Category: Technology

Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts chastised Elon Musk on Sunday after the billionaire had a snarky response to the lawmaker’s request for information about Twitter’s new verification policies. “Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?” Musk tweeted Sunday morning after Markey shared a recent letter he sent criticizing the company’s new $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription. “And why does your pp have a mask!?” Musk added a few hours later, referring to Markey’s profile picture, which shows the senator wearing a face covering.

Markey wasn’t impressed by Musk’s response. “One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online,” he said. “Fix your companies. Or Congress will.”

Markey sent the letter that prompted the exchange on November 11th. In the letter, Markey asks Musk to explain how The Washington Post was able to create a verified account impersonating him and why an official pop-up told Twitter users the verification was due to a role in government. Musk has until November 25th to answer those questions and others in writing.

Twitter suspended paid account verification less than two days after launching its new Blue subscription. While the service was available, trolls used it to impersonate celebrities, politicians and brands, leading to chaos on the platform. One account pretending to be LeBron James claimed the NBA star had requested to be traded by the Los Angeles Lakers. Another one tanked the stock of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

While there’s no certainty Markey’s warning will translate to government action, the likelihood of a regulatory response became more solid on Sunday after Democrats secured a Senate majority. Markey is also a member of the Subcommittee on Communication, Media, and Broadband, the Senate panel most likely to recommend action against Twitter.

 

Less than two days after Twitter’s first attempt to charge for account verification ended in disaster, Elon Musk announced the company is working on a new way to authenticate users. On Sunday afternoon, he tweeted the social media website would soon begin rolling out a feature that will allow organizations to identify accounts that are “actually” associated with them.

Musk didn’t say as much, but the feature is almost certainly a partial response to the problems the platform encountered this past week. After the company began rolling out its new $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription on Wednesday, the website was quickly overrun by trolls who used the service to impersonate celebrities and brands. In particular, the situation was a nightmare for businesses and advertisers. As one example, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly’s stock fell by 4.37 percent on Friday after a fake “verified” account said the company was making insulin free. The prank erased about 15 billion from Eli Lilly’s market cap and forced an apology from it.

The announcement would seem to indicate Musk is coming to terms with the fact that a social media platform can’t exist without content moderation. When a user asked him if anyone would be able to use the upcoming feature, Musk responded: “Ultimately, I think there is no choice but for Twitter to be the final arbiter, but I’m open to suggestions.”

That’s something he probably wouldn’t have said before taking over Twitter. Prior to closing the deal, Musk cast himself as a free speech “absolutist.” During his recent TED Talk appearance, he said he was in favor of very little content moderation. “If in doubt, let the speech… let it exist. If it’s a gray area, I would say let the tweet exist,” he said at the time. The problem with that approach is that it has led to an advertiser exodus and a significant drop in revenue for the company. That’s not something Twitter can sustain with its current debt load.

 

After laying off 50 percent of the company’s employees, Elon Musk has turned his attention to Twitter’s contract workers. According to separate reports from Platformer’s Casey Newton and Axios, the social media platform began reducing its contingent staff on Saturday afternoon. The scale of the job cuts is unclear, but Newton puts it at “a large number,” with the company’s content moderation and marketing teams among those affected by the layoffs.

Twitter also appears to have provided no notice to those who lost their job this weekend. Many found out they weren’t working for the company anymore after they abruptly lost access to Twitter’s internal systems. “One of my contractors just got deactivated without notice in the middle of making critical changes to our child safety workflows,” one manager posted in the company’s Slack, according to Newton. Yet others found out by reading the reports about the cuts. Some workers are now worried they may not get paid for their last two weeks of work. Following Twitter’s November 4th layoffs, many contractors ended up on teams with no full-time staff, leaving no one to sign off on their time sheets.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. The company reportedly cut its entire communications department during its recent reorganization.

The cuts come at the end of another turbulent week at Twitter. On Wednesday, the company began rolling out its new Twitter Blue subscription with verification only to suspend sign-ups less than two days later after it was overrun by trolls. Musk also reportedly told employees Twitter was losing so much money that bankruptcy was “not out of the question.”

 

If you’re looking to buy additional storage for your PC or PlayStation 5, you don’t have to wait until Black Friday to score a deal on some of the best solid-state drives on the market. Ahead of Thanksgiving, Amazon is holding a sale on Samsung storage gear, including the company’s excellent NVMe models. PS5 owners will want to turn their attention to the Samsung 980 Pro. After a 53 percent discount, the 2TB model with heatsink is $190, down from $400. It’s the perfect plug-and-play upgrade for Sony’s latest console, meeting all the compatibility and cooling requirements set out by the company.

