Новости за 04.05.2022

TikTok creators might soon have an easier way to profit from their posts. As part of a TikTok Pulse ad solution, the social media giant will start "exploring" a program that shares ad revenue with influencers, publishers and well-known public personas. Those with at least 100,000 followers will be eligible in the first stage, TikTok said.

Amazon leaders might face an uncomfortable moment at the company's next shareholder gathering. Daniel Olayiwola will become the first Amazon warehouse worker to present a resolution at the firm's annual general meeting on May 25th. The San Antonio-based employee's proposal calls for Amazon to end both its staff surveillance and productivity quotas. The practices force workers to "prioritize speed over safety," Olayiwola said, and there have reportedly been few meaningful changes.

It seems Sonos is gearing up to roll out its own long-rumored voice assistant in the coming weeks. Sonos Voice is said to offer voice control for music playback on many of the company's devices, offering owners another option if they'd rather not use Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

PillPack, an online pharmacy owned by Amazon, will pay $5.79 million to the U.S. government and states to settle a fraud suit related to its insulin distribution practices, the Department of Justice announced on Monday. The company admitted to sending customers full cartons of insulin pens — in some cases more than they needed or were prescribed — while under-reporting their days-of-supply to circumvent limits from Medicare and Medicaid. The result? PillPack effectively overbilled the government... Читать дальше...

Activision Blizzard has been hit with another lawsuit, this time from New York City officials. The suit, which was first obtained by Axios, takes aim at CEO Bobby Kotick. It accuses him of being "unfit" to negotiate his company's pending sale to Microsoft, citing his "personal responsibility and liability for Activision’s broken workplace."

For about as long as Chrome OS has existed, gaming has been one of its most notable Achilles' heels. Most Chromebooks have lower-power hardware, and the OS is built on web technology, so playing AAA titles found on Windows has simply not been an option. The rise of cloud-based gaming services like Google's own Stadia have helped the situation, but perhaps the biggest advance in Chromebook gaming came in late March, when Google announced that Valve's Steam platform was in an early alpha phase on Chrome OS. Читать дальше...

Microsoft is rolling out an update to the Xbox app for iOS and Android that includes a new social sharing feature. Players will be able to share screenshots, gameplay clips and achievements with their friends and others as Instagram- or Snapchat-style stories. You'll be able to respond to other people's stories with a reaction or message too.

Bose might not be the unassailable audio giant it once was. Boston Globesources say the company has been implementing "rolling layoffs" in recent years, with public data indicating that its headcount dropped from 9,000 in 2019 to 7,000 in 2021. Recently departed employees told the newspaper that Bose had fallen short of sales targets as new products struggled in the market, including the Frames audio glasses and SoundControl hearing aids. Competition from rivals like Apple and Sony is also believed to have hurt Bose's bottom line. Читать дальше...

Happy Star Wars Day! Lucasfilm and Disney+ are celebrating May the 4th by offering another look at the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

Graduates have spent the past couple of years hustling. Between coursework, jobs, family responsibilities and, of course, the pandemic, they likely haven't had a ton of time to devote to themselves. Now that they've donned their cap and gown, it's time for them to enjoy some well deserved rest and relaxation. If you want to get the grad in your life a treat that can help them do that, we at Engadget have some ideas based on how we like to treat ourselves when we need a break.

The New York Times' purchase of Wordle appears to have paid off, at least in the near term. The newspaper has revealed that it added "tens of millions" of new users in the first quarter of 2022 thanks to Josh Wardle's hit word game. That led to the company's best quarter yet for subscriber additions to games, and "many" of those incoming players have remained to try other games.

Uber had a successful first quarter of 2022 by some measures, as it more than doubled its revenue year-over-year to $6.85 billion. Increased demand for rides following the Omicron surge played a role, as did higher ride prices due to a shortage of drivers.

More details appear to have emerged for Sonos' rumored budget soundbar. A briefly posted listing at Colombian store KTronix suggests it will be called the Sonos Ray, and will be smaller than the already compact Beam Gen 2 at just 22 inches long (versus 25.6in), if slightly taller and thinner. Provided the accompanying images are accurate, it's also clearer as to how Sonos will keep costs down. Pictures of the rear indicate it will only accept optical audio input, drop the built-in voice control... Читать дальше...

