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I think beneath Tim Cook’s deeply reserved, professional aura lies someone who loves a bit of sass. Naturally, as the CEO of Apple, Cook needs to present a professional image at all times, but he did let his sense of humor out at the 2022 Code Conference. During a Q&A, a journalist asked about the iPhone’s lack of compatibility with RCS, which meant they couldn’t share video clips with their Android-using mom. Cook said it wasn’t a priority for the company, then joked that the person should “buy your mom an iPhone.”

– Daniel Cooper

The biggest stories you might have missed

• Google will soon offer an easy way to share files between your own Android devices

• The best SSDs available now, plus how to choose one

• Electrify America wants to make EV chargers as easy to use as gas pumps

• New 'Overwatch 2' heroes will be locked behind a battle pass

• Jeep announces plans to bring four new EV models to market by 2025

Meta dissolves team responsible for discovering 'potential harms to society' in its own products

Yikes.

Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

A group inside Meta that analyzed potential harms to society caused by Facebook’s products has been shut down. The team consisted of engineers, ethicists and civil rights experts who advised the company’s broader team on potential risks. Meta didn’t explain why the group has closed but said it remained committed to the team’s goals. Of course, given Facebook’s reputation for building products without much consideration of the consequences, this seems like an unwise step. Maybe there should be a team of in-house experts to point out this sort of thing ahead of… ohhhh.

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Sony's Jim Ryan says Microsoft's Call of Duty promise was 'inadequate on many levels'

Microsoft promised a deal for three years, Sony wasn’t happy.

As part of the $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has had to make several commitments to ward off antitrust regulators and angry gamers. One of the biggest was to not pull major franchises, like Call of Duty, away from the PlayStation to force people to buy Xboxes. Despite public promises made by Xbox head Phil Spencer, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan isn’t happy. Ryan revealed Microsoft has only promised to keep Call of Duty on the rival platform for a further three years, after which things get a little more uncertain.

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NVIDIA to reveal its next-gen GeForce RTX GPUs on September 20th

It’s expected to be the debut for the RTX-40 series.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA’s GPU technology conference happens later this month, and the big news is CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote. The company says that at 11 AM ET on September 20th, we’re going to see “the latest breakthroughs in gaming, creating and graphics technology.”

That’s set many tongues wagging. Are we going to see the next generation of Ampere Next-based GPUs in the form of the RTX-40 series? Given the majority of RTX-30 cards are only now entering the market after the crypto bubble burst, it’ll be interesting to see how many of these actually go on sale in the near future.

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NASA picks Axiom Space to build the first Artemis moonwalk spacesuits

There will be a new generation of spacesuits for walking on the moon.

NASA

NASA has picked Axiom Space to supply the space suits worn when humanity returns to the moon. These new suits will work for a wider range of crew members and offer increased flexibility and more specialized tools for exploration. The lack of appropriate gear was one of the reasons a planned all-woman spacewalk was canceled back in 2019. With a contract in place to provide the suits necessary to walk on the moon, the planned return to our nearest neighbor feels a lot more real. Now NASA just has to get the wagon that’ll take everyone there up and running.

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‘The Wrath of Khan’ is getting an official Star Trek podcast prequel

‘Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V’ will be written and directed by Nicholas Meyer.

A prestige streaming series covering the life of Trek arch-villain Khan Noonien Singh while in exile on Ceti Alpha V has been rescued from development hell and will be turned into a podcast. Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V will fill in the gap from the end of classic series episode ‘Space Seed’ until the beginning of The Wrath of Khan. More importantly, however, the series will be written and directed by Trek superstar Nicholas Meyer. I’ll be honest, I never expected to get more Trek written by Meyer in my lifetime, and I’m here for it.

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Instagram will soon be testing reposts, something that's never been available in the main feed part of the app but is a key feature on Facebook and Twitter. It was first spotted on the profile of Twitter CEO Adam Mosseri by social media consultant Matt Navarra, and Instagram later confirmed it with TechCrunch."

