Category: Technology

Twitter is effectively sunsetting Moments, the company announced on Wednesday. First launched in 2015, the feature allowed users to create curated collections of tweets in a bid to make it easier to follow current events on the platform. “Not all moments last. As of today we’re removing the option to create Moments for users as we focus on improving other experiences,” the Twitter Support account posted, adding previously made Moments would still have a home on the website.

The end of Twitter Moments is unsurprising for a few reasons. Even before Elon Musk bought the company, Twitter had begun to move away from the feature. In 2018, the company removed the ability to create Moments within its Android and iOS apps. “When features aren’t used as often, we’ll remove them, so we can focus on building other products you’ll love,” Twitter noted at the time.

Following Musk’s takeover, it’s likely Moments was identified as a feature that didn’t mesh with his vision for the platform. The billionaire has repeatedly said he aims to simplify Twitter while simultaneously transforming it into a “super app.” The website’s “tweeted from” labels were an early victim of the former inclination. The fact Twitter lost most of its moderation team during its recent layoffs probably made it even easier for the company to decide to stop supporting Moments.

 

When Dyson announced its Zone noise-canceling and air-purifying headphones earlier this year, the company kept some details close to its chest. Specifically, Dyson didn’t announce pricing or availability, nor did it say much about battery life. On Wednesday, it shared that information. Let’s begin with the detail everyone wants to know. When the wearable arrives in the US next March, it will start at an eye-watering $949, making it almost twice as expensive as the AirPods Max.

At first, Dyson will begin accepting preorders by appointment only before the headphones become available through its website and Demo stores across the country. In the US, the company will offer the wearable in two colorways: Ultra Blue/Prussian Blue and Prussian Blue/Bright Copper. The latter will only be available directly from the company, but it comes with a few extras, including a second electrostatic carbon filter, a soft pouch and an inflight adaptor kit.

Both the standard and Dyson Direct models come with the Zone’s signature vizor, as well as a dedicated sleeve and cleaning brush. According to Dyson, the electrostatic filters are rated to provide up to 12 months of use before they should be replaced. The filters feature a dual-layer design that incorporates potassium-enriched carbon to capture acidic gasses like nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone. All told, the company claims the filters will block 99 percent of particles, including ones that are as small as 0.1 microns.

On the audio front, the Zone headphones are capable of up to 38 decibels of noise cancellation and feature 40-millimeter neodymium drivers. You can use the MyDyson companion app to choose between three audio equalization modes dubbed Dyson EQ, Bass Boost and Neutral. At launch, the headphones will support SBC, AAC and LHDC audio codecs, as well as Bluetooth 5.0.

Battery life will depend on how extensively you use the Zone’s air filtration feature. If it’s not powering the Visor, the Zone’s 2,600mAh battery can provide up to 50 hours of listening time on a single charge. Using the visor at its slowest setting reduces battery life to a modest four hours. Increasing purification speed to the “Mid” and “High” flow settings further reduces battery life to two-and-a-half hours and one-and-a-half hours, respectively. Using USB-C charging, Dyson says it will take about three hours to take the battery from dead to 100 percent. All of that means you will need to be selective about when you decide to use the visor.

 

TikTok is now facing its first state lawsuit over data security. Indiana’s Attorney General has sued TikTok for allegedly misleading users about China’s data access and violating child safety. The social media service supposedly broke state consumer law by failing to warn that the Chinese government could theoretically obtain sensitive data. The ByteDance-owned firm also supposedly tricked customers by giving its app a “12+” age rating on the App Store and Google Play, even though kids could readily find drug- and sex-related content.

Indiana wants fines of up to $5,000 for every violation. It’s also asking a state Superior Court to order an end to the purportedly deceptive claims about data handling, and to stop marketing the app toward young teens.

We’ve asked TikTok for comment. The social network has repeatedly denied sharing US user data with the Chinese government and has taken steps to reassure politicians and critics, such as storing American account data stateside by default. It also says there are “robust” approval processes and controls for ByteDance workers who might access data outside the US. TikTok has also limited teens’ access to more mature content, including age gates for some videos.

