Meta has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas in order to resolve a lawsuit that accused the company of illegally using facial recognition technology. The suit alleges that Meta used this tech to collect the biometric data of millions of Texans without consent. The agreement marks the largest financial settlement ever paid out to a single state.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2022 and was the first big case brought under the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, which was put into place back in 2009. A provision of this law mandates up to $25,000 per violation and Texas accused Meta of violating the statute “billions of times” via photos and videos that users uploaded to Facebook that were tagged without consent.
Additionally, the original suit could have led to an additional $10,000 per alleged violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. In other words, Meta just saved itself a bunch of money, considering the sheer number of alleged violations and a maximum financial penalty of $35,000 each.
🚨BREAKING NEWS: We have secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the company’s practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) July 30, 2024
A spokesperson for Meta told Reuters that it’s happy the matter is settled and that the company is "exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.” The company, however, continues to deny any wrongdoing, though it has shut down its automated facial recognition system.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking something of a victory lap, declaring in an official statement that the state is fully committed to “standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating” privacy rights. Texas and Meta reached this settlement just weeks before a court trial was set to begin.
“Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being,” Paxton said when the suit was originally filed. “This is yet another example of Big Tech’s deceitful business practices and it must stop.”
This isn’t the first time Meta has had to issue a large payout to a state regarding the alleged collection of biometric data. The company agreed to pay Illinois $650 million back in 2020 to settle a similar class action suit. That suit alleged that the company had violated a privacy law that requires companies to get explicit consent before collecting biometric data from users. Once again, Meta denied any wrongdoing.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-will-pay-14-billion-to-texas-settling-biometric-data-collection-suit-165451338.html?src=rss
When I attended the first hands-off briefing for Star Wars Outlaws at Summer Game Fest 2023, I left Ubisoft’s demo room on a high, thinking this could be the piece of media that finally pulls me into the Star Wars universe. I loved the focus on a solo protagonist, Kay Vess, and her cute merqaal pet, Nix. I adored the fact that developers said the game would tell a cohesive, linear story, rather than throwing players into an unfocused open world and calling it AAA. I was eager to get my hands on it.
Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to access two different previews of Star Wars Outlaws, and my initial excitement has been tempered. It’s not completely extinguished, but the slices that I’ve played have reinforced a bloaty vibe underpinned by unclear navigation and generic combat. I still think Star Wars Outlaws is a pretty game with interesting character designs and environments, but I’m now less hopeful about everything else it’s offering — you know, the elements that haven’t been plucked directly out of the existing Star Wars universe.
Ubisoft
The sections I’ve played of Star Wars Outlaws span cosmic dogfights, parkour levels in metal-lined space stations and military bases, and stealth missions against roaming Stormtroopers and interstellar criminal factions. I also hopped on a speeder and had a great time flying over the dunes of Toshara with Nix on the back of my bike; one thing I’m definitely looking forward to in the full game is entering hovercraft races.
As for the bits I actually played, I would describe the overall theme as confusing. I encountered a head-scratching moment in the first minutes of my initial preview at Summer Game Fest 2024 in June: I crawled through a busted, rocky base and found myself at the mouth of a cliffside cave, the mountain too steep to climb down and the ground too far away for a leap of faith. I stood there and searched for an indication of where to go next, scanning the scenery from side to side and top to bottom, but nothing jumped out. So, I jumped.
This was the incorrect move, and I died and reset. After searching the edge of the cave for a few more minutes and second-guessing whether I was in the proper location, a Ubisoft spokesperson pointed out a strip of coiled metal high above my head — literally as far up as Kay’s field of view would go and blended in with the foliage. An inconspicuous white label identified it as an interactable object, but the entire thing was incredibly easy to miss. I pushed R3 on the controller and hooked onto it with my grappling gun, feeling incredibly dumb. Unfortunately, this was a repeated experience (and feeling) throughout the preview levels.
Engadget
One of the selling points of Star Wars Outlaws is its parkour-style mechanics, where Kay climbs metal grids, slides along shallow ledges by her fingertips and uses her grappling hook to swing across gaps. However, these mechanics are hit-or-miss, draining the flow from any attempted parkour action. The climbable grids are highlighted in a dull yellow that doesn’t exactly stand out against rusted metal walls, and even when Kay jumps directly to them, she sometimes fails to connect. This happened to me during both previews, in different sections of the game, and the second instance led me to think the grid wasn’t actually climbable at all. I wasted a good chunk of time farting around the affected area before considering another jump to the grid. It worked, but the loop left me frustrated.
I don’t mind some enmeshed, not-obvious traversal points in my games, but Star Wars Outlaws seems to take this idea too far.
