Tag Archives: author_name|Mariella Moon

NFC Forum wants to bundle age verification and payment receipts in tap-to-pay

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The NFC Forum, the non-profit org made up of big tech companies promoting the NFC standard, envisions a future wherein one tap is all you need for multiple actions at once. With a single tap, for instance, you could pay for your purchase, get points on your rewards account and receive a digital receipt on your phone. The organization released a document that can give you an overview of what the NFC multi-purpose tap capability is and how it can potentially be used. 

It explains that the multi-purpose tap "leverages the capability of NFC devices to allow both reading and writing of data across a connection." That enables several actions, which typically requires multiple stages, to be accomplished at one time. If you're buying alcohol, tapping to pay for it would also verify your identity and your age. You could also get a product's sustainability information, including ways its packaging can be recycled, on your phone the moment you pay for it.

For public transit, the technology could ensure you're getting charged the correct fare, taxes and concessions every time. If the ride you're taking requires a ticket that you'll need to show a conductor, operators will be able to automatically issue you an e-ticket when you pay with the new multi-purpose tap experience. 

As The Verge notes, the capability does raise some privacy concerns, seeing as it automates everything, including identity verification. In addition, it will allow companies to trigger targeted marketing communications that you'll then get straight on your smartphone. Multi-purpose tap is still in its very early stages at the moment, though, and the NFC Forum is seeking contributions as it looks at market use cases for the technolog. The organization — which includes Apple, Google and Huawei, among other tech companies and manufacturers — still has to conduct tests to make sure the NFC technology is working as intended, as well, and to define standards to "enable mass market delivery."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nfc-forum-wants-to-bundle-age-verification-and-payment-receipts-in-tap-to-pay-043046883.html?src=rss

US Treasury finalizes crypto rules to prevent tax evasion

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While people who own and sell cryptocurrency have always had to pay taxes on their earnings, a new rule finalized by the US Treasury Department can ensure that they're paying the proper amount on their sales. The new rule will require cryptocurrency platforms like exchanges and payment processors to report their users' transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. According to The Wall Street Journal, authorities are hoping that the measure can deter tax evasion, seeing as the IRS would know exactly how much a taxpayer owes. 

At the same time, the rule will make it much easier for people for declare their earnings because their brokers will now have to provide them with a 1099 form. The IRS released a draft form of 1099-DA (Digital Asset Proceeds From Broker Transaction) made especially to track crypto transactions last year and will make the final version available soon. To note, the rule sets a threshold of $10,000 to report on transactions involving stablecoin, which are cryptocurrencies that track fiat money like the US dollar. 

"[I]nvestors in digital assets and the IRS will have better access to the documentation they need to easily file and review tax returns,” Aviva Aron-Dine, the Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for tax policy, said in a statement. “By implementing the law’s reporting requirements, these final regulations will help taxpayers more easily pay taxes owed under current law, while reducing tax evasion by wealthy investors.”

The new rule will only apply to platforms that take possession of digital assets, such as Coinbase or Binance. It doesn't cover decentralized ones, which will have to comply with a separate rule that's expected to be finalized later this year. Brokers will have to start reporting sales proceeds on digital assets in 2026 for all transactions accomplished in 2025, which means crypto traders are still on their own for 2024. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-treasury-finalizes-crypto-rules-to-prevent-tax-evasion-143051676.html?src=rss

Amazon reportedly investigating Perplexity AI after accusations it scrapes websites without consent

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Amazon Web Services has started an investigation to determine whether Perplexity AI is breaking its rules, according to Wired. To, be precise, the company's cloud division is reportedly looking into allegations that the service is using a crawler, which is hosted on its servers, that ignores the Robots Exclusion Protocol. This protocol is a web standard, wherein developers put a robots.txt file on a domain containing instructions on whether bots can or can't access a particular page. Complying with those instructions is voluntary, but crawlers from reputable companies have generally been respecting them since web developers started implementing the standard in the '90s. 

In an earlier piece, Wired reported that it discovered a virtual machine that was bypassing its website's robots.txt instructions. That machine was hosted on an Amazon Web Services server using the IP address 44.221.181.252 that's "certainly operated by Perplexity." It reportedly visited other Condé Nast properties hundreds of times over the past three months to scrape their content, as well. The Guardian, Forbes and The New York Times had also detected it visiting their publications multiple times, Wired said. To confirm whether Perplexity truly was scraping its content, Wired entered headlines or short descriptions of its articles into the company's chatbot. The tool then responded with results that closely paraphrased its articles "with minimal attribution." 

