Category: Technology

It’s been a weekend of crypto scams, hacks and deepfake chaos. Late on Friday, someone hacked 50 Cent’s accounts to push memecoin GUNIT and made off with millions. The exact amount is unclear; Fiddy himself wrote on Instagram, “whoever did this made $3,000,000 in 30 minutes.” The rapper’s X account and website were hacked at the same time.

Then, multiple deepfakes of Elon Musk were spotted on YouTube, telling viewers to deposit their crypto on a suspicious website, promising free crypto in return. Now taken down, the looped video showed Musk at what looked like a livestream from a Tesla event, with an AI-generated version of his voice instructing viewers to visit a website and deposit their Bitcoin, Ethereum or Dogecoin to enter the competition. Over 30,000 viewers tuned into the stream at one point, pushing it to the top of YouTube’s Live Now recommendations.

Don’t take investment advice from rappers and social media network owners.

— Mat Smith

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Starliner astronauts’ return trip has been pushed back even further

Oh no, more time in space.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew on the heavily delayed first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner craft, won’t be returning from the International Space Station until sometime next month, instead of, well, earlier this month. NASA announced last night that it’s pushing the date of their return trip even further to review problems with Starliner’s first flight.

Continue reading.

How to stream video to your TV using a VPN

You’re not just limited to a phone or laptop.

I love it when an Engadget writer solves a problem I have. You might be used to using VPNs to stream video content from other regions, but it falls apart a bit if you’re trying to view it on your TV. That’s where this guide comes in. Alongside guides for smart TVs and TV dongles, there’s a great tip I hadn’t thought of: using an HDMI cable to pipe video directly from your phone. Smart!

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Five men face jail time for running illegal streaming service Jetflicks

A federal jury in Las Vegas found five defendants guilty.

Jetflicks once boasted visitors could watch just about any TV show or movie “Anytime. Anywhere.” A jury in a Las Vegas federal court found the people behind the site guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Jetflicks used computer scripts and software to scour the internet for illegal copies of movies and television shows and posted hundreds of thousands of illegal copies as far back as 2007 from torrent and Usenet sites — back when illegally watching shows and movies was a little more challenging.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-elon-musk-deepfakes-are-pushing-crypto-giveaways-111500963.html?src=rss 

Apple is apparently looking to take all the help it can get to integrate generative AI into its recently announced Apple Intelligence. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources with knowledge of the discussions, Apple has held talks with Meta about the possibility of using the company’s generative AI model. It also reportedly had similar discussions with startups Anthropic and Perplexity. As of now, though, nothing has been finalized, WSJ reports.

At WWDC earlier this month, Apple officially announced its much-rumored partnership with OpenAI that will bring ChatGPT to newer iPhones, iPads and Macs with the upcoming generation of the devices’ OS. During the event, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, also name-dropped Google’s Gemini as something that could be added to Apple Intelligence in the future. “We want to enable users ultimately to choose the models they want,” Federighi said. It would make sense, then, for Apple to be shopping around.

But for the time being, only OpenAI has been confirmed as a partner. OpenAI’s GPT-4o will be integrated into Apple Intelligence to bolster Siri and other tools, with some features expected to arrive later this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-reportedly-even-held-talks-with-meta-about-an-ai-partnership-as-it-plays-catch-up-212741746.html?src=rss 

Sometimes we all need to just turn off the ol’ brain for a bit and have some dumb fun. That’s the kind vibe I was after when searching the Playdate Catalog for a new game to play this weekend, and let’s just say I got more than I could ever ask for in Touch Egg. The game, made by Joelle Tindall, is simple: crank wildly to extend a finger Pinocchio-style and poke the egg as many times as you can, but don’t let the horrifying man in the room see you or you’ll lose said finger. It’s all about chasing the high score, and you have 60 seconds to try and get those pokes in.

There is no story (well, none beyond “He lays the eggs and doesn’t want you to touch them”), so no explanation as to who the man is, what sort of creature would hatch from the egg, why you’re bothering it and why everything is so creepy. Don’t worry about any of that, just crank.