The lawsuit compounds problems that have emerged for TikTok in recent weeks. Maryland’s governor banned use of the app on state government devices over security concerns, echoing a similar move by South Dakota in late November. The Wall Street Journalsources also claim a potential national security deal with the Biden administration has stalled yet again. While TikTok had a tentative agreement this summer, some officials are concerned the deal didn’t go far enough to limit China’s access.

The lawsuit’s chances are uncertain. Potential access to data doesn’t mean TikTok is being lax, and it’s notable that apps like Facebook and Instagram are also rated 12+ despite the potential to see more adult-oriented material (Twitter is rated 17+). However, the Indiana case puts further pressure on TikTok to explain and potentially modify its practices.

 

Apple’s next iOS update will tighten AirDrop security for everyone. The new default settings will arrive globally in the upcoming iOS 16.2 after the company limited AirDrop use in China, where protestors had used the feature to organize with strangers.

The restriction will put a 10-minute cap on the window for users to share AirDrop files with “everyone.” After that, the setting reverts to “contacts only,” essentially killing its utility in protests. Although Apple tightening up privacy settings may be on-brand, this move stands out because of its timing. The change arrived in China in the iOS 16.1.1 update — after media outlets reported on protestors’ use of the tool to organize, discuss VPNs and denounce President Xi Jinping. At the time, Apple said the feature wouldn’t remain a Chinese exclusive and would roll out globally next year. Less than a month later, it’s in the latest iOS beta.

Apple could be trying to thread the needle between appeasing China — where it manufactures most of its products and makes about 20 percent of its revenue — and limiting the domestic PR damage from acquiescing to an authoritarian regime. By adding the feature globally, the company can deny (if only somewhat plausibly) helping an oppressive government quell protests.

On the other hand, AirDrop’s “everyone” setting has also led to unwanted content like random dick pics from strangers. No matter Apple’s motives, stopping that is a byproduct we can all get behind.

The iOS 16.2 Release Candidate rolled out to developers today. In addition to the AirDrop change, the software adds enhanced end-to-end encryption and an Apple Music karaoke feature.

 

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Theranos’ former chief operating officer, has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison. Balwani was found guilty of all charges in a trial earlier this year that charged him with defrauding the blood testing startup’s patients and investors.

Of note, his sentence is slightly longer than the 11-year and three month sentence given to Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos. Ahead of his sentencing, Balwani’s legal team had asked for probation or house arrest, The Wall Street Journal reported. A probation officer had recommended a nine-year sentence, while prosecutors wanted 15 years in prison.

Balwani will also have to pay restitution, though the amount hasn’t yet been set. He is due to surrender March 15th.

Unlike Holmes, who was not convicted on seven out of 11 total fraud charges in her trial, Balwani was convicted of defrauding Theranos patients in addition to the company’s wealthy investors. As COO, Balwani oversaw the operations of the company’s troubled laboratory, and prosecutors argued that he had detailed knowledge of problems with its blood tests and the risk they posed to patients.

Though Balwani never rose to the same level of fame as his former partner during his time at Theranos, his relationship with Holmes has played heavily into the intrigue surrounding the company’s downfall. Holmes and Balwani’s relationship featured prominently in The Dropout, a Hulu miniseries about Theranos, and text messages between the two were read aloud in both trials. 

When Holmes took the stand in her own defense, she said Balwani had been abusive, and had misled her about issues in the company’s lab. 

Developing…

 

Mindfulness app Calm has a couple new audioscapes to help people relax and drift off, and they’re both from first-party Xbox games. Starting today, folks with a Calm Premium membership can chill out to the ocean vibes of Sea of Thieves or the ambient alien noise of Zeta Halo from Halo Infinite. It’s the first time Calm has added game-themed soundscapes, so let’s hope they’re not interrupted by yells from pirates or the Covenant.

If you aren’t already a Calm Premium member, you’ll be able to access the service for free for three months through an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription perk. After that trial ends, if you want to keep using Calm Premium, you can get 50 percent off a subscription for the first year (an annual plan usually costs $70).

Xbox says it teamed up with Calm as part of its efforts to support players’ mental health and wellbeing. It also createda collection of Game Pass titles that either address mental health issues or provide players with a sense of escapism, such as Persona 5 Royal, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Unpacking and Stardew Valley.

