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Concord’s director reportedly steps down

Concord illustration
Image: Sony

Concord game director Ryan Ellis has stepped down following the decision to take the game offline, according to Kotaku. Developers at Concord developer Firewalk Studios are also uncertain of the future of the studio.

Ellis, whose resume also includes more than seven years at Bungie, informed staff of the change role last week, Kotaku reports. (His LinkedIn still lists his title as “Game Director.”) Ellis also authored the PlayStation Blog post announcing Concord’s shutdown.

That post said the Firewalk team would be exploring options for what to do next with Concord, but Kotaku reports that some developers have “been asked to explore pitches for something completely different.” Some Firewalk developers are apparently refreshing their...

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Californians can now add their driver’s licenses to Apple Wallet

A California driver’s license in Apple Wallet on an iPhone.
Californians can now add their driver’s licenses or state IDs to their Apple Wallets. | Image: Apple

Apple announced that starting today, California residents can add their driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet on their iPhones and Apple Watches as part of the state’s mobile driver’s license (mDL) pilot program.

As announced last month, up to 1.5 million pilot participants can add the documents to Apple Wallet by scanning their driver’s license or state ID card using their iPhone and then providing a scan of their face using a “series of facial and head movements” as an added security measure. The scans will need to be verified by the state before the documents are made available in Wallet.

However, as it’s still only authorized for limited usage, the state DMV advises users to continue carrying their physical IDs, too.

S...

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Creator of fake Kamala Harris video Musk boosted sues Calif. over deepfake laws

Creator of fake Kamala Harris video Musk boosted sues Calif. over deepfake laws

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)

After California passed laws cracking down on AI-generated deepfakes of election-related content, a popular conservative influencer promptly sued, accusing California of censoring protected speech, including satire and parody.

In his complaint, Christopher Kohls—who is known as "Mr Reagan" on YouTube and X (formerly Twitter)—said that he was suing "to defend all Americans’ right to satirize politicians." He claimed that California laws, AB 2655 and AB 2839, were urgently passed after X owner Elon Musk shared a partly AI-generated parody video on the social media platform that Kohls created to "lampoon" presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.

AB 2655, known as the "Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act," prohibits creating "with actual malice" any "materially deceptive audio or visual media of a candidate for elective office with the intent to injure the candidate’s reputation or to deceive a voter into voting for or against the candidate, within 60 days of the election." It requires social media platforms to block or remove any reported deceptive material and label "certain additional content" deemed "inauthentic, fake, or false" to prevent election interference.

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FTC report on predatory social media data hoarding hints at future regulations

A new FTC report on how social media and streaming sites collect and monetize their hoards of user data doesn’t really feature a lot of surprises for anyone who’s followed the space. It’s more helpful to consider this part of a paper trail the agency is laying down in order to justify new regulations in […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Fitbit users struggle with “very frustrating” app bugs for months

Fitbit's Charge 6.

Enlarge / Fitbit's Charge 6. (credit: Google)

Users of Fitbit’s iOS and Android apps have been reporting problems with the apps' ability to sync and collect and display accurate data. Some have been complaining of such problems since at least April, and Fitbit has been working on addressing syncing issues since at least September 3. However, Google's Fitbit hasn't said when it expects the bugs to be totally resolved.

On September 3, Fitbit's Status Dashboard updated to show a service disruption, pointing to an incident affecting the web API.

"Some users may notice data discrepancies or syncing issues between [third-party] apps and Fitbit. Our team is currently investigating the root cause of the issue," the dashboard reads.

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The FTC says social media companies can’t be trusted to regulate themselves

An illustration featuring eyes and locks
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission published a new report about the data collection policies of social media platforms and video streaming services, and the results are damning, if not unexpected. The report, which was released on September 19th, found that these platforms not only surveil consumers but often retain vast troves of data indefinitely about users and non-users alike — and suggests they can’t be trusted to regulate themselves.

Given the billions of dollars companies stand to earn from collecting and monetizing user data, “self-regulation has been a failure,” the report says. “Predicting, shaping, and monetizing human behavior through commercial surveillance is extremely profitable — it’s made these companies some of the most...

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Logitech is making 502 metal mice

A graphic of Logitech’s G502 X Plus AL Edition limited-edition mouse.
Image: Logitech

Logitech is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its G502 gaming mouse with a limited-edition aluminum version. The G502 X Plus AL Edition has the same functionality as the standard wireless G502 X mouse, plus an aluminum chassis with laser-etched markings, including a serial number from 1 to 502.

Sorry to put my high school chem lab assistant hat on, but that L in “AL Edition” should really be lowercase — though I speculate Logitech wanted to avoid people confusing Al with AI, as in artificial intelligence.