Navigating the environments was also weirdly challenging. I got lost in multiple areas in my previews, even with a responsive HUD and highlighted objective markers on the screen the whole time. The little yellow indicator was difficult to follow through maze-like settlements filled with similar-looking stalls, stairwells and hallways, and tracking objectives only got harder once blaster fights broke out. I never want to wonder where the hell I’m supposed to be going in the middle of intense combat, but Star Wars Outlaws served up this situation multiple times.
Ubisoft
I enjoyed some sections of the game just fine, particularly the final mission that I played. On the icy planet Kijimi, I snuck into a protected, two-story ballroom on a mission to steal an object in the center of the space. Nix is always by Kay’s side and he can be instructed to collect shinies, flip switches, and distract or attack enemies, and I made him do all of these things during this mission. The stealth mechanics in Star Wars Outlaws are straightforward — crouch to be sneaky — and enemies are generally oblivious unless you’re directly in their line of sight. In rooms with two enemies, it’s best to send Nix after one guard while silently taking down the other, and then finish off the attacked, disoriented foe as Nix scurries away. I employed this tactic to great success, and even once a blaster battle broke out anyway, I had a good time lobbing grenades and landing headshots in this level.
My time on Kijimi gives me hope that maybe I just need a few uninterrupted hours with Star Wars Outlaws for the game to really click. I’m intrigued by its reputation system, where players can track their standing with various interstellar criminal networks, altering the level of access Kay will have with the associated areas and characters. Hacking doors and safes involves a screwdriver and a little rhythm game, and the process is satisfying every time. The speeder controls well and I’m stoked to try out some actual races once I practice a little more. Space battles are dizzying and perfectly serviceable. Nix is adorable in every situation. There’s plenty to look forward to here, but I can’t forget the frustration that’s seemingly built into the climbing mechanics, grappling hook and nav system.
Ubisoft
I’m concerned that Star Wars Outlaws has fallen victim to classic AAA bloat, offering a big universe of mediocre experiences, some of them half-functional and the rest lacking depth or innovation. In the game’s previews, there are hints that this is the case. As always though, I’m prepared to be surprised.
If I had advice for anyone interested in Star Wars Outlaws — and this still includes me, just barely — it would be this: Look up. Like way up.
Apple’s AirPods Pro high-end earbuds are on sale via Amazon for just $180. That’s a discount of nearly 30 percent and nearly matches a record-low price. This deal is for the most-recent second-generation device.
There’s a reason why these earbuds are the crown jewel of Apple’s lineup. They are just that good. The AirPods Pro easily made our list of the best wireless earbuds. We called them a “huge improvement over the previous models” and called out the stellar sound quality and active noise cancellation. The transparency mode is more natural-sounding than rival products and the new swipe gesture works better than one would think.
We also heaped praise in our official review on the included charging case. We loved the built-in speaker, which helps locate the earbuds and alerts users to a low battery. The battery life is on-point, with six hours for the earbuds and 30 hours with repeated trips to the charging case. There’s multipoint connectivity, IPX4 water-resistance and a simulated spatial audio. Did we mention they also sound fantastic, particularly for earbuds?
On the downside, Apple loves money. The case features a lanyard loop, for instance, but it’ll cost you $13 to get an official lanyard. The original price is also extremely high, at $250, though this deal alleviates some of that frustration.
These aren’t the only Apple earbuds currently on sale via Amazon. The regular third-gen AirPods are available for $130, instead of $170. Also, the second-gen OG AirPods are available for just $70, which is one heck of a deal.
It's the middle of summer for those of us in the northern hemisphere, which means many of us are getting out and about to make the most of the warm weather. But there's little worse than finding yourself mid-hike or with several more acts to go at a festival only to find your phone is out of juice. To help you stay in touch with friends and share envy-inducing photos on Instagram, you might need a portable charger, and a solid Anker options is currently on sale.
The Anker 334 MagGo Battery with a 10,000mAh capacity is 21 percent off at $31.49. It typically costs $40.
This model is a strong choice for iPhone users as it's MagSafe-compatible. According to Anker, you'll be able to charge an iPhone 15 Pro 1.7 times over and an iPhone 15 Pro Max 1.2 times thanks to its decently sized battery. The company also suggests that the power bank could add up to 22 hours of video playback time to an iPhone 14.
The power bank delivers 7.5W of wireless charging. It's unlikely to easily budge from the back of your iPhone as it has 10N of magnetic force, which is more than Apple's own MagSafe charger.
On the downside, you'll need a compatible device to use this. The Anker 334 MagGo Battery only works with the iPhone 12 and later models. If you have a case that isn't MagSafe-compatible, you'll need to remove that first too. In addition, wireless charging is slower than simply plugging your phone in, but that's perhaps less of a concern when you're off camping for a weekend.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-snag-an-anker-10k-magsafe-power-bank-now-for-32-143426995.html?src=rss
If you're having a little trouble with Microsoft Office or Teams today, you're not alone. The company has reported some Azure-related issues that are preventing some users from accessing certain services. The problems started at around 8AM on Tuesday.