"We’re exploring the ability to reshare posts in Feed — similar to how you can reshare in Stories — so people can share what resonates with them, and so original creators are credited for their work," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We plan to test this soon with a small number of people."

A new screen describes the features as a way to recommend a post to friends, and spark conversations wiht follows, who can reply to your repost with a message. Feed reposts are "shown in a separate tab in your profile" along with posts, reels and tagged photos, and will be visible to followers.

Reposts have been available in Stories since 2018, but the only way to do it in feeds has been via third-party apps (clues about the feature were first spotted back in May by researcher Alessandro Paluzzi). Instagram's arch-rival TikTok recently introduced a repost feature for videos following tests early in 2022. However, reposted TikTok videos only appear in your friends' 'For You' feeds and not in your own profile.

Instagram has introduced a slew of updates recently to help it better compete with TikTok. It recently launched a full-screen TikTok-like feed and boosted the amount of recommended content you see. However, following complaints (including from celebrities), it backed off and said it would phase out the full-screen mode and scale back recommended posts.

Some social media experts worry that reposts may create similar issues by pushing content from strangers. "Reposting is another explicit step towards dismantling the IG that you know, in favor of one that Instagram thinks will be a better experience for you," wroteSocial Media Today's Andrew Hutchinson. "BeReal’s growth shows that there is a real desire for more authentic connection and community engagement, outside of the constant highlight reels of viral clips."

US authorities, with help from blockchain analyst Chainalysis, have recovered $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen from Axie Infinity in March. It's but a fraction of the $625 million the play-to-earn game lost to the North Korean-linked hacking unit known as the Lazarus Group, but it's a significant achievement for law enforcement and the crypto community. Chainalysis says this is the first time that cryptocurrency stolen by a North Korean hacking group has been seized.

As the analyst explains, North Korea-linked groups typically use Tornado Cash to mix Ether, but the sanctions the US imposed on the mixer forced them to employ alternative techniques. They now use blockchain bridges to switch between different kinds of digital coins in an effort to obscure the source of their funds, and the analyst had the tools necessary to trace those cross-chain movements.

Apparently, most of the funds stolen from Axie Infinity remain in the blockchain, showing that the bad actors are having a tough time moving stolen assets around and converting them into fiat currency. Chainalysis seems confident that this won't be the last time stolen funds would be recovered from these hacking groups.

According to Bleeping Computer, news about the fund retrieval was announced at the ongoing AxieCon event. The game's publishers have revealed that the money authorities recovered will be gradually moved into Axie Infinity's treasury and then back to its player community. However, it won't be a quick process, and it could take several years to accomplish.

Tesla already has 35,000-plus Superchargers around the world, but it can be a mystery as to exactly how it chooses locations. Now via a new Twitter poll, the company is asking the public to tell it where they want the next superchargers to be installed, TechCrunch has reported.

Some of the top-requested sites are the least accessible, including US National Parks, Vancouver Island, Hawaii and Alaska. If you've ever been to British Columbia you'll notice a lot of Tesla EVs driving around, but there are only a pair of Supercharger stations on Vancouver Island in Victoria and Nanaimo. Similarly, there's only a single station in Alaska at Soldotna, and a lone six-bay facility in Honolulu. It would also make sense to install Superchargers at National Park gateways often located in remote regions.

Tesla has 1,469 Supercharger locations in the US, with the number of charge points varying widely per station. However, station growth has lagged behind Tesla EV sales — the latter grew 87 percent in 2021, but Supercharger installations increased just 35 percent. This could become a bigger problem soon, as the company said it will open up its Supercharger network to non-Tesla vehicles. 

Installing them isn't quite as simple as throwing money around, either. Tesla recently posted a job ad for its Canadian Supercharger design team, noting that applicants require experience in site permitting, construction feasibility, utility service requests and more. The company recently told sites hosting Superchargers that they're good for business, with average monthly charging visits between 2,000 to 5,000 at locations in Vancouver, BC. 

