Amazon has launched an ad-supported, free video streaming service called MiniTV within the Amazon India app, TechCrunch reports. It’s a different offering than its separate Amazon Prime Video service, as MiniTV is contained within Amazon’s traditional shopping app, rather than its own standalone app.
Only available to users in India, MiniTV’s catalog includes mostly older content which its content partners made originally for YouTube and other platforms. The lineup includes beauty and fashion content, tech news, and cooking shows, and Amazon’s partners for the channel include Indian web content studios Pocket Aces and TVF, and list of well-known Indian comedians.
The company says it’s planning “new and exclusive videos” in the coming months, but didn’t provide a timetable.
As TechCrunch notes, the channel should serve as a competitor to Flipkart Video, the free streaming service launched in 2019 by Walmart-owned Flipkart, one of Amazon’s biggest rivals in India.
Amazon is still marketing its Prime Video to consumers in India as it competes with Netflix, which has plans to launch more than three dozen new movies and shows in India this year. The free MiniTV will help Amazon test whether streaming content can drive sales on its shopping app.
(Pocket-lint) – The true wireless earphones market is getting pretty saturated these days. That means it’s becoming harder and harder for any audio company to stand out. So how does one make a pair that people will notice and care about?
Master & Dynamic’s approach for the past couple of years has been to build a pair of ‘buds that doesn’t look like the rest, while also delivering a very different, dynamic sound from the drivers. With the MW08 that continues, but the experience is a little more refined.
What came before?
Master & Dynamic launched into the true wireless market with the MW07, before following it up with the ANC-equipped MW07 Plus and sport-focused MW07 Go.
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: MW07 PlusMW07 Plus
The non-Go editions were recognisable by their use of marbled acrylic. They looked like they were designed to match tortoiseshell sunglasses, but with the latest MW08 that has changed for more premium materials.
Best true wireless earbuds for wire-free Bluetooth audio
Master & Dynamic has also enhanced the MW08’s active noise-cancelling (ANC), sound quality and battery life, promising to be far better than any of the previous models.
Design
Ceramic design
9g weight per bud
IPX5 water resistance
Colour options: Black, blue, white, brown
With the MW08 it’s clear there’s a focus on design. You can’t go wrong with ceramic. It’s lovely, shiny and extremely durable.
These ‘buds are among the nicest looking we’ve tested. They’re also a little smaller than the MW07 Plus, which makes them more compact and less of an attention seeker when placed in the ears. That’s not to say they don’t still retain that M&D flavour. The shape is still that unique half-circle-half-square design – it’s just more restrained this time around.
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The internal design has been tweaked too, allowing each ‘buds design to be more ergonomic than before – and so better fitting inside the ear canal. They feel secure and comfy, without the need for use any in-ear fins or grips to keep them from falling out. These ‘buds are precision designed to comfortably fit inside the ear and just stays there.
Granted, we didn’t feel the fit was so secure that we’d risk wearing these ‘buds during a run or workout, but for most instances we can’t imagine them falling out and getting lost. It’s a nice, neat, compact shape.
Open the case and show them to someone for the first time and they may just invoke comparisons to cufflinks. There’s a precision and polished look. It’s more restrained than previous models, but the quality is easy to see.
The ceramic plate is built on top of an aluminium frame – which also acts as the external antenna for strong wireless performance – and the buds sit neatly in their stainless steel case when stowed away.
This case is one of the only elements that’s changed drastically from the previous versions. There’s still a polished steel option, but you also get matte black and polished dark grey ‘graphite’ options. Which one you get depends on which colour ‘buds you want: black, blue, white, brown.
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More importantly, Master & Dynamic switched the lid to a new position, making it smaller, but more durable-feeling at the same time. By comparison, the large flip-open lid on the old cases feels quite flimsy now. The new case feels sturdier, while retaining its very portable size, and comes with a little carry pouch too – which you will probably need to use if you buy the polished steel version.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the tried-and-tested physical button layout. One earbud features the volume up/down buttons; the other features the multi-purpose key. That makes it simple to adjust the volume level and simple to play/pause. We prefer it to most touch-sensitive alternatives, which often trigger too easily when you want them to.
Battery life, noise cancelling, app controls
Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) and ambient modes
12 hours playtime outside case (42 hours total)
In-ear detection/auto pause
Free M&D app for control
Bluetooth 5.2 + aptX
So the design is sublime, so that usually means you compromise on performance somehow, right? Well, no, not this time.
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Master & Dynamic’s latest pair of tether-free ‘buds has market-leading battery life. The manufacturer claims up to 12 hours of music playback from a fully charged pair (or 10 hours with the ANC switched on). In real-world use, you’re unlikely to get exactly those figures – we’ve been getting close but a little under – but there’s no battery anxiety here.
You can listen to music for three hours straight and barely even touch the battery. During testing we did this on a few consecutive days and didn’t manage to run out of battery, or need to plug the case in to charge it.
If you commute to work – or will be in the near future – this will comfortably get you through a work week without much trouble. With the battery in the case and battery in the ‘buds you can get up to 42 hours total, which is quite frankly astonishing.
Combine that battery performance with strong wireless performance and good quality calls and you have a set of ‘buds that’s not just pretty and well-made, but will keep up with the challenges of daily life.
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In all of our testing there’s only one area that we think needs improving: the ANC. The manufacturer’s take on noise-cancelling doesn’t quite perform as well as, say, the Apple AirPods Pro or Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. That said, M&D’s implementation does make a clear difference, handily cutting out most of the noise around you – it’s just less ‘strong’ than those rivals.
We found it worked well to cut out the noise of chatter around us while listening, but walking alongside busy roads, it still let in the sound of tyres rumbling over the asphalt, for example. Granted, it made such sounds quieter, but we could still hear them. And this was with the maximum level of ANC activated.
One feature that works well is the auto-pause – which activates when the ‘buds are removed from the ears. As soon as you take one earbud out, it automatically pauses whatever you’re listening to, thanks to an optical sensor on board. Sadly, it doesn’t then automatically resume when you reinsert the ‘bud, but pressing the play/pause button once resolves that.
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This is controlled in the all-new M&D Connect app, which lets you see battery level and adjust noise cancelling/ambient sound. This is also where you see if there are any firmware updates available. Sadly, there’s no equalisation (EQ) adjustment because – like any other company that has its own idea of what great sound is – it has already set that for you and doesn’t allow you to deviate from that.
Sound
11mm Beryllium drivers
There’s an unmistakeable quality about Master & Dynamic’s sound and – as the company name suggests – it’s dynamic. M&D doesn’t go for that studio clean and flat approach, or airy, breathy quality. Instead, you get lots of bass, lots of clarity and punch from the high-end, without losing the subtle details in a mix.
