Apple's Mac has long been an afterthought for the video game industry, and few think of Google as a games company -- despite running Android, one of the biggest game platforms in the world. But Google had a plan to change those things in October 2020, according to an explicitly confidential 70-page vision document dubbed "Games Futures." From a report: The "need-to-know" document, which was caught up in the discovery process when Epic Games hauled Apple into court, reveals a tentative five-year plan to create what Google dubbed "the world's largest games platform." Google imagined presenting game developers with a single place they can target gamers across multiple screens including Windows and Mac, as well as smart displays -- all tied together by Google services and a "low-cost universal portable game controller" that gamers can pair with any device, even a TV.

A fugitive who Justice Department officials say had scammed more than 20 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, after being on the run for almost 15 years. From a report: Austrian authorities were able to identify Randy Levine, 54, of Boca Raton, Florida, due to a facial recognition system according to the DOJ, after he tried to use an alias to open a bank account, leading to his arrest in June 2020. Levine fled the US in 2005, after authorities seized his passport as part of an investigation into an alleged scam he had been running, the DOJ said in a release. According to Levine's plea agreement, which he signed in May, he would offer to set up gambling accounts for people if they sent him money. To help sell the idea that he really could help people make bets, Levine reportedly played a recording of casino sounds while he was on calls with victims (which he made using a Las Vegas phone number). Levine came under investigation by the FBI, but was able to get a replacement for the passport that law enforcement officials seized, by claiming the passport had simply been lost. He eventually ended up in Poland, where he was arrested in 2008. There was, however, a legal battle over whether he could be extradited to the US, which continued until late 2011. By the time Polish courts had decided that he could be extradited, Levine had already slipped away.

For those who don't think Zoom meetings are a good enough substitute for the real thing, Facebook has another idea: a virtual reality app that lets you and your coworkers feel like you're sitting around a table in a conference room. From a report: On Thursday, Facebook unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a free app for users of its Oculus Quest 2 headset, a device that starts at $299. The app stands out as the company's most ambitious effort yet to enable groups to socialize in VR and move the still niche medium beyond entertainment uses such as gaming. Workrooms allows up to 16 VR headset users to meet in a virtual conference room, with each of them represented by a customizable cartoon-like avatar that appears as just an upper body floating slightly above a virtual chair at a table. The app supports up to 50 participants in a single meeting, with the rest able to join as video callers who appear in a grid-like flat screen inside the virtual meeting room.

Headset-wearing meeting participants can use their actual fingers and hands to gesticulate in VR, and their avatars' mouths appear to move in lifelike ways while they speak. A virtual whiteboard lets people share pictures or make presentations. "The pandemic in the last 18 months has only given us greater confidence in the importance of this as a technology," Andrew Bosworth, VP of Facebook Reality Labs, said while addressing a (virtual) room of about a dozen people on Tuesday. He said Facebook has been using the app internally for about a year.

TikTok's plans to collect biometric identifiers from its users has prompted concern among U.S. lawmakers, who are demanding the company reveal exactly what information it collects and what it plans to do with that data. From a report: In a letter sent earlier this month addressed to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Thune, (R-SD) say they are "alarmed" by the recent change to TikTok's privacy policy, which allows the company to "automatically collect biometric data, including certain physical and behavioral characteristics from video content posted by its users."

TechCrunch first reported details of the new privacy policy back in June, when TikTok said it will seek "required permissions" to collect "faceprints and voiceprints" where required by law, but failed to elaborate on whether it's considering federal law, states laws, or both (only a handful of U.S. states have biometric privacy laws, including Illinois, Washington, California, Texas and New York). Klobuchar and Thune's letter asks TikTok to explicitly explain what constitutes a "faceprint" and "voiceprint," as well as to explain how this data will be used and how long it will be retained. The senators also quizzed TikTok on whether any data is gathered for users under the age of 18; whether it makes any inferences about its users based on the biometric data it collects; and to provide a list of all third parties that have access to the data.

More than 90 policy and rights groups around the world published an open letter on Thursday urging Apple to abandon plans for scanning children's messages for nudity and the phones of adults for images of child sex abuse. From a report: "Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material, we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children," the groups wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Reuters. The largest campaign to date over an encryption issue at a single company was organized by the U.S.-based nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). Some overseas signatories in particular are worried about the impact of the changes in nations with different legal systems, including some already hosting heated fights over encryption and privacy.