Microsoft reported on a status page that "a subset of customers may experience issues connecting to Microsoft services globally." The company deployed several engineering teams to try and resolve the problem as swiftly as possible. "We've identified multiple workstreams and are working to mitigate impacted workstreams by performing failover operations," it said in a statement. "More details will be provided as they become available."
For what it's worth, there was a significant spike in outage reports made to Down Detector on Tuesday morning for both Microsoft and Microsoft 365. Here's hoping the issue is resolved soon so you can rejoin Teams calls you never wanted to be on in the first place.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/some-microsoft-services-including-office-are-suffering-from-an-outage-142757596.html?src=rss
Our pick for the best budget MacBook is back at its all-time low price. Right now, you can get the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M2 chip for its Prime Day price of $799, down from $999. The deal is available on the 256GB models in Silver, Space Gray or Starlight, but doesn't include AppleCare+.
We dubbed this MacBook Air a "near-perfect Mac" when it debuted in 2022, giving it a 96 in our review. Some of the features that stood out to us included the M2 chip, which has eight CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores. Apple might be up to the M4 chip now, but if you're looking for a device that can do all the basics without struggling, then an M2 is plenty strong enough.
Apple's 2022 MacBook Air also offers a Liquid Retina Display with a 60Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness. The entire device is also slimmer and sleeker than its predecessor. Plus, it has a quad-speaker system, compatibility with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio and a three-mic array.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m2-macbook-air-drops-back-down-to-a-record-low-of-799-135526109.html?src=rss
When people type a question into Perplexity, the two-year-old search engine scours the internet and uses information from multiple sources, including online publishers, to synthesize an answer using AI. Soon, Perplexity will start sharing revenue with some publishers as part of an advertising platform it plans to launch around the end of September, the company announced on Tuesday.
The initiative, known as the Perplexity Publishers’ Program, comes less than two months after the San Francisco-based startup backed by investors like Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA, and valued at $3 billion, came under fire from Forbes, Wired, and Condé Nast for allegedly scraping content without permission and ignoring robots.txt, a type of file that websites use to block page-crawling bots.
Perplexity’s initial partners include TIME, Fortune, The Texas Tribune, Der Spiegel and Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. It’s not clear exactly how much revenue Perplexity will share with publishers. Dmitry Shevelenko, the company’s chief business officer, declined to reveal numbers but told Engadget that it would be a “meaningful double-digit percentage shared back with the publishers that contributed source input to the answer." He also said that the partnership would extend across multiple years without specifying how many. What this wasn’t, Shevelenko insisted repeatedly, was a response to the critical press coverage in the last few months. “We’ve been talking to publishers since January,” he claimed. “No aspect of this program is reactive to these recent accusations.”
For months, publishers around the world have been concerned about the potential of AI-powered search engines and chatbots to decimate traffic by simply sucking up their content and using it to provide people with answers directly instead of having to actually visit their websites. Google has followed suit too — the company now sources answers from search results and displays AI-generated versions at the top of the page. But so far, it doesn’t compensate publishers.
“[Our revenue share] is certainly a lot more than Google’s revenue share with publishers, which is zero,” Shevelenko said. “The idea here is that we’re making a long-term commitment. If we’re successful, publishers will also be able to generate this ancillary revenue stream.” Perplexity, he pointed out, was the first AI-powered search engine to include citations to sources when it launched in August 2022, although the company reportedly redesigned its user interface to show them more prominently after being called out by Forbes in June.
AI companies like OpenAI have struck deals with major publishers including TIME, News Corp, Vox, Axel Springer, the Financial Times and others to use their content to train AI models, writing checks ranging from $5 million to $250 million. Perplexity’s revenue-sharing program, however, is different: instead of writing publishers large checks, Perplexity plans to share revenue each time the search engine uses their content in one of its AI-generated answers. The search engine has a “Related” section at the bottom of each answer that currently shows follow-up questions that users can ask the engine. When the program rolls out, Perplexity plans to let brands pay to show specific follow-up questions in this section. Shevelenko told Engadget that the company is also exploring more ad formats such as showing a video unit at the top of the page. “The core idea is that we run ads for brands that are targeted to certain categories of query,” he said.
Perplexity
This makes sense for Perplexity because it does not train its own AI models. Instead, it lets users choose from leading AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Meta’s Llama 3.1 to summarize answers from the web. “It’s very simple,” Shelevenko said, “if we’re making money and a publisher’s content was used on that ad impression, the publisher will get a cut of that revenue.”