You can only touch the egg when the man’s eyes are closed. Three exclamation points will appear in succession to signal that his eyes are about to open and you need to stop cranking. You can also put him to sleep for a few seconds by hitting the ‘A’ button — but this can make it so there’s no warning when he’s going to open his eyes. All the while, the unusually wide cat clock is ticking.

The visuals are wonderfully unsettling, and, just to add to the absurdity of it all, you can unlock little accessories like sunglasses that are worn on the thumb. There are also a few secrets to uncover as you play and — I’m sorry — Egg-Chievements to be earned. I clicked on Egg Touch solely because it made me think of the I Think You Should Leave egg game, and ended up being unable to put it down for a solid hour. (Unlike in ITYSL, there are no NSFW surprises here). 

Egg Touch is only $1 on the Playdate Catalog and free on itch.io. Now get outta here and go touch that egg.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/touch-egg-is-the-most-ridiculous-playdate-game-ive-tried-yet-and-im-hooked-173155394.html?src=rss 

Apple’s third-generation AirPods have dropped back down to the lowest price we’ve seen thanks to a deal on Amazon right now. The AirPods, which normally go for $170, are 17 percent off, making them just $140. Apple overhauled the design of the standard AirPods with this model, which was introduced in 2021. The third-gen AirPods have a shorter stem to look more like the AirPods Pro (but without the eartips), a contoured design for comfort and are rated for sweat and water resistance.

Previous models of the non-Pro AirPods weren’t sweat and water resistant, but the third-generation carries an IPX4 rating, which should be adequate for workouts. They also boast an improved method of automatic pausing over the earlier versions, using both an accelerometer and a sensor that detects skin so they can better sense when they’ve been removed from your ear.

The third-generation AirPods run on Apple’s H1 chip, which allows for one-touch fast pairing and always-on Siri. They offer Adaptive EQ, spatial audio and dynamic head-tracking — but no active noise-cancellation, that’s for the AirPods Pro only — and produce much better sound compared to the earlier models. In Engadget’s review, the third-generation AirPods scored an 88 for their comfort-focused design, audio quality and battery life.

The battery life is noticeably longer in the third-generation AirPods. Apple says these AirPods get about 6 hours of battery life on a charge, but in our tests, they lasted over an hour beyond than that. With the charging case, they can get about 30 hours of life in all. If you need to top them up while you’re out, you only need to pop them in the case for five minutes to get another hour of playtime. If you’re not concerned about features like active noise cancellation, the third-generation AirPods are a great bet, especially at their reduced price.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-third-gen-airpods-are-back-on-sale-for-their-lowest-price-yet-144041181.html?src=rss 

50 Cent and his millions of social media followers were reportedly the targets of a pump-and-dump crypto scam on Friday that resulted in hackers pocketing a good chunk of change before it was all shut down. The exact amount they made is unclear; the rapper initially wrote on Instagram that “whoever did this made $300,000,000 in 30 minutes” (per Cointelegraph), but the post has since been edited to say $3,000,000 as of this afternoon. I will not make a Get Rich or Die Tryin’ pun, I will not make a Get Rich or Die Tryin’ pun…

The scammers used 50 Cent’s X account and website, Thisis50, to push $GUNIT. “My Twitter & Thisis 50.com was hacked I have no association with this Crypto,” 50 Cent wrote in an Instagram post containing screenshots of the unfolding mess. “Twitter worked quickly to lock my account back down,” he added. His X account and Thisis50.com still appear to be unavailable. Stay safe out there, and be wary of celebrities shilling crypto.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/someone-apparently-hacked-50-cents-accounts-to-peddle-a-memecoin-and-made-off-with-millions-205920738.html?src=rss 

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew on the much-delayed first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner craft, won’t be coming home from the International Space Station until sometime next month, well past their originally planned return date of June 14. NASA announced last night that it’s pushing the date of their return trip back even further in order to allow for more reviews into problems that arose with Starliner during its flight, and to avoid conflicts with upcoming spacewalks. As of now, there’s no date set for the flight back to Earth.