U.S. antitrust officials on Thursday refiled their monopoly lawsuit against Facebook, seeking to salvage the landmark case that a judge threw out in June. From a report: The Federal Trade Commission filed the new complaint in federal court in Washington, alleging that Facebook violated antitrust laws by buying Instagram and WhatsApp in order to eliminate them as competitors. The agency is trying to revive the case after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in June dismissed it, saying the agency failed to provide enough detail to support its claim that Facebook has a monopoly in the social-media market. Boasberg had given the FTC 30 days to fix the error and refile, and the commission won an extension until Aug. 19.

The Facebook case, first filed in December, presents an early test for FTC Chair Lina Khan, who was named head of the agency in June by President Joe Biden. Khan is a leading advocate for taking a more forceful antitrust stance against companies and is already taking steps to bolster the agency's authority. Facebook is seeking to bar Khan from participating in the case, arguing that her academic writing about the company and her work on the House antitrust panel, which investigated Facebook and other tech platforms, showed she is biased.

More owners of the first-generation Nest Hub are receiving the update to Google's Fuchsia operating system as it expands beyond the Preview program. 9to5Google reports: Back in May, Google formally released Fuchsia, its effort to develop a "not Linux" operating system from scratch, which has been years in the making. The first device to receive the new OS was Google's 2018 smart display, the Nest Hub -- not to be confused with the second generation Nest Hub with sleep tracking released earlier this year -- taking it permanently off of the existing Linux based "Cast OS" without negatively affecting the UI or experience. At the time, the rollout of Fuchsia was limited to a select few devices that were enrolled in the "Preview program" available to all devices via the Google Home app. Over time, the number of Nest Hubs running Fuchsia was expanded, with Google no doubt watching carefully for any issues with the upgrade.

Late last week, Google updated a support page to reflect that the Nest Hub has received a new firmware update for both the Preview program and all other devices. Specifically, the first-gen Nest Hub is now receiving firmware version 1.52.260996. Google confirmed to us that this update does indeed include the upgrade to Fuchsia. All goes well, this means in a matter of days, all first-gen Nest Hub devices in households around the world should be running Fuchsia.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline: Three former Netflix software engineers are among those who have been charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged insider trading. In a complaint (PDF) filed in federal court in Seattle, the regulatory agency says the engineers and two associates generated more than $3 million in profits from a "long-running scheme." The cornerstone of the setup, according to the complaint, was confidential information they obtained about Netflix subscriber growth. Subscriber numbers at Netflix or, more recently, Disney and other companies, have been central to Wall Street's embrace or rejection of stocks in recent years.

The SEC's complaint, Sung Mo "Jay" Jun was at the center of a long-running scheme to illegally trade on non-public information concerning the growth in Netflix's subscriber base. The complaint alleges that Sung Mo Jun, while employed at Netflix in 2016 and 2017, repeatedly tipped this information to his brother, Joon Mo Jun, and his close friend, Junwoo Chon, who both used it to trade in advance of multiple Netflix earnings announcements. After Sung Mo Jun left Netflix in 2017, the complaint says, he obtained confidential Netflix subscriber growth information from another Netflix insider, Ayden Lee. Sung Mo Jun allegedly traded himself and tipped Joon Jun and Chon in advance of Netflix earnings announcements from 2017 to 2019. The SEC alleges that Sung Mo Jun's former Netflix colleague Jae Hyeon Bae, another Netflix engineer, tipped Joon Jun based on Netflix's subscriber growth information in advance of Netflix's July 2019 earnings announcement.

The SEC said its market abuse unit uncovered the trading ring by using data analysis tools to identify the traders' suspicious run of success. "We allege that a Netflix employee and his close associates engaged in a long-running, multimillion dollar scheme to profit from valuable, misappropriated company information," Erin E. Schneider, director of the SEC's San Francisco office, said in a press release. "The charges announced today hold each of the participants accountable for their roles in the scheme." The defendants allegedly tried to evade detection by using encrypted messaging applications and paying cash kickbacks," added Joseph Sansone, Chief of the SEC's market abuse unit. Sung Mo Jun, Joon Jun, Chon, and Lee have consented to the entry of judgments, the SEC said. If approved by the court, the judgments would permanently enjoin each from violating the charged provisions, with civil penalties to be decided later by the court. Sung Mo Jun also agreed to an officer and director bar. Bae consented to the entry of a final judgment, also subject to court approval, and imposing a civil penalty of $72,875.

