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Electric vehicle maker Rivian is testing dual-motor versions of its R1T pickup and R1S SUV in the wild. The automaker is currently putting those models through their paces in the New Zealand winter, according to a tweet from CEO RJ Scaringe that InsideEVs spotted.

The company announced in March it would offer R1T and R1S variants that use its dual-motor Enduro powertrain. It said these models would be less expensive than their four-motor counterparts, starting at $67,500 for the R1T and $72,500 for the R1S. Not accounting for the destination fee, the four-motor R1T starts at $79,500 and the R1S at $84,500.

Rivian developed Enduro's motors in-house and the system is already in use — the electric van the company is making for Amazon has an Enduro drive unit. The company hopes the Enduro powertrain will help it to reduce costs and keep down the price of the R1S, R1T and upcoming R2 models. That's an important consideration for Rivian, given that the Inflation Reduction Act the Senate just passed seeks to bring in new federal EV tax credit rules. Electric SUVs, trucks and vans priced $80,000 and over won't be eligible for the $7,500 subsidy.

At the time Rivian announced the dual-motor R1T and R1S, it raised prices of the four-motor EVs by $12,000. After a backlash, it limited the price increases to new orders, though the automaker was swiftly slapped with a shareholder lawsuit over the issue.

Meanwhile, Rivian is attempting to increase production of the R1T and R1S. It expects to build around 25,000 vehicles this year, despite having a backlog of 71,000 as of early July. Late last month, it laid off six percent of its workforce in order to dedicate more resources to production.

Bandai Namco is developing a live-action Pac-Man film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Japanese publisher has reportedly tapped Wayfarer Studios, best known for its work on 2019’s Five Feet Apart, to produce the project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film was pitched by Sonic the Hedgehog producer Chuck Williams.

The movie does not have a release date yet and Bandai Namco could decide not to move forward with the project. That said, the involvement of Williams says a lot about the company’s aspirations. In 2020, Sonic the Hedgehogbroke the record for a US video game movie debut after earning $57 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend. Despite the pandemic, the film went on to earn $319 million. Two years later, Sonic 2 beat the previous high watermark set by its predecessor with a $71 million US debut. Clearly, Bandai Namco wants a similar outcome. Here’s hoping Pac-Man doesn’t have to go through an ugly CGI phase to get there.

The US is ramping up its efforts to crack down on shady cryptocurrency mixers. The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a mixer that allegedly helped launder more than $7 billion in stolen crypto funds since its inception in 2019. Like a previous sanctions target, Blender, Tornado Cash is accused of "indiscriminately" helping thieves by hiding transaction details while failing to institute meaningful anti-laundering safeguards. North Korea's state-sponsored Lazarus Group hackers are believed to have funneled $455 million through the mixer.

The sanctions block transactions with or for the benefit of Tornado Cash-related individuals and entities, whether they're located in the US or controlled by Americans. Anyone who detects banned activity is required to inform the Treasury's Offices of Foreign Assets Control.

Tornado Cash runs on the Ethereum blockchain. Officials said the mixer played a role in other large-scale thefts, including the Harmony Bridge heist (where it laundered $96 million) from June and this month's Nomad attack (involving "at least" $7.8 million).

The government has taken legal action against crypto mixers for years. Federal law enforcement charged an Ohio man in 2020 for running a darknet mixer that helped criminals launder $300 million. The Treasury only started sanctioning mixers when it blocked Blender this May, however. The US now believes criminal-friendly mixers are a national security threat, and hopes efforts like these will curb both terrorism as well as attempts to dodge conventional sanctions.

Netflix’s entry into the gaming market is off to a slow start. According to an analysis performed by Apptopia on behalf of CNBC, the streaming giant’s games have been downloaded a total of 23.3 million times and average about 1.7 million daily users. Put another way, less than one percent of Netflix’s 221 million customers are taking advantage of the games included in their subscriptions.

Netflix did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. In the past, the company indicated it did not expect its gaming division to be profitable immediately. “We’re going to be experimental and try a bunch of things,” Netflix COO Greg Peters told investors during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings calls last year.

Still, the question that’s probably on everyone’s mind is how long Netflix is willing to wait to see if it made the right bet, especially after it lost nearly one million subscribers during its most recent quarter. Other lofty bets — like the company's in-house fan blog, Tudum — were the subject of cutbacks after only a few months of spending.

The company has shared precious few details on how much it has spent expanding its portfolio beyond TV shows and movies, but most signs point to a significant investment. Earlier this year, the company paid $72 million to acquire Next Games, the studio behind Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales. More recently, it secured exclusive mobile rights to beloved indie titles like Spiritfarer and Into The Breach. The company is unlikely to make similar investments in the future if its current ones don’t pan out.

Lucid is embracing the dark side with a new trim option for its Air electric vehicle. The idea behind "Stealth Look" is to give the car a "darker and overtly sporting personality," according to the automaker. If you select this option, Lucid will swap out 35 exterior components that have a platinum finish for versions with a darker appearance, with black gloss and satin graphite accents on some parts.