Buy Samsung 980 Pro at Amazon – $119 and up

Amazon has also discounted the non-heatsink versions of the 980 Pro and 970 Evo. The latter is the highlight here. At the moment, you can grab the 2TB model for $160, rather than $500. The 500GB is also discounted by 54 percent, making it $60 at the moment. Both the 980 Pro and 970 Evo are great options if you want to add a fast Gen4 NVMe to your PC – just make sure you have a compatible motherboard and processor. If you want to give life to an older PC, Samsung’s excellent SATA SSDs are included in the sale.

Those looking for portable storage are also in luck. The 1TB and 2TB versions of the T7 Shield are currently 44 and 48 percent off, respectively. That means you can get the more expensive model for $150, and the 1TB variant for a record low of $90. Best of all, all three colorways – blue, black and biege – are included in the sale. The T7 Shield is an Engadget favorite. The combination of USB 3.2 Gen 2 support and IP65-certified protection make it a great option for anyone who wants a fast and reliable backup solution.

Buy Samsung T7 Shield at Amazon – $90 and up

One last product worth highlighting is the Samsung EVO Select microSD. Amazon has discounted all four models, with the 512GB variant receiving the largest price cut. After a 47 percent discount, you can get that version for $45. It typically retails for $85. The EVO Select microSD is a great option for those looking to beef up their Nintendo Switch with fast storage. Make sure to check out the rest of the sale to see if there’s something else that might fit your needs.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

Little more than two after hitting store shelves, Apple’s 10th-generation iPad is on sale with a discount that makes it much easier to recommend the tablet. B&H has discounted the base 64GB model with WiFi to $399. The catch is that the deal only applies to the blue colorway. If you don’t mind the choice of color, you’ll want to act fast as the promotion ends tomorrow evening – or, more likely, when supplies quickly run out.

Buy Apple iPad at B&H – $399

The 10th-generation iPad features several upgrades over its predecessor, but a more expensive price tag and odd design decisions make it less of a straightforward purchase. Engadget Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham gave the tablet a score of 85, praising Apple’s decision to include a landscape-oriented front-facing camera and USB-C charging. The iPad’s fast A14 Bionic processor was also a highlight, as was the more than 10 hours of battery life he found he could get out of the device. However, the fact the new model is $120 more expensive and only compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil means it lands in an awkward place among Apple’s other tablets. At $399, those flaws are easier to overlook.

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

Google will begin rolling out a software update early next week to address an issue with its recently released Nest WiFi Pro mesh router system. In a statement the company shared with The Verge, it said it was “investigating reports of a small number of users experiencing reduced internet speeds” when using the device, adding it was “working to roll out a fix.”

On paper, the Nest WiFi Pro is capable of supporting speeds of up to 5.4Gbps when connected with other WiFi 6E-compatible devices. However, shortly after the system went on sale on October 27th, reports began emerging on the Google Nest Community forums that the Nest WiFi Pro was limiting some to speeds between 40Mbps and 90Mbps. In many instances, those same users found their old WiFi 5 Nest mesh routers were outperforming the new device in speed tests.

It’s worth noting not everyone is seeing slower-than-expected speeds through their Nest WiFi Pro. Google told The Verge the issue is mostly affecting users in the United Kingdom with point-to-point protocol over ethernet (PPPoE) networks. That said, there have also been reports of users in the US and other parts of Europe seeing similarly poor performance.

 

As recently as early last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was considering using NSO Group’s infamous Pegasus spyware in criminal investigations, reports The New York Times. Between late 2020 and early 2021, agency officials were in the “advanced” stages of developing plans to brief FBI leadership on the software, according to internal bureau documents and court records seen by The Times. Those documents also reveal the bureau had developed guidelines for federal prosecutors detailing how the FBI’s use of Pegasus would need to be disclosed during court cases.

Based on the documents, it’s unclear if the FBI had considered using the spyware against American citizens. Earlier this year, The Times found that the agency had tested Phantom, a version of Pegasus that can target phones with US numbers.

By July 2021, the FBI eventually decided not to use Pegasus in criminal investigations. That’s the same month that The Washington Post published an investigation that claimed the software had been used to compromise the phones of two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A few months later, the US placed Pegasus creator NSO Group on the Commerce Department’s entity list, a designation that prevents US companies from conducting business with the firm. Despite the decision not to use Pegasus, the FBI indicated it remains open to using spyware in the future.

“Just because the FBI ultimately decided not to deploy the tool in support of criminal investigations does not mean it would not test, evaluate and potentially deploy other similar tools for gaining access to encrypted communications used by criminals,” states a legal briefing filed by the FBI last month.