In a statement to CRN, Intel said it was "winding down" RealSense and transferring the talent and computer vision tech to efforts that "better support" its core chip businesses. Engadget reports: Questions surfaced about the fate of RealSense after the team's leader, Sagi Ben Moshe, said he was leaving Intel two weeks ago. RealSense aimed to make computer vision more flexible and accessible. A company or researcher could buy cameras to aid everything from robot navigation through to facial recognition, and there was even a developer-focused phone. It was never a truly mainstream product, though, and ASI VP Kent Tibbils told CRN that there were few customers buying RealSense cameras in any significant quantities. It wasn't really a money-making division, even if the work helped Intel's other teams.

For Intel, there's likely a simpler answer: it wants to cut ballast. CEO Pat Gelsinger wants Intel to reclaim the chipmaking crown, and that means concentrating its resources on design and manufacturing capabilities. No matter how successful RealSense is, it's a potential distraction from Intel's latest strategy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Facebook's mission is to "bring the world closer together." Increasingly, that's about not just connecting friends and family to share messages, but also serving as a platform for people's financial lives. Some $100 billion in payments have been enabled by Facebook over the past year, said David Marcus, who runs the company's financial services unit. But that's just the start of the social network's ambitions in the finance industry, Mr. Marcus writes in a new memo about the country's "broken" payments system, reported in the DealBook newsletter.

At the center of Facebook's push into payments is Novi, a digital wallet intended for users to move money around the world quickly and cheaply (free, in many cases). The company had a plan to pair it with a "stablecoin" cryptocurrency called Libra, but that was shelved amid regulatory scrutiny, and now the scaled-back project, known as Diem, is overseen by an outside nonprofit group seeking the necessary government approvals. In recounting some of Facebook's setbacks in trying to break into the crypto payments industry, Mr. Marcus describes the tech giant, the subject of antitrust inquiries around the world, as an underdog. Facebook faces unfair resistance in the financial industry, he wrote. "I've heard multiple conversations about how this proposal would be so great if only Facebook wasn't involved," he said. "I understand and accept the need for extra scrutiny due to our scale." But Mr. Marcus describes Facebook as a "challenger in the payments industry," with no specific plan yet to monetize use of the Novi wallet, which won't charge for person-to-person payments, even across borders.

He added that allowing users to pay with dollars, euros and other fiat currencies via the Novi wallet would bring a lot of value. "So why not just do that and call it a day?" he wrote. "Well, we might." But before deciding on that, he doesn't want to "waste our shot" at incorporating stablecoins into an "open, interoperable protocol" for online payments. "To have the maximum impact, building a closed system using fiat only wasn't going to cut it," he said in the memo. Mr. Marcus believes that a well-designed stablecoin pegged to a fiat currency, backed one to one in cash reserves, could offer strong consumer protections. It would also provide quicker access to funds than traditional bank accounts. "We will continue to persevere and demonstrate we can be a trusted player in this industry," he wrote, adding that the Novi wallet has licenses or approvals in nearly every U.S. state and that the Diem stablecoin project "has addressed every legitimate concern." Facebook's digital wallet is ready to come to market, Mr. Marcus said, and "we deserve a fair shot." To judge by Facebook's difficulties getting to this point, regulators remain to be convinced.

T-Mobile has confirmed that millions of current and former customers had their information stolen in a data breach, following reports of a hack over the weekend. From a report: In a statement, T-Mobile, which has more than 100 million customers, said its preliminary analysis shows 7.8 million current postpaid T-Mobile customers had information taken in the data breach. The carrier said that some personal data was also taken, including customer names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and driver's license information for a "subset" of current and former postpay customers and prospective T-Mobile customers. The company also said that 40 million records of former and prospective customers was taken, but that "no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information were compromised." But the company warned that approximately 850,000 active T-Mobile customer names, phone numbers and account PINs were in fact compromised, and that customer names, phone numbers and account PINs were exposed.

Apple has released a new version of iCloud for Windows, numbered 12.5. The update adds the ability to access and manage passwords saved in iCloud from a Windows machine, a feature that users have long requested. From a report: Apple has been gradually adding more support for iCloud passwords on non-Apple platforms with mixed results. The company released a Chrome extension that synced iCloud passwords with Chrome. But like this new iCloud Passwords app, it did the bare minimum and not much else. Still, this addition is welcome for users who primarily live in the Apple ecosystem (and thus use Apple's iCloud password locker) but who sometimes have to use Windows. For example, some folks use an iPhone or a Mac most of the time but have a Windows PC that is only used to play games that can't be played on the Mac.