 

Atari is revivingAkka Arrh, a 1982 arcade game canceled because test audiences found it too difficult. For the wave shooter’s remake, the publisher is teaming up with developer Jeff Minter, whose psychedelic, synthwave style seems an ideal fit for what Atari describes as “a fever dream in the best way possible.” The remake will be released on PC, PS5 and PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Atari VCS in early 2023.

The original Akka Arrh cabinet used a trackball to target enemies, as the player controls the Sentinel fixed in the center of the screen to fend off waves of incoming attackers. Surrounding the Sentinel is an octagonal field, which you need to keep clear; if enemies slip in, you can zoom in to fend them off before panning back out to fend off the rest of the wave. Given the simplicity of most games in the early 1980s, it’s unsurprising this relative complexity led to poor test-group screenings.

Since Atari pulled the plug on the arcade version before its release, only three Akka Arrh cabinets are known to exist. But the Minter collaboration isn’t the game’s first public availability. After an arcade ROM leaked online in 2019, Atari released the original this fall as part of its Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration collection.

Atari and Minter worked together in the 1990s, as his company Llamasoft created games like Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar. Unfortunately, the two had a falling out in 2015 when Atari blocked Minter’s spiritual successor of that title from release. However, the two sides patched things up by 2018 when they released Tempest 4000, a Minter-helmed sequel with the IP holder’s blessing.

Atari says the remake has two modes, 50 levels and saves, so you don’t have to start from the beginning when enemies inevitably overrun your Sentinel. Additionally, the company says it offers accessibility settings to tone down the trippy visuals for people sensitive to intense light, color and animations.

 

One of the companies behind text-to-image AI system Stable Diffusion is hosting a film festival exclusively for shorts that were made with AI. Organizers of Runway ML’s AI Film Festival are accepting films with a runtime of between one and 10 minutes that either include AI-generated content or were pieced together with AI-powered editing techniques.

According to Fast Company, Runway said creators won’t be penalized if they use AI tools from other companies. Along with text-to-image generation, creatives can use techniques such as background removal, frame interpolation and motion tracking to help make their films.

“I think we’re heading to a future where a lot of the content and the entertainment and the media that you see online will be generated,” Runway cofounder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela said. While many observers are concerned that content generated by AI might displace human creatives, advocates such as Valenzuela suggest that such tools can level the playing field for budding moviemakers. “What I’m really excited about is how AI is really opening the doors for nontechnical people and creatives at large,” he said.

The AI Film Festival is scheduled to take place in February online and in New York. The submission window is open until January 15th. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t give creatives much time to create a piece and submit it, but they may be able to put together a movie much faster with the help of AI.

The judges, who include Valenzuela and Holly Herndon, will assess the films based on originality, narrative cohesion, the quality of composition and the AI techniques that were employed. The folks behind the top five films will receive cash awards, with the grand prize winner taking away $10,000.

 

In the aftermath of the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush that killed at least 158 people, North Korea’s APT37 state-sponsored hacking group took advantage of a previously unknown Internet Explorer vulnerability to install malware on the devices of South Koreans who were trying to find out about the tragedy, according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group. The team became aware of the recent attack on October 31st after multiple South Koreans uploaded a malicious Microsoft Office document to the company’s VirusTotal tool.

APT37 took advantage of national interest in the Itaewon tragedy by referencing the event in an official-looking document. Once someone opened the doc on their device, it would download a rich text file remote template that would, in turn, render remote HTML using Internet Explorer. According to Google, this is a technique that has been widely used to distribute exploits since 2017, as it allows hackers to take advantage of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer even if someone isn’t using IE as their default web browser.

The JavaScript vulnerability APT37 took advantage of allowed the group to execute arbitrary code. Google informed Microsoft of the zero-day on the same day it became aware of it. On November 8th, Microsoft released a software update to address the exploit. “We’d be remiss if we did not acknowledge the quick response and patching of this vulnerability by the Microsoft team,” Google said.

While the TAG team didn’t get a chance to analyze the final malware APT37 hackers attempted to deploy against their targets, it notes the group is known for using a wide variety of malicious software, including ROKRAT, BLUELIGHT and DOLPHIN. “TAG also identified other documents likely exploiting the same vulnerability and with similar targeting, which may be part of the same campaign,” the team added.