The end result is a sound that makes you want to get up and groove along to the bass and drums in any soundtrack. It’ll makes you want to go and listen to all your favourite songs again. It might even make you appreciate songs you didn’t think you liked before.
Saying ‘lots of bass’ often conjures up the picture of big, boomy sound that dominates the audio. In this instance, however, that’s not what it’s like at all. It’s well controlled and shaped bass that forms a big part of the sound profile, but without detracting from the impact of the vocals.
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Listening to the MW08 and we often felt like the higher-frequency percussive sounds – like shakers, tambourines and hi-hats – cut through the mix somehow and form a big part of the sound. This can sometimes lead to a little sibilance on high impact sounds like forcefully annunciated Ts, Ps, and Ses in vocals, but it’s not as bad as it was in previous MW-series ‘buds.
This sound seems a bit more balanced than the company’s older ‘buds – probably because of the new 11mm drivers. These new drivers also seem incredibly responsive. Short, staccato notes are punchy and tight, whether they be pizzicato strings in an orchestral piece or just finger clicking in the background.
The other great quality of the sound is that it has a sense of space. It feels almost like being surrounded by the sound, rather than having it pumped directly into your ears from a few millimetres away. The soundstage is impressively wide, and combined with the dynamic properties of M&D’s audio it makes for an unmissable experience.
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A really good example to hear all these elements is the orchestral version of Space by Biffy Clyro. There’s those clear lead vocals, and the prominent piano leading the instruments. But despite that piano, you still can clearly hear the plucked cello and bass strings in the background, while it all retains that real feel of being recorded in a big wide open space. Bowed strings then perfectly swell and drop in crescendos in the chorus, while the subtle percussion beats on somewhere in the distance. It’s sublime.
While call quality isn’t the foremost function of the MW08, they’re well-equipped with a six-mic array and offer clear calls even in slightly windy conditions. The external mics can filter out wind tearing noises, so there’s nothing to detract from any of that listening experience.
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By Dan Grabham
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Verdict
In a market full of plastic buds, the Master & Dynamic MW08 feel really special. The combination of ceramic, aluminium and a stainless steel case make them unlike anything else on the market.
We’ve long appreciated M&D’s unique take on sound too. It’s high-impact and exciting. It was never technically perfect, but it’s always a great fun listen. We’re glad that with the MW08 the company has retained what makes it M&D, but also focused on improving areas that make this a truly excellent product.
The 12 hour battery life is market-leading, while the ANC performance is decent enough – although not quite incredible. Plus, now the company has an app for controlling features.
The M&D MW08 is the MW series’ coming of age – and it makes pretty much every other pair of wireless earbuds seem boring by comparison.
Also consider
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Bose QC Earbuds
Bose’s flagship ‘buds are fantastic, although physically large. Sound has that typical spacious and breathy Bose quality with great detail and lift in the mids giving a full and balanced sound. The noise-cancelling is stronger than the M&D too.
Read our review
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Grado GT220
Grado’s approach to the true wireless in-ears market is very focused and measured. There’s no ANC here, but you do get truly stellar sound quality and the passive noise isolation is strong enough you might not even miss the ANC anyway.
Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes on social media can tell you that most platforms have plenty of trolls, reply-guys and other people who may just be unpleasant to interact with. On big platforms like Twitter, Faecbook, and Instagram, the option to block another user allows you to keep someone out of your feed. Blocking is far from a perfect solution, but at least it gives users a way to continue to use the platforms and avoid (some) nasty interactions.
But as Will Oremus writes for The Atlantic, the year-old audio chat platform Clubhouse has a different mechanism for blocking, one that affects more than just the blocker and the blockee (I know, but what would you call it?):
When you block someone on Clubhouse, it doesn’t just affect communications between the two of you, as it would on Facebook or Twitter. Rather, it limits the way that person can communicate with others too. Once blocked, they can’t join or even see any room that you create, or in which you are speaking—which effectively blocks them for everyone else in that room. If you’re brought “onstage” from the audience to speak, anyone else in the audience whom you have blocked will be kept off the stage for as long as you’re up there. And if you’re a moderator of a room, you can block a speaker and boot them from the conversation in real time—even if they’re mid-sentence.
So in essence, a “black badge” on Clubhouse can limit who speaks, where, and when on the platform. As Oremus notes, it’s a social act to block another person on Clubhouse, one that affects multiple interactions. And members of underrepresented groups said that blocking can be “weaponized” on Clubhouse, to squelch certain points of view or restrict conversations:
One, a Black woman in her 20s who’s studying medicine, said she has been barred from rooms discussing vaccination in Black communities, because one influential anti-vaxxer who frequents those rooms blocked her. She also found herself abruptly shut out of a weekly WandaVision watch-party club that had become her favorite experience on the app, evidently because one member had blocked her.
The buzz around Clubhouse— which attracted 10 million users in its inaugural year— has started to fizzle out a bit; it only recently released a version for Android devices, and new users can only join when invited by a current user. Add to that the rising popularity and superior accessibility of Twitter’s audio chat platform Spaces, and it seems Clubhouse may be in for a bumpy ride ahead. Go read this analysis of why its unusual blocking system may ultimately contribute to the platform’s decline.
Twitter has previously confirmed that it’s exploring a paid subscription model for some features, and app researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted Saturday that she’s discovered how much it will cost and what it will be called. Twitter Blue, Wong says, will cost $2.99 per month, and will include an Undo Tweets feature and bookmark collections. Wong says it appears Twitter is working on a tiered subscription model, which she posits could mean a less-cluttered, premium experience for the highest-paying subscribers.
Twitter didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge on Saturday, but the company doesn’t usually confirm or otherwise comment on Wong’s typically accurate discoveries of new features before they launch.
Twitter has made a slew of new product announcements over the past several weeks, updating its warnings for potentially offensive tweets, improving its photo cropping algorithm to allow “taller” images to fully display in users’ feeds, adding the ability for Android users to search their direct messages, and rolling out a Tip Jar feature to allow users to make donations to some creators, journalists, experts, and non-profits (although that last one raised some privacy concerns about what user information is included along with the tip).
And earlier this month, Twitter acquired Scroll, the $5-per-month subscription services that removes ads from websites that participate. With the Scroll announcement, Twitter also said it would be winding down Nuzzel, a Scroll service that sent users daily email roundups of top stories in their Twitter feeds.
In its first-quarter earnings report late last month, Twitter had a profit of $68 million on revenue of $1.04 billion. The company reported a 20 percent increase in monetizable daily active users.
There’s no word yet on when a premium paid version of Twitter would launch, or who would be eligible.