More Uber Eats customers would be getting their orders from vehicles with no delivery personnel in sight. That's because Uber has signed a 10-year partnership with Nuro to use its autonomous, electric vehicles to deliver food orders in the US. They'll start in Houston, Texas and Mountain View, California this fall before eventually expanding their service to the greater Bay Area.

According to TechCrunch, customers won't get to choose and won't even know if their order is being delivered by a Nuro bot when they make their purchase. That also means they'll be charged the same rates for delivery regardless of what the delivery method is. Also, they'll get a refund for their tip if they choose to give one via the app and a Nuro vehicle shows up instead of a human worker. They do have to walk outside to get their order themselves, though, and that could be quite a hassle in the rain. 

Based on the video the companies released to show what a Nuro delivery would look like, customers would have to key in a code to open the vehicle door and get their order. Nuro introduced its third-gen delivery vehicle, which comes with an external airbag to protect pedestrians, earlier this year. Since it has yet to formally launch its new vehicle model, it will initially use its second-gen cars called the R2 for the partnership. The R2 was designed to be completely driverless and is equipped with 360-degree and thermal cameras, lidar and radar to effectively navigate roads on its own. 

Nuro's vehicles have been making deliveries in Houston since 2019 for other companies like Walmart. In California, it was granted the state’s first Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Permit in 2020, giving it the authority to operate a commercial autonomous vehicle service. As TechCrunch notes, that would allow Nuro to receive a fee for every Uber Eats delivery in the state. 

Nuro isn't the only autonomous delivery firm Uber Eats has an agreement with. The food delivery service launched a pilot with Motional in May for orders in Santa Monica, California, though those deliveries made by an autonomous vehicle will still have a safety driver behind the wheel. Uber Eats also launched a pilot service with sidewalk delivery firm Serve Robotics in the same month for short delivery routes in West Hollywood.

NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference goes down this month and the company has revealed when CEO Jensen Huang's keynote will take place. You'll be able to watch it on NVIDIA's website at 11AM ET on September 20th. The keynote will kick off with a GeForce Beyond special broadcast, which will also stream on Twitch and YouTube.

The company says the event will include "the latest breakthroughs in gaming, creating and graphics technology." NVIDIA is expected to reveal its RTX 40-series graphics cards during the broadcast — an image the company shared to promote the event includes the GeForce RTX Logo. NVIDIA previously said it would release its first Ampere Next-based GPUs this year. Those will supplant graphics cards with the current Ampere architecture.

It remains to be seen just how well the RTX 40-series cards will perform. In the meantime, the 30-series GPUs are finally readily available after the cryptocurrency market cratered.

Paramount has announced a new scripted Star Trek podcast detailing the exploits of arch-villain Khan Noonien Singh. Star Trek: Khan - Ceti Alpha V will cover the period of time after Khan and his cohort of genetically-engineered villains were exiled during the classic episode Space Seed and before Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. More importantly, the long-mooted miniseries will be written and directed by Trek auteur Nicholas Meyer.

To Trek fans, there are few creative figures who deserve more swooning adoration than Meyer. The writer-director made The Wrath of Khan, the movie that ostensibly saved the series from obscurity. He would go on to co-write The Voyage Home and helm The Undiscovered Country — three of the best Star Trek movies ever made. In fact, one esteemed Trek scholar even said that to make great Star Trek you need to do two things: Hire Nicholas Meyer, then cut his budget in half.

Alex Kurtzman gave praise to Meyer, saying that “Nick made the definitive Trek movie when he made Wrath, and we’ve all been standing in its shadow since.” He added that Meyer has “come up with something as surprising, gripping and emotional as the original, and it’s a real honor to be able to let him tell the next chapter in this story exactly the way he wants to.”

When Star Trek’s revival began, Discovery’s original creator Bryan Fuller recruited Meyer as a producer. Back in 2017, Meyer added that discussions had taken place for him to write a Khan mid-quel series covering his exile and bridging the gap between the classic series and the film. The series may or may not have been put on ice as a consequence of Paramount and CBS’ complex re-merger, and the fact it was only expected to be three episodes long.