This isn’t the first time Google’s Threat Analysis Group has thwarted an attack by North Korean hackers. At the start of 2021, the team detailed a campaign that targeted security researchers. More recently, the team worked with the Chrome team to address a vulnerability that was used by two North Korean hacking cadres to execute remote code.

 

It’s been a bumper year for gaming on the go. For a spell, it kinda felt like Nintendo was the only name in town, but it’s since become one of the more exciting corners of gaming. Today, there are handheld options for everything from AAA to Indie to retro and beyond. Whatsmore, the current generation of mobile processors means we’re seeing surprisingly capable hardware. The main problem, now, is that the software side of things hasn’t quite caught up. There’s perhaps no better demonstration of this than the Ayaneo Air Pro: a stellar example of what can be done, and what needs improving, in the burgeoning handheld PC world.

If you’re not familiar with Ayaneo, that’s understandable. The company hasn’t been around all that long, but it’s already making a name for itself thanks to remarkably good hardware that brings PC gaming into the portable realm. If you imagine a Steam Deck, but with Windows and a fraction of the size, you wouldn’t be far off.

Before we dive into the gaming experience, the hardware itself is worth a closer look. The Air Pro is impressively well made. It has a similar footprint to Nintendo’s Switch Lite, but it’s thicker (.85 vs .55 inches) and heavier (.88lbs vs .55). In terms of build quality, honestly the Ayaneo feels far superior. The Hall effect analog sticks and triggers are smooth with a nice amount of travel. The D-pad is responsive and the buttons are the right kind of snappy. The centerpiece is the stunning 5.5-inch OLED display – a first on Windows gaming handheld Ayaneo is fond of reminding us. It’s a delight to hold and feels premium in almost every regard. Even the fingerprint reader in the power button somehow adds a dash of sophistication.

As this is basically a PC, there are quite a few different configurations available. Some using AMD’s 5560U chipset and others running the 5825U with assorted amounts of RAM and storage depending on your budget. And you will need a sizable budget as you’ll soon find out.

The Air Pro doesn’t quite have the grunt of Valve’s venerable Steam Deck, but it does run Windows 11 out of the box and can run a surprising amount of high-end games in a more-than-playable fashion. And while the Steam Deck outguns it in terms of processing power, the Air Pro is legitimately portable without too much of a performance tradeoff.

Beyond size and the internals, the other main difference is price. Valve’s handheld tops out at $650 for the 512GB version while the Air Pro starts at $699 (5560U/16GB RAM/512GB storage). You can bring that figure right up to $1,399 if you want the faster silicon, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage – that’s obviously quite spendy. The model we tested was somewhere between middle and top with the superior processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB storage (though all models have expandable memory via a microSD card slot).

There are other gaming handhelds that run Windows, but many are too underpowered to handle a lot of bigger games. Anbernic’s Win600, for example, runs on an older AMD Athlon Silver 3050e chipset with Radeon Vega 3 graphics. This is a significant step down, but then the Win600 only costs $375. Ayn’s Odin can also run Windows, but the ARM-based version which brings with it some compatibility issues. GPD has been in this space for a while, but its Win 3 is looking a little underpowered now (though its Win 4 is coming this month and it looks suitably beefy).

Perhaps most tellingly there are manymore handhelds in the works from companies like Ayn, the aforementioned GPD and others. There’s even a new flagship from the company itself, the Ayaneo 2, that really should cause potential Steam Deck buyers some headaches. These un-released models all have something in common: AMD’s 6800U chipset. It seems there was always an appetite for PC gaming on the go, just we didn’t quite have the required hardware to run it. Until recently.

Technical limitations are one thing, but there’s another more philosophical question that needs answering: Why make a pocketable PC when you can stream a lot of AAA games without the need for expensive, power hungry dedicated hardware? While it’s true streaming is more viable than ever, that approach requires that you have a console or gaming PC in the first place or a subscription to something like GeForce Now or Xbox Cloud which isn’t economically favorable for many folks (not to mention the libraries might not have what you want). Not to mention its dependence on a network connection – good luck with that on in-flight WiFi.