Google's next midrange smartphone is the Pixel 5a, featuring a slightly bigger display than last year's Pixel 4a, a considerably larger battery and IP67 water and dust resistance. It's priced at $449, which is $100 more than the Pixel 4a, and is expected to be the last Google phone to include a charger in the box (sorry Pixel 6 fans). Ars Technica reports: Part of the reason for the price increase is that the Pixel 5a is a bigger phone, with a 6.34-inch display and 73.7 mm width compared to the Pixel 4a's 5.8-inch display and 69.4 mm width. Another big change is the addition of IP67 dust and water resistance, which means the phone should survive submersion in 3 feet of water (1 meter) for 30 minutes. As with the Pixel 5, the Pixel 5a's body is metal coated in plastic instead of the pure plastic body of the Pixel 4a. We didn't see the appeal of this construction in the Pixel 5, but the new phone is presumably stronger now.

As usual, we're getting a no-frills design that takes care of the basics. On the front, there's a slim-bezel OLED display and a hole-punch camera in the top right, while there are two cameras (main and wide-angle) and a capacitive fingerprint reader on the back. Specs include a Snapdragon 765G (that's a 7 nm chip with two Cortex A76 cores and six Cortex A55 cores), 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and the biggest battery of any Pixel: 4680 mAh. The main camera is 12.2 MP and looks like the same Sony IMX363 sensor that Google has used for the past four years. There's a 16 MP wide-angle and an 8 MP front camera. Oh yeah, the headphone jack is sticking around for at least one more year. If there's a disappointment with the Pixel 5a, it's the 60 Hz display, which is looking pretty slow in a world where 90 Hz and 120 Hz are often the norm. Another important note is that the Pixel 5a will get three years of major updates and three years of security updates. It's currently available for preorder now and starts shipping on August 26.

ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), the world's largest non-aggression consortium that protects Linux and related open-source software and the companies behind them from patent attacks and patent trolls. ZDNet reports: The OIN recently broadened its scope from core Linux programs and adjacent open-source code by expanding its Linux System Definition to other patents such as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and the Extended File Allocation Table exFAT file system. By becoming a licensee and community member of OIN, ByteDance will be sharing its other patents to Helo, Resso, and the Chinese specific programs Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua.

Why is ByteDance doing this? Because, like many other companies, including Microsoft, they consider "Linux and adjacent open source software as key elements for our business," said Lynn Wu, ByteDance's Chief IP Counsel. Wu continued, "ByteDance's participation in the OIN community shows our consistent commitment to shared innovation. We will continue to support it with patent non-aggression in core Linux and other important open-source software technologies." ByteDance may also have joined because its biggest fellow Chinese rival, Kuaishou, recently joined the OIN. In recent years, many Chinese firms, such as hardware giant Inspur, have joined forces with the OIN.

CES 2022 will be a hybrid event with in-person and digital components. However, in order to attend the event in person, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) says you'll need to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19. The Verge reports: As far as those who are not vaccinated, whether by their own choice or because they live somewhere without access to vaccines, the CTA says it's "assessing the acceptance of proof of a positive antibody test as an alternative requirement." It's also unknown how this will apply to events happening beyond the show floor and keynote ballrooms, or outside the CTA's umbrella entirely. We expect to hear more details about all of this long before the CES 2022 media days start on January 3rd, or when the show floor opens on January 5th. Here's an excerpt from the CTA's announcement: The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) today announced that CES 2022, the world's most influential technology event, will require in-person attendees to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. CES 2022 will take place in Las Vegas on January 5-8, 2022. For those who may be unable to travel to Las Vegas, CTA will again create a digital event that will run in parallel with the in-person program. Digital audiences will have the opportunity to share the spirit of the in-person event.
[...]
CTA is also assessing the acceptance of proof of a positive antibody test as an alternative requirement and will share more details on this later. Safety, security and health are a priority at CES, and we will follow state and local guidelines and recommendations by the CDC. CTA will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation and will announce additional or modified protocols closer to the show.

For years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? Or a complete waste of time? Vulture: On the spectrum of cyberattacks, this one wasn't very complex. There was no malicious software or actual hacking involved. Some of the earliest victims used Gmail accounts for work, which were easy and free to spoof. Registering an alternate domain and setting up an email server was only slightly more involved, and the possibilities were endless: t's became f's (@wwnorfon.com), q's replaced g's (@wylieaqency.com), r's and n's cornbined to make m's (@penguinrandornhouse.com). The domains suggested someone who liked to play with words as much as code. Books became bocks, unless the company was Dutch, in which case boek was Anglicized to book.