(Pocket-lint) – The e-bike space is a fascinating one at the moment, with big brands hopping on board to release their own electrified bikes, but a very healthy independent scene also pumping out unique options too.
The best electric bikes: Get around fast on these top ebikes
One such bike is the Angell, a French bike that doesn’t look like anything else on the market (although that’s a statement increasingly true of a bunch of e-bikes), so we’ve put it through its paces to see how it fares compared to the increasingly spicy competition.
Design
Available in silver or black finishes
Integrated touch display and lights
15.9kg (including removable battery)
Every bike has to share a few commonalities with others, and a frame is one of them – but Angell manages to find some unique design tweaks to ensure that it’s got a look all of its own. Riding the black version of the e-bike, you get a super slimline frame that’s angular and eye-catching.
Its core boast is how lightweight it looks, though, and it’s not just an appearance. The Angell has been designed smartly to carry the bulk of its weight in the removable battery pack behind the saddle. It’s just 13.9kg without that battery, making it easy to pick up, and with it onboard you’re looking at 15.9kg, which is on the lighter side for an e-bike.
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The two standout parts of the bike’s design are at the front and back of it. Staying with the battery pack, its u-shaped bulk can slide off the back of the Angell after being unlocked with a small key. It has a charging port to let you charge up without needing to lug the bike indoors (a key point of convenience in our experience with ebikes of all stripes), and two integrated rear lights. These lights can be turned on and off using a button on the handlebars, and also have indicator functions to flash amber if you want to feel even more futuristic.
That brings us to the front of the bike, which is rounded and snazzy, with a small integrated display between the handlebars and another integrated light to illuminate forwards. That display area makes for a chunky look between your arms, but is a useful way to both check what assist mode you’re using, or a variety of metrics including your current speed and how long you’ve been cycling, as well as the all-important battery meter.
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We’re slightly torn on the design. Some people we checked with found it unobtrusive and elegant, while others rightly pointed out that it’s a bit of a eye-catching way to advertise the smartness (and value) of your bike. In that way, it’s very much a matter of taste.
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There are four buttons on the handlebars in total – two for indicating left and right, one for swapping assist modes, and another to turn your lights on and off – which all work well and are simple and intuitive. There are more involved touch controls on the display if you want to check out further settings and options.
Whether you actually want to use the indicators is another personal point. Although they feel like a futuristic approach to a bike’s place on the roads of our cities, we also found ourself entirely doubting whether drivers were fully aware of how we were using them, despite the brightness of the tail-lights and indicator lights on the end of each handle. Maybe in time smart bikes with indicators will become more commonplace, but for now we still fell back on good old fashioned arm-waving to make sure busses knew where we were headed.
All in all, between the sleek front-end and a battery pack that looks for all the world like the engines of a spaceship, Angell is among the most progressive and interesting-looking e-bikes we’ve tested.
Pedal assistance
Up to 90km / 56mi range
Three pedal assist modes
25kmph/15.5mph maximum speed (regional limits may apply)
Angell thankfully manages to match its new-fangled looks with a smooth and responsive ride. There are no gears for you to worry about here, just an automatic shifter and a few assist modes to choose from.
You can ride it without any help if you like and its lightness makes this bearable if the battery runs out. But the main options are FlyEco, FlyDry and FlyFast – each one ramping up the amount of boost you get, and consuming more battery as a result.
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In Eco the boost means a gentle bit of help from a standing start, while Fast gives you a palpable whoomph as you start to pedal. It’s the Dry middle option that most people will default to, we feel, as it gives a great balance of comfortable acceleration with ease and safety.
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The overall ride is up there with Cowboy and VanMoof in terms of its smoothness, with only occasional hitches as the assist kicks in a second late. It’s perfect for urban riding, with disc brakes making for great stopping distances as well. You’ll find Angell gives you a welcome boost when you start pedalling, and it’s easy to manoeuvre and navigate around obstacles.
The integrated lights are a bit divisive in terms of design, but they’re super functional in use, lighting up nice and brightly so that you can forget about taking external lights with you everywhere you go.
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A maximum range of 90km on the lightest assistance setting is entirely respectable and pretty much par for the course. That said, having a percentage counter for the battery on the display did give us a surprising bit of range anxiety as it ticked down, for all that the information was welcome.
The display, meanwhile, is relatively easy to use – but at times seems a bit extraneous. Being able to see your speed or route on it is helpful, but we did sometimes think we’d prefer a cleaner frame that we could mount our phone to if we really wanted all this data.
Software and smart
Companion app
Automatic locking and alarm
The software experience using Angell is a slightly complicated one because of that display. It lets you control a bunch of functions on the bike without needing to resort to the capable companion app.
One key function is unlocking the bike with a pin-code, which is part of a security system that’ll sound a loud alarm if the bike detects it’s being moved jarringly. We found this theft alert a little too hair-trigger, and it wasn’t always the easiest thing to tell if it was activated.
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However, the display and app combine to make it fairly easy to set up navigation, or music controls on your bike, letting you keep your phone pocketed for safer riding. Whether it’s truly much safer than a mounted phone isn’t clear, but it’s certainly more sleek.
As a French bike, the app still has some slight translation issues to be worked out, but it’s nothing that’ll actually impede you as you use it. For the most part, it’s a solid software experience, but it can’t match up to the best we’ve tried from the likes of Cowboy.
Verdict
Riding the Angell was a great time in central London, and reiterated that it, and other e-bikes like it, are absolutely perfect for mid-length commutes and recreational rides. If your concern is getting from A to B without getting tired, this will do the job brilliantly.
It’s got a hefty serving of smart features, some of them unique, and an app that makes it pretty easy to explore them, plus a design that looks like nothing else we’ve tried. Being able to remove the battery to charge, meanwhile, is one of our top criteria in a modern e-bike, and it’s present and correct here.
That makes for an impressive package, and while it’s got a premium price tag to go with its charms, if you’re happy to spend some cash then the Angell will give you an all-new way to enjoy your travel.
Also consider
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Cowboy
With a removable battery and the best app we’ve yet used, Cowboy’s third-generation bike remains the most persuasive one we’ve tried, and it comes in cheaper than the Angell. It doesn’t have the same design chops, but it’s brilliant fun to ride and its pedal assist is just as impressive.
Read our full review
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VanMoof S3
While VanMoof’s bikes lack the removable battery as standard, in every other regard they’re the smoothest ride we’ve experienced from an e-bike, making for gorgeous cycling trips and ease of living. While still premium priced, they’re even more affordable than the Angell.
Read our full review
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Writing by Max Freeman-Mills. Editing by Mike Lowe.
