Engadget

Engadget

Grimes, Will.i.am and Alanis Morrissette will judge an avatar singing TV show

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 02:26 PM PDT

Are you more comfortable singing behind a virtual persona than you are on a real stage? Your reality TV show has arrived. Pitchfork and AV Club report that Fox is launching a "world's first" avatar singing competition series, Alter Ego, that will have celebrity judges gather in real life to gauge the performances of amateur singers who use avatars to "reinvent themselves."

You'll likely recognize the judge panel. Canadian artists Grimes (pictured above) and Alanis Morrissette will join Will.i.am and Nick Lachey in critiquing the music, while Emmy winner Rocsi Diaz will host the affair. Alter Ego debuts sometime in the fall.

It's an unusual concept, but not necessarily a bad one. In theory, this could help budding talent overcome stage fright or self-esteem issues by using an avatar as a stand-in. It's certainly a fitting show for a tech-savvy artist like Grimes. It's just a question of whether or not audiences enjoy the concept. Anonymizing music shows like The Masked Singer have been hits, but they still involve a physical presence for the participants — there's a chance viewers might not be so thrilled about digital concerts.

Ubisoft sued in France over alleged 'institutional harassment'

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 01:59 PM PDT

Ubisoft is facing new legal action over alleged sexual harassment throughout the company. Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun report that French workers union Solidaires Informatiques and two former Ubisoft staffers have sued the game developer for allegedly enabling a culture of "institutional sexual harassment." It was supposedly easier for Ubisoft to tolerate misconduct than to address problems, according to the union.

The lawsuit targets several existing and former Ubisoft workers, including former managers Cecile Cornet (head of human resources), Tommy Francois (editorial VP) and Serge Hascoët (global creative director). Company chief Yves Guillemot is also under scrutiny not for direct involvement, but because he's inherently "responsible" for what happens at Ubisoft.

Ubisoft told Kotaku it had "no further details to share" in response to the claim against the gaming giant. It previously said that it had investigated all claims and taken an appropriate response.

There were already complaints that Ubisoft hadn't fully tackled allegations like these. Bloomberg sources said that accused managers remained in senior positions, and that staff were reporting sexist and racist activity that went unaddressed.

There's no certainty the lawsuit will succeed, let alone force institutional changes at Ubisoft. However, it's evident the company's initial efforts weren't enough to satisfy employees. If the allegations are accurate, Ubi might need to take more drastic steps if it's going to prevent misconduct and the ensuing fallout.

Soft robot plays piano thanks to 'air-powered' memory

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 01:01 PM PDT

Soft robots still tend to rely on hard electronics to function, but a new invention might reduce that need for unyielding chips. UC Riverside researchers have developed pneumatic computer memory that they used to help a soft robot play the piano.

Instead of conventional transistors and electric circuits, the "air-powered" memory relies on microfluidic valves that control airflow. Atmospheric pressure in a given valve represents a binary "0," while a vacuum indicates a "1." The researchers' memory has a complex-enough array of these valves to function like an 8-bit RAM chip — not exactly powerful, but good enough that a pair of soft robot hands can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" at a slow but steady pace.

The absence of positive pressure makes this particularly safe — there's no danger of the memory exploding in mid-use.

The technology is far from ready for everyday use. Besides needed improvements to complexity and speed, a robot would need soft versions of processors and other components to completely eliminate the need for rigid electronics. The goal is clear, however. Pneumatic memory could at least reduce the need for chips in soft robots, and points to a future of completely flexible robotics that shouldn't hurt you if there's a collision.

NSO spyware was allegedly used to target activists and journalists

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 12:02 PM PDT

Critics have previously claimed that NSO Group spyware was misued to target the media and other innocent people, but new findings might have revealed the extent of that misuse. The Washington Post has shared a multi-partner investigation claiming that NSO's Pegasus software was used to successfully hack 37 phones, including journalists, activists and the two women closest to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The victims were on a 2016-era list of 50,000 phone numbers from countries believed to conduct both extensive surveillance and use of NSO tools, such as Hungary and Saudi Arabia. The list included 1,000 people who didn't obviously fit the software's intended criminal targets, including over 600 politicians, 189 journalists, 85 humans rights activists and 65 business executives.