What did seem sophisticated was the thief's knowledge of the business. The culprit wrote like someone in publishing, abbreviating to "MS" for manuscript and "WEL" for world English-language rights, while exchanging insider chatter, telling one victim that a publisher was pitching a book as a comp to Pachinko and expressing surprise to another that a novel had recently sold for a shocking amount. The thief sent messages in the wake of announcements on Publishers Marketplace, a subscription website that tracks deals, but they also asked about books that the thief's marks didn't even know existed. The mimicry wasn't always perfect -- an assistant at the talent agency WME realized her boss was being impersonated because she would never say "please" or "thank you" -- but the impression was good enough.

What's more, the thief seemed to have a strong grasp of the rarefied world of international publishing. The first emails, in the fall of 2016, traveled almost exclusively among the small group of people who handle the flow of manuscripts between countries, including a foreign-rights manager in Greece, an editor in Spain, and an agent selling international writers in the Chinese market. In the attempted "Millennium" heist, only a few dozen people in the world knew the book was being shared with foreign publishers and that Mork and Altrov Berg controlled access to it.

Google is the latest manufacturer to bid farewell to the in-box charging brick, saying it expects the Pixel 5A will be the last phone to include one. That means the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro won't include one when they arrive this fall. From a report: The company says that most people already have a USB-C charging brick, so there's no longer a need to include one with its phones. Apple and Samsung made similar arguments when they announced they would no longer be offering an in-box charger. That may be true, but it's likely that the cost savings of not including a charger played a big role in those decisions.

phalse phace writes: Chinese regulators on Tuesday issued a lengthy set of draft regulations for the internet sector, banning unfair competition and restricting the use of user data, the latest move in a crackdown on the country's powerful tech companies.

According to a document published on China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) website, business operators should not use data, algorithms or other technical means to hijack traffic or influence users' choices. They may also not use technical means to illegally capture or use other business operators' data.

The regulator also said firms cannot use technological means to maliciously impose incompatible barriers to other legal internet products and services. It added that in cases involving violations, third-party institutions may be hired to audit data. The proposed regulations come after SAMR imposed various restrictions and punishments on tech giants in an effort to restrict anti-competitive or monopolistic behaviour.

Audi's latest concept car, the skysphere, will be able to drive itself, the company claims. But the real hook is that, as it changes from human driving to self-driving, the body of the skysphere expands by 10 inches from end-to-end. CNN reports: The concept car's long hood extends forward and the steering wheel and pedals fold away. The driver's side of the dashboard, really a glass display panel, and the gear selector also pull away, creating a more comfortable space for the driver to relax. All this is possible because the skysphere is an electric car powered by a motor that's mounted behind the seats. That means there's not much under the hood to get in the way as the front end moves forward and backward.

In its self-driving mode, the skysphere acts like a touring car, an elegant two seater designed for fast comfortable long distance travel. A longer wheelbase -- the distance between the front and back wheels -- is good for road trips because it can give the car a more stable feel on the highway. And without a steering wheel or pedals, the driver can stretch out, relax and enjoy the scenery. In regular human driving mode, it's more like a sports car. The much shorter wheelbase can give the car a quicker, more responsive driving feel. The car also lowers on its suspension almost a half inch closer to the ground. When put in its sports car mode, a steering wheel unfolds from underneath the dashboard and a set of pedals moves into position in the driver's footwell.

This shape-shifting is Audi's attempt to answer a conundrum facing automotive designers. Their advocates say self-driving vehicles can, theoretically, be safer than human drivers, and offer opportunities to rethink what a car can and should be. But among the challenges they face is consumer adoption from people who actually enjoy driving. And Audi, which boasts about the power and performance of its cars, considers those people to be among its core customers. So this car offers them a comforting compromise.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: The Manatee Energy Storage Center -- the world's largest solar-powered battery storage facility -- is now 75% finished with 100 of 132 total containers already installed, reveals a press release from Florida Power and Light Company (FPL). The battery is housed in Manatee County as the name indicates and is expected to be fully operational by the end of the year. When completed, the system will have a 409-MW capacity with the ability to deliver 900 MWh of energy. This is enough electricity to power 329,000 homes for more than two hours.

The battery will serve to replace FPL's coal plants. The battery will store energy in order to bring electricity to homes even when the sun's not shining (at night and on cloudy days) meaning other more polluting power sources will not be required. Although customers are bound to see some financial benefits the main gains will be environmental. According to FPL, each battery module is capable of storing an amount of solar energy equivalent to roughly 2,000 iPhone batteries. The complete battery system will be equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries and the energy storage containers will be organized across a 40-acre plot of land (the equivalent of 30 football fields). The battery will have a lifespan of 40 years.