This week, the FDA authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for people 12-15, a moment that many families have been eagerly waiting for since the vaccine rollout began in the US. As shots became available, parents rushed to get their kids the vaccine. But the decision has also contributed to ongoing discussions about how to best distribute vaccines around the world.
In Santa Barbara, one 14-year-old got a vaccine for his birthday. In Colorado, schools are setting up vaccine clinics. In Los Angeles, high-schoolers were eager for their shot at experiencing a normal life again.
“I have a large family, one that I haven’t been able to see in over a year. I’ve missed out on being with my friends, spending time with family, going to school and so much more,” 15-year-old Malyna Trujillo said at a news conference in LA. “This vaccination isn’t just for me, it’s for my family — for my community.”
On Wednesday, an advisory committee to the CDC endorsed the FDA’s decision, clearing the way for vaccinations to start in earnest. After the committee’s vote, Henry Bernstein, a member of the panel and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell said he was excited that younger people could now get the vaccine.
“This will provide protection for 12 to 15 year olds. It’ll decrease transmission within their families. It’ll contribute to community immunity, and it allows the kids to more safely go back to camps this summer, and back to in person school.” Bernstein said.
Not everyone was thrilled with the decision. “I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, said this week. He asked that countries donate vaccines to other countries instead.
“In low and lower-middle income countries, Covid-19 vaccine supply has not been enough to even immunize healthcare workers, and hospitals are being inundated with people that need lifesaving care urgently,” he said.
People on the CDC committee acknowledged the disparity in comments after the vote. “If we look at what’s happening elsewhere in the world, that’s evidence of what happens if you don’t have adequate supplies of safe and effective vaccines” said Matthew Daley, a pediatrician and researcher at Kaiser Permanente’s Institute for Health Research. “We’re in this very privileged position where we can see declining deaths and declining case rates because of these vaccines.”
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Younger people are not at as great a risk of developing severe complications of COVID-19 as older people. But less risk is not zero risk, and as vaccinations have accelerated in the United States, doctors have seen spikes in infections in unvaccinated children.
For parents, securing an early vaccine slot was a first chance to provide their kids a little bit more freedom after a year of caution. Kids were excited at the prospect of sleepovers, shopping, and anything that looks like pre-pandemic life.
“The reason why I got it was because I want to see my friend, which I haven’t seen for a while. We’ve only been able to call each other,” 13-year-old Evan Yaney told WILX in Lansing.
That loneliness is something that experts hope this next stage of the vaccine rollout might combat. At the meeting of the CDC’s advisory panel this week, Grace Lee, a Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University pointed out that we still don’t know the long-term effects of this pandemic on younger age groups. “I think sometimes we lose the importance of children and adolescents in the midst of a pandemic. There’s been such a focus on older adults in particular, I think that the childhood experience our kids have gone through will have long-lasting consequences that may extend across generations,” said Lee.
It has been a brutally hard year for children, many of whom have been kept apart from friends and family, suffered educational setbacks, or witnessed trauma. For them, the chance to get a vaccine offers them hope — for themselves, and also for the future.
“I have been extremely careful throughout this whole thing,” 13-year-old Pia Andrade told Houston’s KPRC as she got vaccinated this week. “My principal actually died from COVID. He was perfectly fine and he got it and was hospitalized and he just died. I’ve seen the effects firsthand, and the more of us that get vaccinated, the better the world will be.”
Research
The epidemiological impact of the NHS COVID-19 App This research paper in Nature this week models how well the NHS’s contact tracing app worked. The researchers found it worked about as well as manual contact tracing methods, and calculated that it may have saved thousands of lives. They suggest that similar apps could be used in other countries to blunt the pandemic, while the world waits on vaccines. (Fraser et al, Nature)
Most kids with coronavirus infections lack typical symptoms of COVID-19, study says People under 18 make up about 13 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US. But they don’t always show the same symptoms as adults. In particular, they are much less likely to have a fever, making temperature screenings less effective at catching cases. (Karen Kaplan/Los Angeles Times)
How COVID broke the evidence pipeline With more than a year of pandemic research under our belt, scientists are starting to take stock of the flood of COVID-19 related medical research. They’re finding that some of it…wasn’t that great. There were too many studies on individual (useless) drugs, studies with too few trial participants for any significant results, or review studies that quickly went out of date. There were major successes too, but scientists hope they can learn from the failures the next time an emergency crops up. (Helen Pearson/Nature)
Development
Free beer offer results in more vaccinations than all Erie County first-dose clinics last week We’ve written before about some of the creative promotions that health departments are using to get people vaccinated. Here’s a real-world example from Buffalo, NY of just how well these programs are working. (Bonus: A Slate interview witha health commissioner who was handing out shots.) (Sandra Tan/Buffalo News)
They Haven’t Gotten a Covid Vaccine Yet. But They Aren’t ‘Hesitant’ Either. About 30 million people in the US say they’d get a COVID-19 vaccine, but haven’t actually taken the plunge yet. Their reasons vary, but many in this group face hurdles like language barriers, difficult work schedules, or general lack of access. (Amy Harmon and Josh Holder/The New York Times)
Coronavirus Vaccines Protect Pregnant Women, Another Study Suggests New studies are adding to a growing pile of evidence that coronavirus vaccines protect pregnant people. A new paper showed that pregnant people can pass antibodies on to their fetus, and that breastmilk can pass antibodies along to infants. Another study found that the vaccine does not damage the placenta. (Emily Anthes/The New York Times)
Perspectives
This week, the CDC changed its guidance for fully vaccinated people, saying that they don’t have to wear masks in many settings. But masking won’t disappear overnight. Here are a few perspectives from people who are continuing to mask up, for a variety of reasons.
“Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker or maybe it’s because I always feel like I have to present my best self to the world, but it has been such a relief to feel anonymous. It’s like having a force field around me that says ‘don’t see me’.”
— ‘Francesca’ a professor, tells The Guardian why she’ll continue to wear a mask.
“I know it’s a low percentage, but there are children who have gotten it and been affected. What if it was your kid? I would take a gamble on myself. But my children? Never.”
— Jani Able, mother of two 7-year-olds tells USA Todaywhy her family will continue to wear masks.
“I still have fears that my husband will die even though we’re vaccinated…Just because I’ve read so many stories about people’s husbands dying. Or I have fears that my child will be that one kid who gets the rare syndrome, and visions of myself in the hospital. I have an overactive imagination. I tend to be anxious and impressionable. But I think a lot of people, not just me, are going through similar thoughts.”
— Frani, a woman in New York City talks to Vice about why she’s still wearing a mask.
More than numbers
To the people who have received the 1.41 billion vaccine doses distributed so far — thank you.
