musk also reiterated that the Cybertruck's design will be "almost exactly" what you saw at the introduction in November 2019, although he teased that there were many "other great things" in the pipeline. The pickup is still due to enter production in late 2021.

Rear-wheel steering may be virtually necessary. The Cybertruck is large even by truck standards — it might be a tough sell if it's difficult to steer out of a parking lot. Moreover, rivals like GMC, Rivian and Ford are all launching electric trucks that might match or sometimes beat Tesla's feature set. The category has changed since the Cybertruck introduction, and Tesla risks losing some business if it doesn't update its technology.

Hackers just perpetrated one of the largest known supply chain cyberattacks so far. The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal report that IT management software giant Kaseya has fallen victim to a ransomware attack that compromised its VSA remote maintenance tool. The company initially claimed that "fewer than 40" of its customers were directly affected, but security response firm Huntress said three managed service providers it worked with had also succumbed to the attack and compromising over 200 companies.

The number could be higher. Huntress noted there were eight affected cloud service providers, potentially affecting many more firms. Swedish supermarket chain Coop closed almost 800 stores after one of its contractors became a target.

Kaseya said it had identified the likely source of the security flaw and was developing a patch that would be "tested thoroughly." In the meantime, though, the company urged all customers to shut down their VSA servers and keep them offline until they could install the update. Software-as-a-service customers were "never at-risk," Kaseya added, although the company took down that functionality as a precaution.

It's not certain who's behind the attack, although Huntress tied the campaign to the Russia-linked REvil group that attacked beef supplier JBS.

The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile ransomware attacks, including JBS and Colonial Pipeline. It also follows the large-scale SolarWinds breaches attributed to another group, Nobelium. Online security is quickly becoming a major issue in the supply chain, and it's not clear these problems will disappear any time soon.

Kaseya's breach also reflects the dangers of relying heavily on one company's software platform. While the number of directly affected clients is small, the supply chain network appears to have created a ripple effect that damaged numerous companies down the line. The situation might not improve until there's either tighter security among Kaseya-like providers or more competition that reduces the potential damage.

Half a month after OnePlus announced that it's becoming an Oppo sub-brand, it has revealed that it's also merging its OxygenOS with its new parent company's ColorOS. The two brands have come to the decision to "best leverage [their] shared resources" and to standardize the software experience across their portfolio. But what does OnePlus mean exactly when it said that they're "working on integrating the codebase of OxygenOS and ColorOS?" It said you may not even notice a difference, because the changes are happening behind the scenes.

OxygenOS will still be the operating system for OnePlus devices released globally. As 9to5Google notes, OnePlus phones released in China already run ColorOS, and that will likely remain the case — it's just that the operating systems will now shade a codebase. All new devices the sub-brand will release will run the new OxygenOS, while current devices that are still receiving updates will get the new platform via an over-the-air update. 

Speaking of updates, OnePlus is promising better and longer Android update support, which now rivals Samsung's, with the change. The OnePlus 8 series and the brand's newer flagships will receive three major Android updates and four years of security updates going forward. Meanwhile, the first Nord and any newer Nord and Nord CE devices will receive two major Android and three years of security updates. Finally, the affordable Nord N series phones starting from the N10 and the N100 will get one major Android update and three years of security updates. Unfortunately, you can continue expecting two major Android and three years of security updates if you have a flagship older than the OnePlus 8.

When the merge was announced, the companies said OnePlus will remain independently operated. Since the move was meant to pool their resources and to better streamline their operations, though, linking their operating systems more closely doesn't come as surprise.

It seems more and more law enforcement agents are trying to use online platforms' copyright-takedown measures to prevent videos that show them in a bad light from being shared online. A California police officer has tried to use the tactic on a BLM protestor at the Alameda Country courthouse by playing Taylor Swift's Blank Space, as reported by The Washington Post and Variety. His attempt failed, though, and it even backfired spectacularly: The video has almost 800,000 views on Twitter as of this writing, as well as 300,000 views on YouTube. 

