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There’s never been a better time to buy the Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen), as it has fallen to another new low on Amazon. Both sizes (40mm and 44mm) are available with discounts of $70, with the 40mm GPS Watch SE starting at just $179, or 28 percent ($70) off and the 44mm model starting at $209 (25 percent off). That’s an all-time low, besting the $189 price we saw just two days ago. 

With solid performance, a familiar design and support for numerous apps, the 2022 Watch SE scored a solid 89 in our Engadget review. It looks nearly identical to the latest Watch models, and delivers smooth performance despite the slightly older processor. Most importantly, it offer all the same features you’d get in the more expensive models, like all-day heart rate monitoring, built-in GPS, fall detection, Apple Pay support, sleep-tracking and more. Battery life has also been improved over the previous model.

It doesn’t include a blood oxygen sensor or ECG, nor the always-on display of the Series 8 or Series 9 models. If those things aren’t terribly important, you’ll still get a full Watch experience. The other main drawbacks with all Watch models are sleep tracking that doesn’t quite measure up to the competition, and less than a full day of battery life.

If you want the higher-end models, there’s more good news too. All the Watch Series 8 models are on sale, starting at $299 for the Watch Series 8 (GPS 41mm), $329 for the Watch Series 9 (in red only, $100 off) and $359 for the Watch Series 9 in other colors.  

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-watch-se-falls-to-another-new-low-in-black-friday-sale-110511086.html?src=rss 

Starfield just received some key updates promised by Bethesda a couple of months ago, the developer announced. Version 1.8.86 comes with DLSS support that finally gives users with supported NVIDIA cards features including DLSS Super Resolution, Deep Learning Anti-aliasing (DLAA), Reflex Low Latency and DLSS frame generation. That should assuage numerous grumbling users, many of whom used a controversial DLSS mod to tide themselves over. 

Along with DLSS, the update includes GPU performance optimizations that will help users with higher-end cards. Bethesda has also addressed memory leaks and other related issues, improved renderer threading and made a number of other stability and performance improvements. On the graphics side, it added brightness and contrast controls (!), while addressing issues around ambient occlusion, shader compilation, HDR brightness (Xbox and Windows 11 only), material issues, crowd character eyes and more.

Gameplay also sees some welcome updates. You can now “eat the food placed in the world” via a “consume button” without having to add items to inventory, a nice quality-of-life fix. Bethesda also adjusted stealth to be more forgiving, resolved the problem of Andreja’s head staying permanently cloaked, fixed an issue that could prevent players from firing weapons, resolved a problem with naked NPCs, fixed mouse issues and more. It also resolved quest problems that mostly revolve around inconsistent game play. 

Bethesda beta tested the new features earlier this month on Steam before deeming them fit for release. In September, it said that it’s “working closely” with NVIDIA, AMD and Intel on driver support, possibly in response to a Digital Foundry technical report saying the game had “disproportionately poor NVIDIA and Intel performance.” Starfield is among the best-selling games of 2023 (thanks in part to being free on Game Pass), with the company having reported 10 million players as of the end of September. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/starfield-update-brings-dlss-support-and-a-number-of-fixes-092050462.html?src=rss 

US Senator Ron Wyden wants the public to know about the details surrounding the long-running Hemisphere phone surveillance program. Wyden has written US Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter (PDF), asking him to release additional information about the project that apparently gives law enforcement agencies access to trillions of domestic phone records. In addition, he said that federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies have the ability to request “often-warrantless searches” from the project’s phone records that AT&T has been collecting since 1987. 

The Hemisphere project first came to light in 2013 when The New York Times reported that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was paying AT&T to mine and keep records of its customers’ phone calls. Four billion new records are getting added to its database every day, and a federal or state law enforcement agency can request a query with a subpoena that they can issue themselves. Any law enforcement officer can send in a request to a single AT&T analyst based in Atlanta, Georgia, Wyden’s letter says, even if they’re seeking information that’s not related to any drug case. And apparently, they can use Hemisphere not just to identify a specific number, but to identify the target’s alternate numbers, to obtain location data and to look up the phone records of everyone who’s been in communication with the target. 

The project has been defunded and refunded by the government several times over the past decade and was even, at one point, receiving federal funding under the name “Data Analytical Services (DAS).” Usually, projects funded by federal agencies would be subject to a mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment conducted by the Department of Justice, which means their records would be made public. 

However, Hemisphere’s funding passes through a middleman, so it’s not required to go through mandatory assessment. To be specific, ONDCP funds the program through the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is a regional funding organization that distributes federal anti-drug law grants and is governed by a board made up of federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The DOJ had provided Wyden’s office with “dozens of pages of material” related to the project in 2019, but they had been labeled “Law Enforcement Sensitive” and cannot be released to the public. 

“I have serious concerns about the legality of this surveillance program, and the materials provided by the DOJ contain troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress,” Wyden wrote in his letter. “While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court. The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-senator-calls-for-the-public-release-of-att-hemisphere-surveillance-records-083627787.html?src=rss 

X has filed a lawsuit against media watchdog group Media Matters over the latter’s research that showed ads on the social network appearing next to antisemitic content. The company’s owner, Elon Musk, promised to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the organization late last week following an advertiser exodus. In its complaint, X said Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white national fringe content.” It added that the group portrayed the “manufactured images” as if they represented the typical user’s experience in the platform. “Media Matters designed both these images and the resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp,” the company wrote. 

As TechCrunch notes, though, Media Matters didn’t exactly “manufacture” the images it used with its research. Based on X’s own investigation as it detailed in its lawsuit, the organization used an account older than 30 days to bypass the website’s ad filters to follow a set of users known to produce “extreme, fringe content” along with the biggest advertisers on the platform. The group then allegedly kept on scrolling and refreshing its feed to generate “between 13 to 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user.” X said the watchdog didn’t provide any context regarding the “forced, inauthentic nature” of the advertisements it saw. It also didn’t say why these accounts that are known to produce “extreme, fringe content” were monetized.

In a response to Media Matters’ research, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said “not a single authentic user on X saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to the content in Media Matters’ article.” She added that “only two users saw Apple’s ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters.” But Media Matters head Angelo Carusone retweeted several posts from seemingly authentic users showing ads for searches and tags such as “killjews” and “HeilHitler.” We reached out to the organization about the lawsuit, and a spokesperson told Engadget: “This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X’s critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court.”

Aside from X’s lawsuit, Media Matters also has to grapple with an investigation by Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas. Paxton said his office is looking into Media Matters, which he called “a radical anti-free speech” organization, for potential fraudulent activity. He said he’s investigating the watchdog to “ensure that the public has not been deceived by the schemes of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square.”

The media watchdog had published its findings after X owner Elon Musk responded to a tweet that said Jews pushed “hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” Musk wrote: “You have said the actual truth.” Several big-name advertisers had pulled their campaigns from the platform following the incidents, including IBM, Apple, Disney, Paramount and Comcast. Meanwhile, Lionsgate specifically cited Elon’s tweet as the reason for pulling its ads. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-lawsuit-accuses-media-matters-of-running-a-campaign-to-drive-advertisers-away-from-its-website-040022933.html?src=rss