To the more than 161,951,393 people worldwide who have tested positive, may your road to recovery be smooth.
To the families and friends of the 3,359,318 people who have died worldwide — 585,233 of those in the US — your loved ones are not forgotten.
As part of iOS 14.5, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency forces developers to ask permission for something they used to be able to do for free: track iOS users. Today, Twitter is joining the ranks of other developers and adding a prompt that asks users to enable tracking on iOS (via MacRumors).
Twitter’s main justification for listening to its request is straightforward — having the feature enabled allows it to serve “better” ads. The company includes a link to settings so you can make those changes, but read Twitter’s explanation before you decide:
Keep ads relevant to you by allowing Twitter to track data from other companies on this device, like apps you use and websites you visit.
The company also includes a link to a support post in the Twitter help center which explains why it has to ask for permission, includes a link to its current App Privacy Policy, and goes over what enabling or disabling tracking does in iOS.
The new Twitter ad tracking prompt.
It’s a surprisingly low-key attempt to get users to allow Twitter to track them, considering the company highlighted Apple’s addition of App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 as a potential risk in its recent earnings statement (PDF):
We continue to expect total revenue to grow faster than expenses in 2021, assuming the global pandemic continues to improve and that we see modest impact from the rollout of changes associated with iOS 14.5. How much faster will depend on various factors, including our execution on our direct response roadmap and macroeconomic factors.
Facebook and Instagram took a far more aggressive approach to convince users its use of ad tracking is on the up-and-up — even going as far as including a vague threat that enabling tracking will “help keep Facebook/Instagram free of charge.”
Companies like Twitter and Facebook rely on tracking users to support their separate, often very lucrative ad businesses. After all, it’s usually ad sales that pay for free social networks, and customer data helps to target those ads. As a company that’s more interested in selling hardware and subscription services, Apple doesn’t really have to worry about things like that, but brash changes like the new tracking permissions can leave developers scrambling.
App Tracking Transparency has proven popular, though — around 96 percent of US users are opting out of tracking according to some recent surveys. And with Google considering developing its own methods for blocking tracking on Android, we might just have to get used to apps coming to us and begging for free data.
Venmo has a major privacy flaw that’s been well-known for years: there’s no way to keep your list of Venmo contacts private. That means you can see the contact list of any user on the platform, a flaw that’s so large that BuzzFeed News was able to track down President Joe Biden’s Venmo account in less than 10 minutes.
BuzzFeed News didn’t just find the president, though; the publication also discovered accounts for many people in Biden’s inner circle, and, because of the nature of this flaw, all of their contacts as well:
BuzzFeed News found nearly a dozen Biden family members and mapped out a social web that encompasses not only the first family, but a wide network of people around them, including the president’s children, grandchildren, senior White House officials, and all of their contacts on Venmo.
BuzzFeed News dug in after seeing a mention of Biden sending his grandchildren money over Venmo in a New York Times article published Friday. Biden’s transactions weren’t public (unlike Matt Gaetz’s, at one point), and all of Biden’s friends on Venmo were removed after BuzzFeed News contacted the White House for comment, the publication reported. (Venmo gives you the ability to remove contacts, but you have to do it manually.)
When asked for comment on the situation, Venmo provided the following statement:
The safety and privacy of all Venmo users and their information is always a top priority, and we take this responsibility very seriously. Customers always have the ability to make their transactions private and determine their own privacy settings in the app. We’re consistently evolving and strengthening the privacy measures for all Venmo users to continue to provide a safe, secure place to send and spend money.
As of press time, Venmo has not replied to a question asking if the company plans to let people make their contact lists private, which could help prevent something like this from happening in the future.
Massively popular game creation tool Roblox is now a massively popular experience creation tool Roblox, possibly in response to the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial.
Roblox allows a variety of user-created projects on its platform, and until earlier this week, these were all grouped under a tab called “Games” on Roblox’s website. Roblox creators could create and manage “games” through an editor, and individual games had a user limit called “max players.”
That’s all changed now. The “Games” tab now reads “Discover” on the web, although it still points to an address of “roblox.com/games.” Developers can create and manage “experiences,” and experiences have “max people” allowed. The word “game” has been replaced by “experience” across nearly the entire Roblox website, and the iOS and Android apps now have a Discover tab instead of a Games tab — although both apps are currently classed as games in their respective stores. Roblox acknowledged a message from The Verge, but it didn’t offer an explanation for the latest change by press time.
Roblox has used the term “experience” in place of “game” before, and CEO David Baszucki called Roblox a “metaverse” rather than a gaming platform last year. But this change happened days after a legal fight over whether Roblox experiences are games — and by extension, whether Roblox itself should be allowed on the iOS App Store.
The Epic v. Apple antitrust trial has produced a weeks-long, frequently hilarious debate over the definition of a video game. Epic wants to prove that its shooter Fortnite is a “metaverse” rather than a game, pushing the trial’s scope to cover Apple’s entire App Store instead of just games. Apple wants to prove that Epic is an almost purely game-related company and that the App Store maintains consistent, user-friendly policies distinguishing “apps” from “games.” It also wants to defend a ban on “stores within a store” on iOS.
Roblox blurs the line between a large social game and a game engine or sales platform. Users don’t enter a single virtual world like Second Life; they launch individual experiences created by users. Developers can sell items within those experiences, and there are full-fledged game studios that build with Roblox instead of, say, the Unity or Unreal engines. But all of this activity happens within a single Roblox app, instead of as a series of separately packaged games.
Apple has apparently worried about this fuzziness. In a 2017 email, Apple marketing head Trystan Kosmynka said he was “surprised” that Roblox (which he referred to as “Roboblox”) had been approved for the App Store. The email chain indicates that App Store reviewers raised concerns in 2014, but Roblox was approved without ever resolving the issues. Epic brought the decision up again in court, hoping to cast doubt on Apple’s App Store review process.
Instead, Kosmynka justified the choice by saying that neither Roblox nor its user-built projects should be defined as games. “If you think of a game or app, games are incredibly dynamic, games have a beginning, an end, there’s challenges in place,” he testified. “I look at the experiences that are in Roblox similar to the experiences that are in Minecraft. These are maps. These are worlds. And they have boundaries in terms of what they’re capable of.” Kosmynka said Apple considered Roblox itself an app (rather than a game) because the company used that label in the App Store, although this doesn’t appear to be accurate.
Besides the crucial factors of “beginning,” “end,” and “challenges,” Kosmynka seemingly argued that these experiences weren’t games because Roblox contained their code in a safe, Apple-vetted Roblox sandbox — making them less objectionable than standalone installable games. But Apple doesn’t use that same logic for cloud gaming services, which stream video of games from remote servers. In fact, it requires these services to list each game as a separate app. That would probably be a nightmare for Roblox, where experiences range from full-fledged professional projects to tiny personal spaces.