Which brings us back to the real issue: Windows isn’t ready to be used on tiny screens and neither are many of the games that run on it. Ayaneo has tried hard to ameliorate this issue by adding its own launcher called Ayaspace. It serves as a front-end for all your games and manages to provide a vague console-like experience. But it’s not long before the spell is broken and you find yourself using an analog stick as a mouse trying to log-in to Steam and then using a tiny onscreen keyboard to peck out your credentials.

Ayaneo has at least tried to solve some of these inevitable problems. The Air Pro, for example, has two buttons along the top (between LB and RB) that will pull up the onscreen keyboard, double for ESC and other essential Windows shortcuts to make navigating bearable. But you will likely need to plug in a mouse and keyboard at some point just to get something simple done.

It’ll also soon become apparent that AAA games weren’t necessarily made with a small screen in mind. For the most part, games look incredible on the Air Pro’s OLED display. Even when playing games at 720p (the display is 1080p) they still look incredible – but it’s often a necessary tradeoff for performance. You will likely find yourself wishing that display was just a little bit bigger. Not least to get rid of those bezels, but just for general quality of life.

Not least for games where there’s a lot of text. Titles like Disco Elysium, for example, have a lot of written dialog – and while it’s easy enough to read for the most part, it’s noticeably more fatiguing than if you were on a desktop. Thankfully, the display is sharp and the resolution is high enough that it’s all still very legible, but there’s just that vague sense of a UI that wasn’t built for a display of this size.

If you’re thinking “Why not just run SteamOS on it” you wouldn’t be alone. It’s been done with varying degrees of success. The bigger issue might just come down to the practicality (millions of games available, wide hardware support) and reach of Windows. There are some more mundane challenges with SteamOS that don’t make it a shoo-in replacement for these handhelds. Primarily, game compatibility. If it’s not available on Steam, you can probably still install it on SteamOS but it might involve flipping to desktop mode or other workarounds which breaks the “console” experience you might have been seeking in the first place.

More importantly, some users are actually reporting better battery life with Windows on the Steam Deck despite expecting it to be worse. The claims are that it’s broadly equivalent but in some cases even better than Valve’s native operating system thanks to a combination of factors. PC gaming has a lot of variables, so this isn’t necessarily that surprising. This isn’t always going to be the case, but it’s at least not a strong incentive for making SteamOS the go-to platform for portable PC gaming.

Battery life is especially important with a handheld and it would be a lie to say it’s something that the Ayaneo Air Pro excels at. Or even does adequately at. Depending on what you’re playing and the power drain – usually called TDP – required for it to run satisfactorily. More demanding games will need a TDP of 12 Watts or above and you can hope for about an hour and 45 minutes battery life at this intensity. Some games can run just fine at 8W which will extend play time to around 2.3 hours. You can get over three hours of life on the lowest 5W setting but this won’t be enough for anything but the lightest of games but it’s good for general setup tasks and the like.

Needless to say, this isn’t ideal for a handheld, especially as your battery pack likely won’t cut it – unless it can deliver 65W, which most can’t.

In short, the Ayaneo Air Pro represents a lot of hope and shines a light on some challenges. Hope in that true PC gaming on the go in a pocket-friendly format and on fantastic hardware, feels like it might finally be here. It’s the challenges that are a little more complicated. Windows has a lot of advantages, but also plenty of practical drawbacks. Whether it’s a case of adapting the hardware around these, or just a matter of a smart software overlay is being figured out in real time it seems.

Making a truly “console” experience will require some clever thinking and equally clever software. Ayaneo, for its part, is also working on its own Ayaneo OS that’s Linux-based like SteamOS. Whether this will resolve some of the challenges remains to be seen, but it’s clearly something that’s being worked on. But that just accounts for one company. With other manufacturers with ties to Windows like GPD there’s a risk of ending up with a mishmash of approaches. Hopefully, though, with more competition comes more innovation (or more ideas to be “borrowed”).

For some, the exciting part is to finally have more options to enjoy high-end gaming away from the PC. Not everyone is looking to spend more time at a desktop, or maybe you just want to scratch that Elden-itch while waiting for a flight. Whatever your preference, things are about to get a lot more interesting.