Among the elements that will have this look are the mirror caps, the frame for the glass roof, the trim around the headlights and taillights and the front nose blade. The wheel designs and finishes will get a Stealth Look makeover as well, with a different look for each size.

Lucid

Stealth Look is available for the Air Grand Touring Performance, Air Grand Touring and Air Touring variants. It can be applied to any of the exterior colors: Stellar White, Infinite Black, Cosmos Silver, Quantum Grey and Zenith Red. Lucid plans to introduce the $6,000 option early next year, though you can configure an Air with Stealth Look starting this Wednesday.

Whether you'll actually be able to get your hands on an Air at all anytime soon is another matter. Earlier this month, Lucid once again revised down its production target for 2022, this time from 20,000 to between 6,000 and 7,000 units. Between the start of the year and the beginning of August, it built just 1,405 vehicles, attributing the blame to parts and materials shortages. In May, the company recalled every Air it manufactured until that point in 2022 over wiring concerns.

Over the past two years, my work-from-home situation morphed from temporary to permanent, and I’ve had to reconfigure my home office as a result. I purchased a standing desk, a monitor, and spent countless hours rearranging my furniture. One of my primary concerns is that I have a relatively small space, and therefore prefer things that can pull double duty. So when I decided to update my desk lamp, I knew I needed a multi-tasker that wouldn’t take up a lot of real estate. For me, the Edge Light from Lume Cube ended up being the perfect solution.

Prior to purchasing the Edge Light, I relied mostly on a lamp that I bought from CB2 nearly twenty years ago. It’s good looking but it has a large six-inch base that takes up quite a bit of space. It also doesn’t provide the right lighting environment for video calls. While it’s serviceable enough as a desk lamp, the light is just too warm and subdued for Zoom sessions. Plus, it’s not flexible enough for me to angle the light to illuminate my face properly. That’s a problem when, like most everyone else, I was suddenly having multiple video meetings a week. I really noticed it when I was a guest on a podcast; watching the video back made me realize how poor the lighting was.

Engadget

That prompted me to purchase a cheap ring light from Amazon, but I soon realized that was a mistake. Suddenly I had not one but two lamps taking up residence on my small desk. I knew I needed to rethink my entire lighting situation.

That’s why I was glad when I saw that Lume Cube, which is known for its portable photo/video lighting rigs, had come out with the Edge Light late last year. It’s essentially an LED desk lamp that also doubles as a video conferencing light. On top of that, it’s a clamp-on model, which means it wouldn’t take up a lot of space. It is fairly pricey at $120, but since it appeared to solve so many of my pain points, I decided it would be worth it.

I’ve now had it for a few months, and I absolutely love it. It has freed up so much real estate on my desk. It’s tall enough to position behind my webcam when I need it for video calls, and thanks to its five pivot points, I can easily swing it around so that I can use it to illuminate my desk. The lighting is fantastic, too – I can adjust both the brightness and the warmth so that it’s bright but not too harsh. According to the company, it provides multi-level diffusion for soft light and has a color adjustability between 3200 and 5600K.

Engadget

The controls are pretty intuitive – simply tap the circular button to switch between brightness and warmth, and then tap the plus and minus signs to adjust the levels to your liking. The buttons are all “soft touch,” meaning they don’t need any pressure. On top of that, the lamp actually comes with two charging ports – one USB-A and one USB-C – which I am always using to charge up all of my various devices and accessories.

Perhaps my one complaint is that the light does produce a tiny bit of glare on my glasses when it’s positioned directly in front of me. The company suggests getting two Edge Light lamps to reduce this effect, but that’s a little too rich for my blood. I’ve since managed to angle the light so that the glare isn’t as bad, which is good enough for me.

Splatoon 3 will arrive on September 9th and Nintendo is setting the table with a dedicated Direct showcase. The stream will get underway at 9AM ET on August 10th and will contain around 30 minutes of updates. It's likely to be a deep dive into one of Nintendo's tentpole Switch releases for this year. You'll be able to watch the presentation on Nintendo's YouTube channel.

Nintendo often holds dedicated Direct events for its core games in the lead up to their release. It's a smart way for the company to get more eyes on those titles and give folks who are undecided whether to buy them some more insight. Meanwhile, Nintendo will release a Splatoon 3-themed Switch OLED later this month, with a Pro Controller and carrying case featuring designs from the game arriving on September 9th.

Many classic fighting game series have a reasonably consistent stream of sequels, but not Fatal Fury — the last title (Garou: Mark of the Wolves) made its appearance on the Neo Geo in 1999. SNK is ready to make amends after 23 years, however. The developer has confirmed work on a new Fatal Fury game. The teaser trailer below reveals nothing about the gameplay, plot, platform support or release date, but the company claimed the sequel would represent a "new turning point" in fighters — don't expect much humility, then. 

The franchise played an important role in SNK's history, and by extension fighting games as a whole. The first game, 1991's Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, made a splash at a time when Street Fighter II dominated the genre. It was designed by the original Street Fighter's Takashi Nishiyama, and focused more on story and special moves than SF2's combos. It showed that there was room for multiple games in the upper pantheon of fighting games, and ultimately spawned the still-active King of Fighters series.