But without knowing how much percentage of ad revenue Perplexity plans to split with publishers, it’s unclear whether the move will help publishers make up for any revenue lost due to declining traffic as AI-generated search engines and chatbots become more popular. And breaking into an online advertising business dominated by Google and Meta isn’t easy. “Setting up an ads business takes time,” Toshit Panigrahi, founder of Tollbit, a startup that lets publishers monetize content by offering it to AI companies for a fee they can set themselves, told Engadget. “Publishers are expected to hand over content today in the hopes that Perplexity sets up a successful ads business and cuts them in.”
Shevelenko refused to comment on the recent controversies that Perplexity has been involved in with publishers but acknowledged that onboarding them had become harder in the last few months. “Some [of our conversations] were in a great place,” he said, “and then the bad press hit and then they kind of, you know raised more questions.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/perplexity-will-put-ads-in-its-ai-search-engine-and-share-revenue-with-publishers-130052289.html?src=rss
Tesla has issued a recall on 1.8 million vehicles across the United States, Reuters reports, a sizeable number even for a company that is no stranger to this turn of events. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced the recall due to a risk of software failure to notify individuals of a detached hood.
A hood that isn't properly secured could detach while a person is driving and block their view. Tesla has issued an over-the-air software update that should fix the issue. The recall is on select Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicles from 2021 to 2024. It also impacts Model Y vehicles from 2020-2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-recalls-18-million-vehicles-over-risk-of-detached-hoods-140049560.html?src=rss
NASA TV is shutting down in August. The space agency is saying goodbye to its cable channel, which is available on Dish, DirecTV and similar services, as well as on local television providers. Going forward, it will put all its focus on NASA+, its on-demand streaming service that will serve as home to all its documentaries and live event coverage.
NASA+ has apparently gained four times more viewership than the agency's traditional cable channel since it was launched in November last year. "In a universe where the way we consume information is rapidly changing, NASA+ is helping us inspire and connect with our current generation of explorers: the Artemis Generation," said Marc Etkind from NASA's Office of Communication
The agency's streaming service is completely free and doesn't have ads. Viewers can access it via the official NASA app for iOS and Android when they're on mobile devices, but they can also get the agency's app for Roku, Apple TV or Fire TV if they want to watch on a bigger screen. To watch NASA's coverage and shows on a computer, users can visit the official NASA+ website on their browsers.
In addition to announcing its cable channel's closure, NASA has also revealed its upcoming lineup for new shows, episodes and live event coverage. One of the upcoming documentaries entitled Planetary Defenders tackles humanity's efforts at asteroid detection and planetary defense, while Our Alien Earth will show NASA scientists' field work in the most extreme environments all over the world to aid in the discovery of extraterrestrial life in the universe.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-will-shut-down-nasa-tv-on-cable-to-focus-on-nasa-120015334.html?src=rss
In a fireside chat on Monday between NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the SIGGRAPH 2024, the latter dropped the f-bomb. After exchanging leather jackets (apparently two billionaires can’t get custom-made jackets that fit), the two talked about the future of AI, chatbots and open large language models.
Zuckerberg launched into a lengthy rant about his frustrations with “closed” ecosystems, like Apple’s App Store. None of that is new — the Meta founder has been feuding with Apple for years.
Zuckerberg, decked out in the aforementioned leather jacket and chain, said: “There have been too many things that I’ve tried to build and have been told ‘nah, you can’t really build that’ by the platform provider that, at some level, I’m just like, ‘nah, fuck that.’”
It’s the latest public step along his rebrand/ midlife crisis/bit of both. MMA training, “Carthage must die” tees and rebellious banter all have more than a whiff of Succession’s Kendall Roy.
It’s always fun to do a 180 on a newsletter from the day before. Apple’s long-awaited take on artificial intelligence is, well, rolling out. Whoops.
The developer betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 just dropped, and they include some of the first Apple Intelligence features. If you have Apple developer accounts, you can update software and go into settings to see a new option for Apple Intelligence. There, you’ll have to join a waitlist, but it shouldn’t take longer than a few hours.
The update includes writing tools for proofreading, rewriting or summarizing text. You’ll also gain the ability to create Memories in the redesigned Photos app, as well as transcribe live calls in the Phone app. Features not yet available are Genmoji, Image Playground, ChatGPT integration, Cleanup in Photos and upgraded Siri.
Now there’s more foldable competition than ever, how does Samsung’s latest flip-phone fare? While Z Flip 6’s design has remained largely the same, Samsung made several under-the-hood upgrades this year, with improved battery life and cameras. It makes the best case yet for mainstream foldables, but the company could do more, especially in using the secondary front screen. That said, the new AI features are a lot of fun.
Sony announced a themed PS5 DualSense controller to coincide with its incoming Astro Bot game. The game, like the VR title before it, taps into all the tricks and features of the DualSense controller, so the collab is a no-brainer in a lot of ways. It costs $80 and ships September 6, the same day as the game.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-mark-zuckerberg-is-surprisingly-angry-about-closed-platforms-115711926.html?src=rss