The documents appear to present a different picture of the agency’s interest in Pegasus than the one FBI Director Chris Wray shared with Congress during a closed-doors hearing this past December. “If you mean have we used it in any of our investigations to collect or target somebody, the answer is – as I’m assured – no,” he said in response to a question from Senator Ron Wyden. “The reason why I hedge, and I want to be transparent, that we have acquired some of their tools for research and development. In other words, to be able to figure out how bad guys could use it, for example.”

 

Meta will stop any and all development on its smart displays and fledgling smartwatch project, according to Reuters. The company’s executives reportedly told employees — those left after mass layoffs that saw 11,000 people lose their jobs — in a townhall meeting that it would end work on Portal. Meta used to sell Portal to consumers, and the device did enjoy an uptick in sales during the height of the pandemic when people had to stay and work from home. However, the company changed strategies in June and decided to sell them to businesses instead. 

The Information reported at the time that Portal made up less than 1 percent of the global market even with the increase in sales in 2021. Pursuing the consumer segment was probably no longer worth it, and now the company has decided that it’s not worth developing the device at all. Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth reportedly told employees during the meeting: “It was just going to take so long, and take so much investment to get into the enterprise segment, it felt like the wrong way to invest your time and money.”

Meta has yet to release a smartwatch, though there had been reports and leaks over the years about that particular endeavor. Now, we’ll never see it, unless Meta decides to revisit its development years from now. Bosworth said the smartwatch team will now work on the company’s augmented reality glasses and that half of Meta’s investment in Reality Labs is going towards its AR projects. 

In addition to announcing Portal’s demise, the executives also revealed that 54 percent of the people laid off were in business positions, while the rest had technology roles. Teams across the organization were affected, and even employees with high performance ratings were laid off. Meta is combining its voice and video calling unit with other messaging teams, the executives also announced, and it’s forming a new division to solve tough engineering problems. 

Reuters‘ report didn’t say whether the executives revealed when the existing Portal models will be phased out, and if it will keep selling them. It also didn’t mention when support for current devices will end, but we’ve asked Meta for more information and will update this post when we hear more. 

 

Mere hours after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, FTX’s fraught situation worsened dramatically. On late Friday night, the crypto exchange claimed it had been hacked after millions of dollars in digital assets were siphoned from FTX wallets despite the company freezing withdrawals earlier in the day. The exact amount of missing money is unclear, but CoinDesk puts the figure at more than $600 million.

“FTX has been hacked. FTX apps are malware.” the company posted on its official Telegram account. It urged customers to avoid the FTX website and delete its apps from their phones. Following the announcement, FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller said the company was moving all of its digital assets offline “to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions.”

As CoinDesk points out, some crypto community members have speculated the funds may have been withdrawn by someone from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle. Bankman-Fried hasn’t commented on the incident. The missing millions are in addition to at least $1 billion worth of customer funds that vanished from FTX before the company filed for bankruptcy. According to Reuters, Bankman-Fried “secretly transferred” $10 billion from the crypto exchange to his trading company Alameda Research. He reportedly disclosed the financial gap to other FTX executives on November 6th, mere days before Binance announced and subsequently abandoned its bid to rescue the firm.

“We didn’t secretly transfer,” he told Reuters. “We had confusing internal labeling and misread it.” When asked about the missing funds, he reportedly replied “???” On Saturday, Bankman-Fred also denied reports he had flown to Argentina after he resigned as CEO of FTX.

 

Disney CEO Bob Chapek has told division leads in a letter that the company is implementing cost cutting measures in part to help it “achieve the important goal of reaching profitability for Disney+ in fiscal 2024.” Based on the internal memo obtained by CNBC, Disney is planning to limit additions to its workforce through a targeted hiring freeze. It will still welcome new people for the “most critical, business-driving positions,” but all other roles are on hold for now. Chapek has also admitted in his letter that Disney “anticipate[s] some staff reductions” as it looks at all aspects of its business to find places where it can save money. 

Chapek’s letter comes after Disney reported less-than-stellar earnings for the previous quarter. While Disney+ welcomed 12.1 million new subscribers for the company’s fourth fiscal quarter ending on October 1st, the company’s operating loss for streaming jumped from $0.8 billion to $1.5 billion. The company expects its losses to taper off going forward, thanks to its streaming services’ price hikes and the launch of an ad-supported tier on Disney+. In his memo, Chapek also reiterated he is “confident in [the company’s] ability to reach the targets [it has] set,” but Disney clearly intends to tighten its belt until it hits its goals.

Disney is but one of the many companies imposing a hiring freeze due to the economic downturn. When Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced that the Facebook parent company is laying off 11,000 employees, he also said that it’s extending its hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023. Amazon froze hiring at its corporate offices earlier this month, as well.