Unfortunately there’s no solid details on who will star in the series (Ricardo Montalban passed away in 2009), and no word on a release date or runtime. But given that Paramount has a) Hired Nicholas Meyer and b) cut his budget by more than half, we should expect this podcast to be the greatest piece of Trek ever committed to audio.

Overwatch 2 is just a few weeks away and more details are trickling out about what to expect from the sequel. It’s been known for a while that there will be three new heroes at launch, the first fresh faces for the series in over two and a half years. But there will be significant changes to how Blizzard introduces new playable characters — you’ll need to unlock them through a battle pass.

“Addressing some incomplete info posted early about our Overwatch 2 Battle Pass — we'll be sharing all details ahead of launch, but want to confirm that new Overwatch 2 heroes will be available on the free track of the Battle Pass,” Overwatch commercial leader and vice-president Jon Spector wrote on Twitter. Blizzard plans to add three or four heroes every year on a seasonal basis after launch.

Spector was referring to details that someone apparently released too early about the battle pass. The leak also indicated that the next support hero will be named Kiriko. Per Reset Era, a description for the Watchpoint Pack, a bundle that includes access to Overwatch and a bunch of perks for the free-to-play sequel, noted that those who buy the premium version of the battle pass “automatically receive access to Overwatch’s latest hero Kiriko!” The description has since been edited to remove that information.

It’s not uncommon for free-to-play games to paywall new characters or at least not make them available immediately to everyone. Valorant and Apex Legends take that approach.

This is a major shift for Overwatch, though. Blizzard made every character available to all players at the same time in the original game. Players are free to swap characters mid-game to counter enemy compositions, something that isn’t possible in the likes of Apex and Valorant. New heroes tend to be overpowered at first as well. Newcomer Junker Queen has been a dominant presence in the Overwatch League in recent weeks for that very reason (the league moved to an early build of Overwatch 2 this season).

Gating new heroes behind battle pass progression means those who don’t have the time to grind to unlock them might quickly find themselves at a disadvantage. It's unclear whether players will be able to pay to level up the battle pass, as they can in the likes of Fortnite and Fall Guys, but it seems those who buy the premium battle pass will gain instant access to at least one of the fresh faces.

Blizzard will reveal more details about how the Overwatch 2 battle pass and character unlocks work in the coming weeks. The game will arrive and replace the current version of Overwatch entirely on October 4th.

Why screencap when you can simply share? Twitter Support announced on Thursday that its Android app will soon receive the same functionality that its iOS alternative already enjoys: the ability to share tweets directly on Instagram or Snapchat.

What's more, Twitter is adding LinkedIn direct sharing to both Android and iOS so your echo chamber will be able to bounce around through three separate social media silos. Twitter is also working to increase its cross-platform reach in India, where TechCrunch reports that the social media company is already testing out a "Share to Whatsapp" button for users in that market. 

Meta’s “Responsible Innovation Team,” a group meant to address “potential harms to society” caused by Facebook's products, is no more. The Wall Street Journal reports that the team was recently “disbanded” though “most” members will stay on with other teams at the company. A Meta spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal the company was “committed to the team’s goals,” but didn’t provide a reason for the change in strategy.

The Responsible Innovation team was first formed “several years ago,” according to a 2021 blog post written by Meta’s Margaret Stewart, the Facebook VP who oversaw the team. The team was made up of engineers as well as people with backgrounds in civil rights and ethics, and advised the company’s product teams on “potential harms across a broad spectrum of societal issues and dilemmas,” she wrote last year. Zvika Krieger, the Meta employee who led the team, departed earlier this year, according to The Journal. 

The Responsible Innovation team isn’t the only team to recently be reshuffled. Earlier this summer, Meta reorganized its entire AI team, which included folding the Responsible AI group into its Social Impact team. The company has also been looking to cut costs as its revenue shrinks for the first time in its history. Meta has also axed some projects in its Reality Labs division and slowed its hiring amid rumors of potential layoffs.