Some Roblox users have left irritated messages on Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms. But Roblox has promoted itself as a general-purpose metaverse in the past. It’s got virtually nothing to gain by deliberately stepping into Apple’s minefield of iOS gaming rules, particularly after such an extended courtroom debate about its status. On iOS, it turns out, the only winning move is to not play — or at least not tell anyone you’re playing.
Apple might have bigger plans for next week than initially thought. The new iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple TV 4K are all set to start shipping to early preorder customers on or around May 21st, but now it seems there could be two surprise announcements: a hi-fi streaming tier of Apple Music, and maybe even AirPods 3.
The Apple Music part seems extremely likely when you factor in a report from 9to5Google. Digging into the latest Apple Music for Android beta app, they discovered direct references to high-resolution audio that didn’t exist previously
These are the prompts found in the app’s code, though they’re not user-facing quite yet:
Lossless audio files preserve every detail of the original file. Turning this on will consume significantly more data.
Lossless audio files will use significantly more space on your device. 10 GB of space could store approximately: – 3000 songs at high quality – 1000 songs with lossless – 200 songs with hi-res lossless
Lossless streaming will consume significantly more data. A 3-minute song will be approximately: – 1.5 MB with high efficiency- 6 MB with high quality at 256 kbps- 36 MB with lossless at 24-bit/48 kHz- 145 MB with hi-res lossless at 24-bit/192 kHzSupport varies and depends on song availability, network conditions, and connected speaker or headphone capability.
It doesn’t get much more direct and clear than that, with Apple warning about both the higher data consumption of streaming lossless music and the added storage space that will be necessary to download it for offline listening. The fact that Apple has now added this data to its Android app suggests that this could all be happening sooner than later. I say that because Apple’s Apple One bundle showed up in Apple Music for Android just days before its public announcement.
The Android app code also reveals that Apple Music will offer two choices for lossless playback:
Lossless ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz
High-Res Lossless ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz
So it sounds like Apple has every intention of matching what Tidal, Amazon Music HD, and services like Qobuz currently deliver. It’s also worth noting that there’ve been recent references to Dolby Atmos spatial audio in Apple Music on iOS, according to 9to5Mac.
Apple has for years stuck to its customary 256kbps AAC files for both iTunes and Apple Music. When iTunes Plus debuted all the way back in 2007, that was a substantial upgrade over heavily compressed MP3s that people were downloading from peer-to-peer apps like Napster and Limewire during the height of music piracy. And it’s still perfectly adequate. Mastering of tracks has just as much influence on the listening experience as encoding details do, and Apple has tried to play to this aspect with its “Apple Digital Masters,” which aim to get the most dynamic range and detail from songs on its platform.
But in terms of pure music fidelity, Apple has objectively been surpassed by companies like Tidal and Amazon over the last several years. My friend Micah Singleton has a great piece over at Billboard about how we’re entering the hi-fi era of the streaming music wars. Amazon Music HD is performing strongly, with subscriptions up 100 percent year over year. Spotify has also promised the launch of “Spotify HiFi” for later this year.
There’s money to be made, and the ingredients are all there: Apple now sells premium headphones in the AirPods Max, and wireless carriers continue to talk up the promise and speeds of their growing 5G networks. I can’t imagine 5G will be required for lossless Apple Music streaming, but it’s a nice flex of the technology right in the middle of the iPhone 12 cycle.
What about those AirPods 3, though?
There have already been quite a few leaks that revealed details about Apple’s next iteration of AirPods, but the real question has been around release timing. Yesterday, a report from a site called AppleTrack suggested that the new AirPods could be announced alongside this new lossless tier of Apple Music. I don’t quite follow the logic, myself; no one really thinks of regular AirPods as the right choice for audiophile listening, but maybe Apple just wants new hardware of some sort to launch in tandem with the new service.
Taken on its own, the AirPods rumor seems “sketchy” as 9to5Mac said. But the sudden discoveries about lossless audio in Apple Music for Android seem to add some fuel to the fire.
BuzzFeed News has published a great story that looks at the cultural phenomenon that was on display when that picture of a mile-long Starbucks order (which included over 18 pumps of flavor) went viral earlier this month. It explores both the phenomenon of people ordering more customizations when using apps (something I know I’ve fallen prey to myself, though nowhere close to the extent displayed in the photo), as well as the world of TikTok Starbucks influencers.
Wait, what? Starbucks influencers? If you, like me, had never heard of this corner of the internet, be prepared to read about TikTok teens and even some Starbucks employees on the platform coming up with drink recipes that can become so popular that some employees estimate they take up 20 percent of orders they fill in a shift. The reporter also interviews some of those employees to figure out how they feel about the sometimes audacious orders. (Spoiler alert: their opinions are not as unanimous as I would’ve thought.)
The story is a fascinating look at how internet culture can affect even the mainstay of real-life American culture that is Starbucks. Some drinks that are popular online have even made their way to the menu, and it seems like Starbucks actually keeps an eye on what’s happening on TikTok. The story even includes a fun term for the phenomenon: “appuccino,” a mashup of app and Frappuccino, the popular coffee drink that often finds itself the victim of many, many add-ons.
MSI warned enthusiasts not to download its highly popular Afterburner overclocking utility from a new malicious website gaining traction on the Internet in a blog post Thursday. This website looks identical to MSI’s own website, tricking users into believing it’s the real thing. But in reality, any downloads visible on the page are loaded with viruses.
The site is called: afterburner-msi.space. (please do not visit this site), so it’s immediately apparent this is not MSI’s URL.
“This webpage is hosting software which may contain virus, trojan, keylogger, or other type of malicious program that have been disguised to look like MSI Afterburner. DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY SOFTWARE FROM THIS WEBSITE,” MSI’s blog says.
MSI noted that Afterburner is still available for legitimate download from its own website. Here is the real link to download MSI’s Afterburner utility: https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner/graphics-cards.
This is a good reminder for us all to watch out for sketchy links we might come across. Generally, companies will have a primary domain site, like MSI.com, and all its content will be available through that name. Seeing a site called afterburner.com (for example) should immediately raise some red flags, since the site isn’t under the MSI.com domain.
Luckily, all modern web browsers provide information on a website’s security. There’s an icon that appears right behind the address bar that will showcase a site’s certifications and if the site is secure. If you’re on the Tom’s Hardware site right now, right next to the Tom’s Hardware URL in your address bar is likely a lock. That lock tells you that the Tom’s Hardware domain is secure. Clicking on the lock will give you more details.