A recent Reuters report claimed that Perplexity isn't the only AI company that's bypassing robots.txt files to gather content used to train large language models. However, it seems like Wired only provided Amazon with information on Perplexity AI's crawler. "AWS’s terms of service prohibit abusive and illegal activities and our customers are responsible for complying with those terms," Amazon Web Services told us in a statement. "We routinely receive reports of alleged abuse from a variety of sources and engage our customers to understand those reports." The spokesperson also added that the company's cloud division told Wired it was investigating information the publication provided as it does all reports of potential violations. 

Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick told Wired that the company has already responded to Amazon's inquiries and denied that its crawlers are bypassing the Robots Exclusion Protocol. "Our PerplexityBot — which runs on AWS — respects robots.txt, and we confirmed that Perplexity-controlled services are not crawling in any way that violates AWS Terms of Service," she said. Platnick told us that Amazon looked into Wired's media inquiry only as part of a standard protocol for investigating reports of abuse of its resources. The company has apparently not heard from Amazon about any type of investigation before Wired contacted the company. Platnick admitted to Wired, however, that PerplexityBot will ignore robots.text when a user includes a specific URL in their chatbot inquiry. 

Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, also previously denied that his company is "ignoring the Robot Exclusions Protocol and then lying about it." Srinivas did admit to Fast Company that Perplexity uses third-party web crawlers on top of its own, and that the bot Wired identified was one of them.

Update, June 28, 2024, 2:20PM ET: We have updated this post to add Perplexity's statement to Engadget.

Update, June 28, 2024, 8:27PM ET: We have updated this post to a statement from Amazon Web Services. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-investigating-perplexity-ai-after-accusations-it-scrapes-websites-without-consent-133003374.html?src=rss

Ubisoft CEO says Assassin’s Creed remakes are in the works

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Older Assassin's Creed titles are about to get modern reimaginings, mostly likely with better graphics and other improvements for newer consoles and more powerful PCs. Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft, has revealed in an interview on the company's website that Assassin's Creed remakes are in the works when he was asked what's next for the franchise. The remakes will allow the company to revisit and modernize older worlds it has created, he explained, telling the interviewer that "there are worlds in some of [its] older Assassin's Creed games that are still extremely rich."

Guillemot also said that Ubisoft's goal is to have Assassin's Creed games come out more regularly, "but not for it to be the same experience every year." The upcoming Assassin's Creed Hexe that's set during the witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire is "going to be a very different game from Assassin's Creed Shadows," he said. Shadows is set in Japan at the end of the Sengoku era and features real events and historical figures from that period, including feudal lord Oda Nobunaga. It will be available worldwide on November 15. 

While Guillemot didn't say which titles Ubisoft is remaking, Kotaku previously reported that it's working on a new version of Black Flag. The action-adventure game, which focuses on 18th century pirates, was released back in 2013 and was one of the most beloved entries in the franchise. Ubisoft is also expected to launch a new platform called "Animus hub" that players can use to launch and play games from the franchise on the same day Shadows drops. Animus hub, formerly known as Infinity, could be potentially be a store, as well, and if that's true, then it makes sense for Ubisoft to work on more AC releases that it can sell through the hub. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ubisoft-ceo-says-assassins-creed-remakes-are-in-the-works-035852195.html?src=rss

YouTube Premium’s new features include picture-in-picture for YouTube Shorts

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YouTube has recently launched a bunch of new features for Premium subscribers, including a quick way to skip the more boring parts of a video. When users double tap on a video, it will now skip ahead to what YouTube has marked as the more interesting portions of it based on a combination of AI and viewership data. The capability is now live in the US for Android users, though it's rolling out to iOS users in the coming weeks, as well. On Android, Premium subscribers can now also watch Shorts while checking their emails, browsing social media or doing things on other apps in general with the new picture-in-picture capability. 