May the 4th is here once again and that means a bunch of retailers have deals on Star Wars gadgets, toys and collectibles. If you're a Star Wars fan, or know someone who is, now's the time to stock up on everything from video games to themed Instant Pots while they are deeply discounted. Here are the best May the 4th Star Wars Day deals we could find this year.

Longevity reigns supreme when you're shopping for a dashcam memory card, and Samsung thinks it might have some of the longest-lasting cards yet. The brand has introduced next-generation Pro Endurance microSD cards with up to 16 years of continuous recording for the 256GB version — there's a good chance you'll get a new car before the flash memory dies. Lower-capacity cards won't last as long (the 128GB model lasts 'just' eight years), but this should still help you avoid frequent replacements.

Every spring, a new class of graduates is unleashed on the world, many of them carrying gadgets that have been put through the ringer over the years. Graduation is traditionally a big time for gift-giving — so if you know someone who is heading out into the real world who could use an upgrade after four (or more!) long years of higher education, here’s a host of options that’ll be a serious improvement over their trusted but beat-up tech.

Last year, in an effort to fill outstanding positions, Meta stopped requiring job seekers to hold a four-year university or college degree to apply for some roles. At the time, the company said it hoped the move would encourage employers to see that a post-secondary education isn’t the only way someone can learn the skills needed to make them a valuable addition to their workforce. Building on that announcement, the company has partnered with Coursera, an online learning platform, to launch five... Читать дальше...

In late March, Polestar announced that the single-motor Long Range variant of its Polestar 2 EV coupe would be arriving imminently upon US shores and be available starting at $45,900 — $33,400 after federal and state incentives — while its dual-motor sibling would start at $51,200. On Wednesday, the EV automaker announced that those prices would be going up. The single-motor variant will now start at $48,400 — $40,900 after the $7,500 federal tax credit — while the dual-motor AWD version will... Читать дальше...

Today's the day — May the 4th, or Star Wars Day, always brings good discounts on Star Wars merch and accessories each year. Amazon has a bunch of one-day-only deals celebrating the franchise, key among them being discounts on Star Wars-themed Instant Pots. Most models, including Stormtrooper, R2-D2 and Little Bounty, are 20 percent off and down to $80, but you can snag the adorable BB-8 model for only $60, which is 25 percent off its regular price.

Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter acquisition hasn't even been finalized yet, but UK's MPs are already inviting him to discuss the changes he wants to implement for the website. The UK House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Select Committee MPs told Musk in a letter (PDF) that they're particularly interested in hearing about his intention to roll out verification for all users. They said it echoes their calls on the government as part of a proposed legislation. 

I thought Apple’s car project had gone a little quiet, but it’s still a thing, according to Bloomberg.

GM is the latest automaker hoping its car data will help governments improve road safety. The company partnering with Inrix on a Safety View cloud initiative that gives crash, vehicle and "vulnerable road user" (think pedestrians and construction workers) data to US transportation officials. If all goes well, local governments can both prioritize new road safety projects and gauge the effectiveness of their current efforts.

Amazon is offering some solid deals on a multitude of games, with many popular titles available at or near their all-time-low prices. The most noteworthy of the bunch is Elden Ring, on sale for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 at $50 for a savings of $10 over the regular price — a solid deal on a relatively fresh release. You'll also find discounts on a host of other titles including Animal Crossing (Switch), Deathloop (PS5/Xbox One Series X) and Disco Elysium (PS4/Xbox One). 

Samsung has introduced the latest iteration of its Universal Flash Storage product, which it says is much, much faster than its predecessor. The UFS specification was already developed to enable SSD speeds for cameras, phones and other devices, but this version — called UFS 4.0 — has a speed that reaches 23.2Gbps per lane. That's double the speed of UFS 3.1, the standard used by Samsung's S22 flagship phones. The tech giant says its huge bandwidth makes it perfect for 5G smartphones that typically require huge amounts of data processing. Читать дальше...

With the release of its Q1 2022 financial results, AMD also revealed plans for its upcoming Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 series laptop CPUs, as seen in a slide tweeted by former Anandtech editor Dr. Ian Cutress. It's planning to target "extreme gaming laptops" with the new "Dragon Range" series, promising the "highest core, thread and cache ever for a mobile gaming CPU." It also unveiled the Phoenix series for thin and light gaming laptops.