The protestor was at the courthouse for the pretrial hearing of Jason Fletcher, the police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter for killing Steven Taylor, a Black man, inside a Walmart. In the video posted by the Anti Police-Terror Project, you'll hear the officer admit that he played the popular Swift song so that it gets a copyright strike on Google's video platform. "You can record all you want, I just know it can't be posted on YouTube," he said. 

When asked if there's an administrative regulation telling cops to play copyrighted music to prevent videos from being shared, the officer replied: "Not that I know of." Alameda County sheriff's office spokesperson Sgt. Ray Kelly told The Post that there's no policy barring what the officer did in the video, but that the office does not "condone" his behavior.

Back in February, several police officers in Beverly Hills had also been caught on video seemingly trying to get a prominent LA activist banned from Instagram by triggering is copyright filters. They kept playing songs while being filmed, including Sublime's Santeria and The Beatles' Yesterday. 

Chessie Thacher, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Northern California, told The Post that the tactic "does seem to be a trend right now." Thacher added: "People have the right to film the police, and efforts by the police to infringe on this right are unconstitutional. So if they're using copyright laws to prevent people from exercising their right — and amplifying what they’re seeing — then that's a real problem."

The start menu may not end up the only element of Microsoft’s desktop operating system that gets a visual overhaul in Windows 11. According to The Verge, Windows 11 will feature a Black Screen of Death, instead of the current blue one we all know and dread. It will be the first major tweak to that part of the Windows interface since Microsoft added QR codes to it in 2016.

Microsoft hasn’t enabled the new BSOD in Windows 11 yet, primarily because the OS is in preview and Insider builds have featured a Green Screen of Death since 2016. As Gizmodo notes, there’s a way to enable the new BSOD in the current preview build, but it involves editing your Windows registry and definitely not worth doing for something you don’t want to see anyway.

It’s unclear why Microsoft is changing the color of the Blue Screen of Death. However, The Verge suggests it could be because the company is already tweaking other parts of the Windows interface to make the OS feel more modern. At the very least, there’s no new acronym to learn. We'll also point out a lot could change between now and when Microsoft ships Windows 11 in the fall.  

Owners of Western Digital network attached storage (NAS) devices may have yet another security headache on the horizon. Following the two flaws hackers exploited to wipe My Book Live devices remotely, security journalist Brian Krebs has published a report on another zero-day vulnerability that affects Western Digital products running the company’s My Cloud OS3 software. What’s more, it doesn’t appear there will be an official fix for those who don’t upgrade to a newer storage solution.

Earlier in the year, security researchers Radek Domanski and Pedro Ribeiro discovered a series of weaknesses that allow a malicious actor to remotely update a My Cloud OS3 device to add a backdoor. The two say they never heard back from the company when they tried to contact it about the vulnerability. Western Digital attributes its response (or lack thereof) to one of its previous policies.

“The communication that came our way confirmed the research team involved planned to release details of the vulnerability and asked us to contact them with any questions,” a spokesperson for the company told Krebs. “We didn’t have any questions so we didn’t respond. Since then, we have updated our process and respond to every report in order to avoid any miscommunication like this again.”

While the flaw isn’t present in Western Digital's new My Cloud OS 5, it’s unclear if the company ever went back to address it in My Cloud OS3. What’s more, it no longer plans to support the older software. “We will not provide any further security updates to the My Cloud OS3 firmware,” Western Digital says in a support page dated to March 12th, 2021. “We strongly encourage moving to the My Cloud OS 5 firmware. If your device is not eligible for upgrade to My Cloud OS 5, we recommend that you upgrade to one of our other My Cloud offerings that support My Cloud OS 5.”

When Engadget reached out to Western Digital, a spokesperson for the company told us "there is a fix for this vulnerability — we 'patched' OS3 with OS 5." They added: "My Cloud OS 5 is a major security release that provides an architectural revamp of our older My Cloud firmware. All My Cloud products currently under active support are eligible for the My Cloud OS 5 upgrade and we recommend that all users upgrade as soon as possible to benefit from the latest security fixes."

If you own a device that you can't update to My Cloud OS 5, you can download a patch Domanski and Ribiro developed. One thing to note is you’ll need to reapply it each time you reboot your device. You can also protect your My Cloud NAS drive by limiting its access to the internet.

Update 6:35PM ET: Added comment from Western Digital.