In the 10 years since it launched, the G502 has been a mainstay of Logitech’s gaming lineup. The original was a wired mouse, a version of which you can still buy new today for around $50. In 2019, the G502 X made the jump to...

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Life imitates xkcd comic as Florida gang beats crypto password from retiree

Sometimes this is all you need.

Enlarge / Sometimes this is all you need. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Image)

Remy Ra St. Felix spent April 11, 2023, on a quiet street in a rented BMW X5, staking out the 76-year-old couple that he planned to rob the next day.

He had recently made the 11-hour drive up I-95 from southern Florida, where he lived, to Durham, North Carolina. It was a long way, but as with so many jobs, occasional travel was the cost of doing business. That was true especially when your business was robbing people of their cryptocurrency by breaking into their homes and threatening to cut off their balls and rape their wives.

St. Felix, a young man of just 25, had tried this line of work closer to home at first, but it hadn't gone well. A September 2022 home invasion in Homestead, Florida, was supposed to bring St. Felix and his crew piles of crypto. All they had to do was stick a gun to some poor schlub's head and force him to log in to his online exchange and then transfer the money to accounts controlled by the thieves. A simple plan—which worked fine until it turned out that the victim's crypto accounts had far less money in them than planned.

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Apple Intelligence is now available in public betas

A photo of Apple devices running Apple Intelligence.
Image: Apple

Apple has just released public betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, and they include upcoming Apple Intelligence features like text rewriting tools, the glowy new Siri design, a “Clean Up” tool to remove objects from your photos, and more.

To be able to access the betas, you’ll need to register on Apple’s beta software program site. Once you’ve done that, you should be able to see the beta update available in settings for you to download and install. Note that a only few iPhones can access the Apple Intelligence features: last year’s iPhone 15 Pro phones as well as the nearly-here iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. iPads and Macs with M1 chips or newer can try Apple Intelligence as well.

Previously, these Apple Intelligence...

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Hipstamatic’s new app collects everyone’s party photos for you

Three screenshots of the Hipstamatic Party! app running on an iPhone.
The Hipstamatic Party! Disposable Camera app saves event organizers from having to chase down guests to get their photos. | Screenshot: Apple App Store

Hipstamatic’s new Party! Disposable Camera app is designed to digitally replicate the experience of guests snapping candid photos at a wedding or other event using a disposable film camera. There are no film development fees afterward, but it’s only free if your guest list is no larger than five people.

At its core, the app is yet another attempt to streamline the process of collecting all the smartphone photos that guests take during a special event. Using a custom QR code generated by a host, guests are directed to download the Party! Disposable Camera app and join the specific event. All the photos taken through the app will be collected into a single private gallery the host and guests can view and comment on.

There are similar...

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Apple, Google wallets now support California driver’s licenses

California residents can now store their driver’s license or state ID in their Apple Wallet apps, the state’s government announced on Thursday. California started allowing digital IDs through Google Wallet just last month. Californians with an ID in the Apple Wallet or Google Wallet app can use their mobile devices to present their ID in […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

You might get offered promo codes if one of these delivery robots runs into you

Starship Technologies’ six-wheeled delivery robot
“Sorry about that...” | Image: Starship Technologies

One of Starship Technologies’ autonomous food delivery robots tripped up a school employee at Arizona State University last September. As 404 Media reports, when contacted by the police, an employee asked for the person’s info to share insurance info and to offer a few promo codes.

A police report said video footage confirmed the person’s description of the incident. They waited for a delivery robot to pass. Once they continued, the robot suddenly reversed and knocked them over before driving a short distance away and reversing to hit them again while they were on the ground. They reported lower back pain and a 4-inch cut on their arm that was treated by the local fire department.

A company spokesperson told 404 Media that the robot hit...

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The Apple Watch is now a better TV remote

Woman looking at the app grid on the Apple Watch SE (2022).
watchOS 11 makes the Apple Watch an even better remote for the Apple TV. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Previous versions of watchOS allowed the Apple Watch to be used as a remote control for an Apple TV, with limited functionality. With watchOS 11, the smartwatch can potentially completely replace the Siri Remote that now ships with Apple’s streaming box, with new capabilities spotted by 9to5Mac.

Before watchOS 11, the Apple Watch’s Remote app could only be used to play and pause videos or navigate tvOS using swipe gestures to move through menus and screen taps to make selections. It was useful if you couldn’t reach the Apple TV’s remote, but it couldn’t replace its features entirely.

The company has updated the Apple Watch User Guide on its website to include the new Remote app functionality introduced with watchOS 11. Turning the...

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