Starliner launched on June 5 and delivered Wilmore and Williams to the ISS about a day later. Their stay was only supposed to last a week or so. During the flight, however, four small helium leaks sprung in the propulsion system, on top of the one that had already been identified prior to launch. And, when Starliner first attempted to approach the ISS on June 6 and begin docking, five of its 28 thrusters went offline. Boeing was able to get four of them back up and running. NASA also revealed a few days after launch that the teams were looking into an issue with a valve in the service module that was “not properly closed.”

The space agency had already pushed the date of the return trip back a few times over the last week and most recently landed on June 26, but now says the flight won’t take place until after the spacewalks planned for June 24 and July 2 have been completed. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, on Friday.

“Starliner is performing well in orbit while docked to the space station,” Stich also said. “We are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni’s return on Starliner and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/starliner-astronauts-return-trip-has-been-pushed-back-even-further-174336571.html?src=rss 

Summer Game Fest 2024 officially wrapped up on June 10, after a long weekend of game previews, developer interviews and unlimited cold brew — but we just published our final stories from the show this week (held under embargo, of course). Those were Mat Smith’s impressions of Black Myth: Wukong and Tales of the Shire, and they capped off a month of juicy video game news out of the summer’s biggest show.

No, Silksong did not make an appearance.

There were, however, plenty of bright and shiny games at the show, and many of them were available to play for the first time ever. Our hands-on and first-look stories include Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Astro Bot, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Lego Horizon Adventures, Marvel Rivals, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Neva and Skate Story.

On top of the playable previews, Day of the Devs, Devolver, Xbox and Ubisoft held their own showcases brimming with new information and game reveals, and the big Summer Game Fest kickoff event was similarly stacked. Just to name a few of the hits: There’s a new Doom with a medieval flair (and flail), Civilization VII is coming out in 2025, Slitterhead will land on November 8, Heart Machine is building a gorgeous-looking platformer called Possessor(s), and the Fable reboot is due out in 2025. There are also new Xbox Series consoles coming out this fall — and as it turns out, Microsoft’s mid-cycle refresh says a lot about the Xbox hardware business as a whole, especially when compared to the company’s internal roadmap that leaked in October 2022.

After E3 collapsed on itself like a sad soufflé, Summer Game Fest has emerged as the home of mid-year video game goodness, offering a little more room for smaller studios and plenty of space to grow. It’s been four years of digital and physical Summer Game Fest events at this point, and the show just keeps getting better.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/take-a-behind-the-scenes-tour-of-summer-game-fest-play-days-2024-153009861.html?src=rss 

In this installment of What We’re Listening To, Engadget editors dive into some of the recent music releases we’ve been playing on repeat. Yes, Brat has us in a chokehold, too.

Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats – Nell’ Ora Blu

When I first heard Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats was putting out an album inspired by 1960s-70s giallo films, I felt like my interests, personally, were being targeted. It’s the kind of crossover that now seems like it had to happen at some point, but I never realized my need for it until this moment. (One person on Reddit, though, was really onto something with the idea last year). Lo and behold, Nell’ Ora Blu dropped last month and it scratches a very specific itch in my brain.

It is not at all the usual fare you’d expect from Uncle Acid, very much taking on the structure of a soundtrack with a lot of ambient instrumentals and short dialogue tracks voiced by genre regulars Edwige Fenech, Franco Nero and Luc Merenda (it pulls influence from the poliziotteschi crime/action films as well). The scores in these movies often feel like psychedelic horror experiences in themselves — with heavy moments that really drag you in, only to be offset by something so delicate it’s almost disorienting — and unsurprisingly, Uncle Acid absolutely nails this. This is the perfect album to pop on in the background while you’re trying to get some art or writing done, ideally as a thunderstorm rolls in. It’s pretty long, coming in at around an hour and 17 minutes, but I almost always replay it at least once per sitting. 

Nell’ Ora Blu isn’t necessarily going to be an automatic hit with Uncle Acid fans. It’s more for the person who watched Deep Red or The Bird with the Crystal Plumage or anything of that ilk and immediately sought out the soundtrack afterward. Still, I expect there’s a fair amount of overlap between those groups, considering the band does generally have the whole sleaze horror vibe going anyway. Honestly, I want more. We don’t need to stop at giallo — give me Uncle Acid’s take on Jean Rollin and the fantastique next (please).

— Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor

Nathy Peluso – Grasa

Admittedly, I’m late to the Nathy Peluso bandwagon. I was first introduced to her after falling down a rabbit hole of BZRP Music Sessions (collab tracks made by Argentine producer Bizarrap and various Latin music heavyweights) and listened to hers (#36). Her second album, Grasa, just dropped and represents her latest full body of work released since the Grammy-nominated Calambre came out in 2020. Grasa is likely my album of the summer — and certainly a top pick for the whole year — thanks to its engaging experimentation and its marriage of a bunch of different styles including hip hop, latin trap, bolero, salsa and straight-up pop. There are no skips on this album, at least half a dozen bangers and I personally love the transitions from the snarling, fast-paced tracks to the few ballads and slower songs peppered throughout.

Peluso already proved she was a great singer on Calambre, but I think her vocal performances on this album, particularly in ballads like “Envidia” and “El Día Que Perdí Mi Juvendtud,” standout as high points. And then there are the bangers, as it were: “Aprender a Amar” gets in your face with fierce rapping and blaring horns; “Legendario” might be the most obvious potential single off the whole album thanks to its signature pop tempo and sound; and “La Presa” is basically a salsa IV straight to your veins. There are plenty of others I’m not naming here, but anyone who has even a passing appreciation for Latin pop (regardless of if you speak Spanish or not — I don’t) shouldn’t sleep on Grasa.

Young Miko – att.

Puerto Rican artist Young Miko’s first full-length album, att., is the definition of “a vibe.” After collaborating with Karol G, Bad Bunny and other Latin superstars, Miko has solidified her space in the Latin pop scene with this project. While I don’t think it’s a career-defining album, it’s a great showcase of her laid-back, Spanglish-style rapping that marries genres like reggaeton and Latin trap, and her ability to create a clear mood with such fusion, plus a healthy dose of great beats. Ultimately, it’s simply easy listening from front to back. Personal highlights include “arcoíris,” “tamagotchi” and Feid collab “offline.”

Charli XCX – brat

Brat is 100 percent worth the hype. Eloquent music critics and writers have bestowed a lot of praise onto this album already, so suffice to say that I agree with most of them (and you should go read their analyses). Standouts include “Club classics,” “Sympathy is a knife,” “So I,” and “B2b,” but arguably my favorite is the closer “365.” A riff off of the opener “360,” this track ups the ante in every way, and the transition to it from the penultimate “I think about it all the time” is so satisfying and euphoric.

— Valentina Palladino, Deputy Editor, Buying Advice

Todd Terje – It’s Album Time

It’s been 10 years since Norwegian producer and DJ Todd Terje declared that it was, finally, album time. He had made a name for himself as a DJ and remixer in the 2000s, but It’s Album Time marked his first (and sadly, only) full-length collection on which he is the singular driving force. It’s a gloriously oddball collection that flips between dramatic, movie score-style symphonic pieces and true dance-disco bangers. (After a recent listen, I convinced myself that Terje could help Dua Lipa make the best album of her career.)

For my money, the 10-minutes combo of “Straandbar” and “Delorean Dynamite” encapsulate the best things about the album. It’s a gloriously funky build-up with intricate percussion, fat synths, bouncing bass lines and a ridiculously simple but incredibly infectious guitar lick that comes in halfway through “Delorean Dynamite” that makes me want to run through a brick wall. You’ll know it when you hear it.

And, of course, there’s “Inspector Norse,” a song that caught fire in 2012 and paved the way for the rest of It’s Album Time. If Terje never makes another album (he’s only 43, so there’s plenty of time!), “Inspector Norse” serves as seven perfect minutes of his career. Maybe he’ll swing by and take us to his planet again, but it’s hard to be sad about his lack of output when It’s Album Time is so damn perfect.

— Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor, News

XG – Woke Up

Cocona shaves her head in this video. Just because she wanted to. This song is great. XG is life.

— Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-were-listening-to-nell-ora-blu-grasa-brat-and-more-130028558.html?src=rss