Paying users will get access to the video hosting website's latest experimental features, as well. One of YouTube's newest test features is smart downloads for Shorts, which automatically saves the service's short-form videos on users' devices that they could then watch offline. In addition, Android users now have access to a conversational AI experience that can answer their questions and suggest related content without having to stop watching whatever's playing on their screens. It's only limited to users in the US at the moment, however, and only for English videos that display an "Ask" button. Finally, Premium subscribers can access YouTube's redesigned watch page for the web that apparently makes it easier to find related content. 

YouTube Premium removes ads from videos and gives subscribers access to offline viewing, Music Premium and other perks. In February, the Google-owned video sharing platform reported that it hit 100 million subscribers for both Premium and Music offerings, but it's been trying to get more people to pay for its services. Aside from introducing new perks, it's also waging a war against ad blockers and recently started preventing ad-blocking apps on mobile from accessing its videos. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-premiums-new-features-include-picture-in-picture-for-youtube-shorts-150029102.html?src=rss

Steam Deck gets a built-in game recorder

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While there's a bunch of third-party apps and services you can use to record your Steam games, you now have a native option that's built right into the Steam client. Valve has launched its own game recorder in beta, and yes, it also serves as a native recorder on the Steam Deck. You can either set the feature to start recording in the background the moment you keep playing or set it to only start (and stop) recording when you press a hotkey. If you choose to record in the background, you can specify the maximum of amount of storage recordings can take. Steam will overwrite old recordings once you hit the limit. 

A Replay capability will allow you to watch previous footage in the Steam Overlay, so you can see what you did wrong in case you lose a boss fight or take a wrong turn that gets you lost. You can even drop markers beforehand to make it easy to find clips you think you'd want to watch later. The new feature also makes it easy to send clips from your Steam Deck to your PC or mobile device if you want to share them with friends or to upload them online. 

Valve says the feature will only capture footage of your games and not your desktop, but it can include audio from voice chat programs. It will also work for most games, even non-Steam titles, as long as they support Steam Overlay. Since the feature is still in beta, though, you'll have to join a beta program to be able to access it. Go to Beta Participation in Interface under Settings to choose a beta program and then activate the Game Recording option that shows up in the Settings menu. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/steam-deck-gets-a-built-in-game-recorder-120019196.html?src=rss

This cute pink blob could lead to realistic robot skin

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Someday, we may have humanoid robots so real, they have skin that looks and feels, heals and moves just like ours. A team of scientists from the University of Tokyo and Harvard University are looking into how to make that happen, and the process includes creating some pretty curious, partly terrifying and partly adorable experimental machines with skin. In their paper published in Cell Reports Physical Science (via TechCrunch), the researchers explained that current molding techniques used to create skin equivalents that can fit 3D structures like robotic fingers perfectly do not have a mechanism that can "fix the skin to the underlying subcutaneous layer." For their study, they used a technique they're calling "perforation-type anchors," which is inspired by skin ligaments, as a solution to that problem. 

Diagram showing layers of the skin.
University of Tokyo

Simply put, skin ligaments keep our skin attached to the tissue and muscle underneath, so it doesn't get loose and go all over the place like fabric on a mannequin whenever we move. The team intends for its perforation-type anchors to take the place of those ligaments in machines. To demonstrate the method's effectiveness in attaching synthetic skin to a "3D objects with intricate contours," the researchers molded fabricated skin equivalent onto a fake head. 

They also created a robotic face covered with a dermis equivalent that can smile. When the machine produces a "sliding motion" to mimic the movement of our face when we smile, the fabricated skin deforms to create a smiling expression. While the result could come across as creepy for some, we think the cute pink blob looks like the Moisturize Me meme after it's been thoroughly moisturized, or a very ruddy and shiny Thomas the Tank Engine. 

A pink, smiling blob.
University of Tokyo

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-cute-pink-blob-could-lead-to-realistic-robot-skin-130019452.html?src=rss

Rabbit R1 security issue allegedly leaves sensitive user data accessible to anybody

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The team behind Rabbitude, the community-formed reverse engineering project for the Rabbit R1, has revealed finding a security issue with the company's code that leaves users' sensitive information accessible to everyone. In an update posted on the Rabbitude website, the team said it gained access to the Rabbit codebase on May 16 and found "several critical hardcoded API keys." Those keys allow anybody to read every single response the R1 AI device has ever given, including those containing the users' personal information. They could also be used to brick R1 devices, alter R1's responses and replace the device's voice. 