Roughly a dozen Americans working overseas were on the list, but the investigation partners couldn't conduct forensic studies on most of their phones or find evidence of successful hacks. NSO previously said Pegasus couldn't be used to snoop on American devices.

NSO flatly denied the claims stemming from the investigation. It maintained that the information had "no factual basis," and rejected the notion that Pegasus was used to target Khashoggi or his associates. It maintained that it shut down access "multiple times" over past abuses, and that the list was too large to be focused solely on numbers its client countries would have targeted. The company went so far as to hire a libel attorney, Thomas Clare, that accused the investigation partners of having "misinterpreted and mischaracterized" data while making "speculative and baseless assumptions."

NSO has historically pinned abuse claims on the countries themselves, and has said it reviewed the human rights records of a given nation before doing business.

The report comes a year and a half after Facebook sued NSO for allegedly enabling call exploit attacks against WhatsApp, and mere months after Citizen Lab claimed that NSO software was used to hack Al Jazeera journalists' iPhones using an iMessage flaw. However true the accusations might be, they'll at least affect NSO's reputation — they cast doubt on the company's assertion that it only serves customers pursuing obvious targets like terrorists.

More leaks suggest the next iPhone might have an always-on display

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:45 AM PDT

Add another major voice to the chorus of those claiming the next iPhone could have an always-on display. As 9to5Macnotes, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman used his weekly "Power On" newsletter to say the 2021 iPhone will potentially have an "Apple Watch-like" always-on display with better battery life in addition to a 120Hz refresh rate, a smaller screen notch, an A15 chip and video recording upgrades.

Gurman didn't outline the always-on screen functionality. However, a past leak from Max Weinbach suggested Apple would use an LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) panel that, like on the Apple Watch and a few Android phones, could drop to extremely low refresh rates to offer persistent information without a large hit to battery life. You might see some notifications, battery life and the clock without having to wake up your phone.

The writer also used his newsletter to narrow the time frame for a long-rumored MacBook Pro redesign. He now expects Apple to start mass production of the mini LED-equipped laptops in the third quarter of 2021 (aka this summer) with a launch between September and November. That's still somewhat vague, but it does suggest you won't have to wait until next year (or watch for a surprise early announcement).

The new MacBook Pros are rumored to have a 'flat' design like the new iMac (minus the colors) while using a more powerful take on Apple's M1 chip that could support up to 64GB of RAM and more ports. Mini LEDs could deliver a screen that offers high contrast ratios and brightness while keeping battery life in check.

Facebook rejects Biden claim it's 'killing people' with COVID-19 misinformation

Posted: 18 Jul 2021 08:43 AM PDT

Facebook isn't exactly enthusiastic about President Biden's claim that it and other social networks are "killing people" by allowing COVID-19 misinformation to spread. The social media firm posted a refutation of the allegations, using data to suggest that something other than Facebook was responsible for a slowdown in vaccination rates and a rise in cases.

The company noted that vaccine acceptance in user polling had risen from 70 percent in January 2021 to as high as 85 percent in July, and that cultural group disparities had declined "considerably" over the same period. This was ahead of Biden's goal of getting 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July — to Facebook, this was a sign the company was "not the reason" the US fell short of that target.

Facebook added that Canada and the UK had higher vaccination percentages despite using the social network about as much as their American counterparts. There's "more than Facebook" to the US results, the company said. It also pointed to its efforts to both promote accurate claims and fight falsehoods, including the use of misinformation labels, reduced exposure and takedowns. 

The internet giant didn't attempt to find an alternate explanation for US troubles. Some observers have pointed to a possible link between political affiliation and vaccination rates, but Facebook didn't even hint at this in its refutal.

It's not a flawless argument. Facebook is trying to draw a link between its polling data and the entire US, which doesn't make for a neat and tidy comparison. The company also hasn't shared estimates of how much COVID-19 misinformation slips through the cracks. The social site has a strong incentive to downplay its possible contribution to the problem given past complaints that it hasn't done enough to stop misinformation campaigns. 

At the same time, the data shifts the attention back to the Biden administration — it may need to provide more substantial data if it's going to show that health misinformation on social networks like Facebook is a major threat, as the US Surgeon General recently said. If nothing else, it suggests the answer is a complicated one regardless of how much Facebook is responsible.
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