Most importantly, you should be using an anti-virus with Internet security if you want to maximize your safety from bogus and fraudulent websites. Even the best of us can get bamboozled into believing a dangerous download or a website is legit.
Samsung has released a number of Galaxy Books in the last few years. Despite generally being good devices with a recognizable brand name, most of them have remained Samsung-enthusiast purchases; none have truly entered the mainstream conversation.
So it seems fitting that the Galaxy Book Pro 360 isn’t a direct sequel to any preexisting Galaxy Books. Instead, it’s an attempt to combine the best features of Samsung’s previous PCs and create a device that Samsung knows it can do really well.
It worked. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is targeting a fairly specific audience, but in two areas — its OLED screen and its three-pound weight — it’s a groundbreaking device that has little significant competition across the market. But what’s really exceptional is that you don’t have to sacrifice much to get those standout features. It’s solid in the other areas that matter, it comes with some neat software and has few significant problems. If there’s a device that could bring the Galaxy Book out of the territory of Samsung super-fans and into the mainstream market, this is it.
The 15-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360 starts at $1,299. For the base price, you get a Core i7-1165G7, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. For $200 you can upgrade to the model I’m reviewing, which has 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. The only other difference between these configurations is that the base only comes in “mystic navy” (the color of the unit I have), while the pricier one also comes in “mystic bronze.” There’s also a 13-inch model, starting at $1,399.99, that will support 5G at some point (though it doesn’t yet).
That’s competitive pricing. The Galaxy Book Flex, Samsung’s most recent ultraportable touchscreen convertible, has an MSRP of $1,399 for an 8GB / 512GB model (though it’s often on sale now). Comparable Surface Laptop 4 and Surface Pro 7 Plus models start at $1,499 at the lowest. All Galaxy Book Pro 360 models also ship with an S Pen, which is just like the S Pen on the Galaxy Book Flex except that it’s 2.5 times thicker. As I noted in my initial look at the Book 360, it really does feel like a real pen (especially compared to the S Pens that you get with Galaxy Note phones, which feel like toys in comparison), though I wish there were somewhere in the chassis to store it.
The quad-core Core i7-1165G7 is the same processor that powers a number of the best consumer laptops on the market. The Pro 360 was just fine for the large load of Chrome tabs and apps that I pushed it through during each day of testing. Performance was snappy, and I rarely heard the fans spin up (though I occasionally heard coil whine from the processor). Note that there’s no discrete GPU option, but Iris Xe graphics can lend a hand in some lightweight gaming and graphic work.
Then, there are a number of customization features that you can tweak in the Samsung Settings app. You can swap between cooling profiles, including a “no fan” mode if you want total silence. You can toggle “Studio Mode,” which is supposed to enhance your video quality on calls — while it wasn’t night and day, I did find that this made me look a bit better in low-light settings. One feature I didn’t love was Secret Screen, which purports to be a privacy screen but really just makes the app you’re using either translucent or darker (and it doesn’t work with every app). Maybe this makes it slightly harder to snoop, but it also makes work an odd experience, and you could achieve a similar effect by just dimming your screen. I’d invest in a laptop with a real privacy shield (such as HP’s Elite Dragonfly) if you’ll be viewing highly sensitive material.
And then there are some bonuses for folks who are already Samsung devotees: you can expand your display onto a Galaxy Tab S7 or S7 Plus and quickly move files between Galaxy devices with Samsung’s Quick Share function. And the Pro 360 comes preloaded with some Samsung software, including Samsung Notes (which can sync between devices) and SmartThings.
Most of my (very few) quibbles with the device come from the outside. For one, the blue chassis is a fingerprint magnet (the lid was all smudged up after half a day of use). I also experienced some occasional palm-rejection issues with the touchpad, which improved but didn’t disappear when I bumped it down to the lowest sensitivity. And I know some people like flat keyboards, but this one is too flat for my taste, with just 1mm of travel.
But there are a couple reasons why the Galaxy Book Pro 360 really stands out, and they easily make up for those quibbles. The first is the screen. The 13-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360 will be one of very few 13-inch OLED laptops on the market. OLED is more common in the 15-inch tier, but it’s unusual to see outside of creator-focused workstations with discrete GPUs. The most obvious use for this 15.6-inch OLED panel is likely entertainment, rather than on-the-go creative work. (That’s especially true because it’s just 1920 x 1080 resolution, not 4K.)
The screen is quite sharp, with vibrant colors. (It maxed out our colorimeter, covering 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut). As we’d expect from an OLED panel, it delivers bright whites and unparalleled blacks. If you’re looking for a 15.6-inch laptop with an OLED display, you’re unlikely to find one at a lower price.
That said, there are a few things to note. First, it doesn’t get super bright, maxing out at just 276 nits in my testing. It kicked back some glare outdoors, though I was still able to use it. Second, it’s 16:9, which is an aspect ratio I’ve sworn off forever because it’s cramped for multitasking. And third, there’s some wobble when you type or use the touchscreen. It’s not the worst wobble I’ve ever seen, but it’s there.
Tent mode.
Pretty darn thin.
The touchscreen is glossy, but bright enough.
It’s responsive and generally smooth.
Another standout feature: the Galaxy Book Pro 360 is really darn portable. It’s just a few millimeters thicker than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (0.46 inches). And at three pounds, it’s easily one of the lightest 15-inch laptops you can buy. The 15-inch Surface Laptop 4 and Galaxy Book Flex, both of which are also known for their lightweight builds, are almost half a pound heavier. I’ve never considered buying a 15-inch laptop myself, due to how much they tend to weigh; this is the first 15-incher I’ve reviewed that I can actually see myself carrying around all day.
The third benefit is one I wasn’t expecting: battery life. This laptop has a 68Wh battery, which isn’t huge for 15-inchers (though it’s bigger than you often see for a 15W processor with integrated graphics). It also has a display that could be a battery suck. Samsung’s last attempt at an OLED laptop had disappointing battery results. So I was pleasantly surprised by how long the Galaxy Book Pro 360 lasted. I averaged 10 hours and 23 minutes to a charge during my testing, which included using around a dozen Chrome tabs and some apps on the side with the screen around 200 nits of brightness. If you’re just using this for entertainment, and not as a primary work driver, you’ll likely get even more.
I’m a fan of the 15-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360, though I do think its audience is fairly specific. This is a laptop worth considering if you’re looking for an excellent big-screen entertainment experience while you’re out and about, and maybe also need to take notes for class or make artwork in your spare time. Bonus points if you’re already plugged into the Samsung ecosystem. Not everyone needs that kind of laptop — but if you do, this is a good one to look at.