The API keys they found authenticate users' access to ElevenLabs' text-to-speech service, Azure's speech-to-text system, Yelp (for review lookups) and Google Maps (for location lookups) on the R1 AI device. In a tweet, one of Rabbitude's members said that the company has known about the issue for the past month and "did nothing to fix it." After they posted, they said Rabbit revoked Elevenlabs' API key, though the update broke R1 devices for a bit. 

In a statement sent to Engadget, Rabbit said it was only made aware of an "alleged data breach" on June 25. "Our security team immediately began investigating it," the company continued. "As of right now, we are not aware of any customer data being leaked or any compromise to our systems. If we learn of any other relevant information, we will provide an update once we have more details." It didn't say if it revoked the keys the Rabbitude team said it found in the company's code. 

Rabbit's R1 is a standalone AI assistant device designed by Teenage Engineering. It's meant to help users accomplish certain tasks, like placing food delivery orders, as well as to quickly look up information like the weather. We gave it a pretty low score in our review, because we found that its AI functionality often didn't work. Further, users can simply use their phone instead of having to spend an extra $199 to buy the device.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/rabbit-r1-security-issue-allegedly-leaves-sensitive-user-data-accessible-to-anybody-120024215.html?src=rss

Julian Assange pleads guilty to espionage but defends himself in court

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Julian Assange has formally pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act at a federal courthouse in Saipan, the capital of Northern Mariana Islands. The WikiLeaks founder was released from prison on June 24 after reaching a plea deal with the US government and quickly boarded a plane at Stansted Airport to make his way to Saipan. While the deal required Assange to plead guilty to "conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States," he still defended himself in court. 

According to The Washington Post, Assange argued that he should've been protected by the First Amendment as a journalist. "Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information," he said. "I believe the First Amendment protected that." He also said that he believes the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction of each other, but he accepts that his actions were in "violation of an espionage statute" and that it would be "difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances." 

A lawyer for the US government, however, accused him of encouraging personnel with high security clearances to expose classified military information and threaten national security. If you'll recall, WikiLeaks published classified information related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was obtained by whistleblower and former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, under his leadership. 

Lawyers from both sides argued about the time Assange served in prison, but around three hours after the proceeding started, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona declared that the 62 months he spent in Belmarsh Prison was reasonable and on par with the time served by Manning. Assange will not spend any time in US custody, but he has to leave the US Northern Mariana Islands immediately. The same private jet that flew him from London to Saipan flew him back to Canberra, Australia, because he wasn't allowed to fly commercial, according to his wife Stella Assange. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/julian-assange-pleads-guilty-to-espionage-but-defends-himself-in-court-030516412.html?src=rss

Google rolls out Gemini side panels for Gmail and other Workspace apps

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Google is making Gemini more easily accessible in its Workspace apps, if you're a paying customer. The company is rolling out Gemini side panels for Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Gmail, and it has also launched Gemini for the Gmail app on Android and iOS. When Google announced the Gemini side panels at I/O this year, it called the feature “the connective tissue across multiple applications with AI-powered workflow."

The side panel in Docs will help you refine and rephrase what you're writing, summarize information, suggest improvements and create new content based on other files. In Sheets, it can help you create tables, generate formulas and demystify various Sheets functions by teaching you how to do certain tasks. The side panel in Slides can help you generate custom images and summarize presentations, while in Drive, it can summarize several documents at once without you having to open any of them. 

Meanwhile, Gemini can summarize email threads in Gmail for you, suggest responses, help you draft new emails and help you find information from within your inbox or from your Drive files. Gemini in Gmail for Android and iOS can summarize your email threads, as well. There's no side panel in the mobile apps, of course, but you'll find a button near the top of your email that you can tap to generate a summary. Sometime next month, Gemini will offer contextual smart replies, which are one-tap response options based on the contents of your conversations. Gmail Q&A will also be available next month and will be able to find information from your emails when you type in questions like "What time does Chloe’s recital start on Saturday?"

You'll be able to use these features if you're paying for Google One AI Premium, or if you have access to Gemini add-in for Business, Enterprise, Education and Education Premium. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-rolls-out-gemini-side-panels-for-gmail-and-other-workspace-apps-123038034.html?src=rss