The device’s weight is a huge benefit, but what’s even more impressive is that you’re not sacrificing a lot to achieve that weight. You also get a premium build, a capable processor with plenty of RAM and storage, a decent port selection, a nice screen with stylus support, and all-day battery life, all for a competitive price. What ultimately makes this laptop worth its price is that the lightweight chassis is icing on the cake — it’s not a feature you have to compromise on a ton of other things to get.
If you’re a Samsung fan who hasn’t been sold on the Galaxy Book lineup so far, I’d say this is the one to get. I wish the hinge were sturdier, I wish the keyboard wasn’t quite so flat, and I wish the screen got a tad bit brighter. But I don’t see any of those things significantly hindering the overall experience. For once, Samsung has made a tough 2-in-1 to beat.
Google is rolling out the ability to access Chat messages right from Gmail to more iOS and Android users, after introducing it as a feature for Google Workspace users last July (via 9to5Google). It’s still a test feature, so getting access to it can take a bit of work, and it may not be available to your depending on your account settings (my colleagues and I were able to enable it on personal accounts, but not our work accounts). If you can get it working, though, you’ll be rewarded with a new tab at the bottom of the Gmail app, giving you access to your IMs.
To enable the feature on iOS or Android, open the side menu and scroll down to Settings. If you have multiple accounts, select the one you want, then look for “Chat (early access)” under General. Flipping the toggle will turn it on (after you restart the app).
Turning on the Chat toggle will give you access to personal and group chats in Gmail.
If you don’t see the Chat option, you may need enable it in the desktop version of gmail first, by going to https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#settings/chat, then selecting Google Chat in the Chat menu. After restarting the Gmail app on your phone, the toggle should appear.
You may have to enable Chat on desktop before you can get it on your phone.
Chat is Google’s replacement for Hangouts, which it has slowly been moving users away from. Chat’s also available as a separate app, but if you’re the type of person who doesn’t like having a ton of messaging apps on your phone, having it just exist as a tab in Gmail could be your kind of thing (especially if you live in email all day).
Pretty much just like having the chat app, but in Gmail.
Sometimes I reflect on my life and wonder where I went wrong, such that I am sitting on a wooden pew in federal court, watching a Google search for Candy Crush Saga on the display monitor. This is a huge trial with major stakes for tech companies. It is also a crashing bore.
On the stand is Lorin Hitt, professor of operations, information, and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton, looking uncomfortable behind his face shield. During his direct examination in the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial, Hitt testified that he didn’t think having to access an app like Candy Crush through a browser instead of the app counted as “friction” for the user — and that it certainly was less friction than “real-world” alternatives, such as leaving a convenience store and then crossing the street to go to another convenience store.
The point of Hitt’s earlier testimony was that game developers “multi-home” games to PC and mobile. He’s Apple’s expert witness, and he is here to convince the judge that being blocked from the App Store isn’t a huge barrier to developers. Epic — whose game Fortnite is in fact blocked from the store — has taken Apple to court to show otherwise. And the picture Hitt painted on his direct examination was largely dismissive of Epic’s concerns.
Epic attorney Yonatan Even, also in a face shield, is now doing his best to blow a hole in Hitt’s testimony. I am doing my best to follow a confusing spreadsheet that includes games that Hitt has promised are on both PC and mobile phones. Even begins by pointing out some of these games are not, in fact, available for PC. One game, Words Story, is listed as available on PC on the document, but does not say this on the developer’s website. In the Microsoft store, a “Words Story” with the same art exists, but it’s not the same developer. “Sir, this is not the same developer and not the same game, is it?” Even says. “It’s what is called a ‘fake game.’”
We go through this tiresome process for several games: Helix Game, Crowd City, BitLife, Happy Glass, Paper.io 2, and Mr. Bullet. I have never heard of any of these small-potatoes games, which makes them sort of a weird point of comparison for the most popular game in the world. The app developer pages suggest they are not available on PC, despite Hitt’s document to the contrary. Things are getting contentious, and Hitt is beginning to have a hang-dog “Rick Moranis in Honey I Shrunk the Kids” vibe. Did Hitt double-check the data to make sure it was the same developer across stores? Can he tell the court under oath that a certain app is from the same developer?
“Can you give the court sworn testimony that you have seen with your own eyes that this game is also available on PC?” Even asks.
Hitt can’t guarantee all the games listed in the unintelligible spreadsheet are from the same developer across all platforms, it turns out. He says his team of researchers did the analysis, and he trusts his team.
Hitt said earlier that he’d identified eight games that let people buy things on the iOS web browser, and then use them in iOS apps; these are identified in the spreadsheet. Epic has complained that this process isn’t good enough — and certainly isn’t ubiquitous. Now, Even raises the “frictionless” process that Hitt had blithely testified to earlier in the day. Candy Crush Saga is the example Even chooses. We go to the website, and press “install,” where we are promptly sent to the App Store. We tab back to the website. The only possible way to play on the web is on desktop. The Facebook option for Candy Crush, too, is desktop.
“That’s part of the frictionless process you have envisioned?” Even asks, somewhat sarcastically.
We try another game, Clash Royale, developed by Supercell. We go to Supercell’s FAQ, where it emerges that payment processes are only through Apple’s App Store or Google play. Supercell itself doesn’t keep payment information “And yet you believe that your team managed to go into a website and buy legitimate Clash Royale money and go back to the app? That’s your testimony?” Even asks.
Then he twists the knife: The typical user of Clash Royale doesn’t have a research team, Even observes.
I am terrified we are going to go through all eight apps, but thankfully Even spares us the exhaustion. According to Even, there are three apps that support buying something on the web, then using it in an app: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Roblox and… Fortnite. (Fortnite, however, is now banned from iOS.) Does Hitt have any basis to dispute this?
Hitt says he trusts his team. I am feeling very bad for the team, which has largely been thrown under the bus by Hitt here.
On redirect, Apple’s Cynthia Richman tries to stop the bleeding. Sometimes developers license games to other developers — which might explain some of the cases where the developers don’t match. Hitt also tells us that Even’s rather brutal examples aren’t typical. Hitt has personally purchased V-bucks on a mobile browser, he tells us proudly.
“It looked pretty difficult given the examples you provided,” says Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. What’s the explanation for why we couldn’t do these things during the cross-examination? Well, Hitt says, there were other links in the spreadsheet.
That may very well be true. But Even’s point stands: most of us do not have research teams. I wish I did — I could send them to the trial in my stead and blame them if the work was subpar. Instead, I am personally sitting through excruciating expert testimony. Why am I focusing on this, specifically? It’s the most interesting thing that happened all day.
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