The challenge, of course, is persuading gamers to revisit Fatal Fury. The fighting game world has evolved considerably in the past two decades, ranging from 3D series like Tekken through to many-character extravaganzas like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It's a crowded arena, and there's no certainty that nostalgia will give SNK an edge.

Now's a good time to pick up a new charger for your phone, tablet and other devices while a number of Anker's charging accessories are down to record-low prices for Amazon Prime members. Standouts among the discounts are Anker's 521 magnetic battery pack for MagSafe-compatible iPhones, which is 40 percent off and on sale for $30, and Anker's 511 2-in-1 power bank, which is 30 percent off and down to $35.

Both portable batteries have a 5,000 mAh capacity, but they're each versatile in their own ways. The 521 magnetic power pack will snap onto the backs of the latest iPhones, charging them up wirelessly. It'll provide almost a full extra charge for your iPhone, depending on the model you have, and it'll even snap on and power up the handset when it has a MagSafe case on it.

The 511 battery pack is essentially a wall charger and a portable battery in one. If you're near an AC outlet, it can act as a USB-C adapter for all of your mobile devices — provided you have a USB-C charging cable with you. And when you're not near a power source, you can use its built-in battery to charge up your gadgets. Unlike the 512 magnetic pack, the 511 battery will work with iPhones as well as Google Pixel smartphones, Samsung devices and others.

Prime members can also get the Anker Nano Pro 20W charger with a USB-C to Lightning cable for $28, which is 30 percent off its usual rate. The bundle gives you everything you need to charge your iPhone as quickly as possible, and we like that Anker's 20W adapter is more compact than Apple's version. Other accessories on sale include the 623 MagGo 2-in-1 wireless charging station, which you can pick up for a record low of $70, and a two-pack of wireless charging stands, which is on sale for $35.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Amazon made a $1.7 billion offer for iRobot, the company that makes Roomba robot vacuums, mops and other household robots. The deal will keep Colin Angle as iRobot's CEO but is still contingent on the approval of regulators and iRobot shareholders.

iRobot has an intriguing origin story. Founded in 1990 by MIT researchers, the company initially focused on military robots like PackBot. It marked a major turning point in 2002 when it unveiled the first Roomba — the debut robovac racked up sales of a million units by 2004. The company eventually bowed out of the military business in 2016.

There are many iRobot rivals now, including Anker's Eufy brand, Neato, Shark, even Dyson. But with the power of Amazon, iRobot should be able to dominate. Just think of the Prime Day deals! Some of Amazon’s own robots often look like Roombas already — like its first fully autonomous warehouse robot, Proteus.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

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• What to expect from Samsung's August 10th Unpacked event

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• Senate passes sweeping climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act

• Hitting the Books: How much that insurance supervision discount really costs you

• UK may use facial recognition smartwatches to monitor migrant criminals

• FCC votes to boost manufacturing in space

Physicist posts a photo of chorizo to troll James Webb Space Telescope fans

Looks like a planet to me.

On July 31st, Étienne Klein, the director of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, shared an image he claimed the JWST captured of Proxima Centauri, the nearest-known star to the sun. "It was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope,” Klein told his 91,000-plus Twitter followers. “This level of detail... A new world is unveiled every day."

Except, it was actually a photo of a slice of chorizo against a black background. "In view of certain comments, I feel obliged to specify that this tweet showing an alleged picture of Proxima Centauri was a joke,” he said. Klein added he posted the image to educate the public about the threat of fake news.

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Samsung’s Z Fold 3 durability one year in

Tougher than you might think, but…

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Samsung has made major strides with its foldable phones, paving the way for innovative (though sometimes quite pricey) alternatives to the typical glass brick. On the advent of the fourth-generation of foldables from the company, likely to include both a new Galaxy Z Fold and the Galaxy Z Flip, Engadget’s Sam Rutherford reports on his own foldable purchase of a Z Fold 3 last year. The phones are increasingly tough, but that foldable display innovation gets derailed by bubbling under the screen protector after roughly half a year.

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Steam is finally adding support for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers

You can use the gamepads individually or as a matched pair.

Valve is finally adding Steam support for the console’s controllers. In an announcement spotted by PC Gamer, the company said the latest Steam beta adds Joy-Cons support. With the new software, it’s possible to use Joy-Cons either individually or as part of a matched pair for playing games. If you want to try the feature, you need to opt into the Steam beta. You’ll either need a Bluetooth adapter or a motherboard with Bluetooth connectivity to use your Joy-Cons with Steam because there’s no way of connecting a cable to the Switch controllers.

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Baidu's robotaxis can now operate without a safety driver in the car

The company says it's running the first fully driverless service in China.

Baidu has permits to run a fully driverless robotaxi service in China. It says it's the first company in the country to obtain such permissions. Back in April, Baidu got approval to run an autonomous taxi service in Beijing, as long as there was a human operator in the driver or front passenger seat. Now, it can offer a service where the car's only occupants are passengers. There are some limits to the permits. Driverless Apollo Go vehicles can roam designated zones in Wuhan and Chongqing during daytime hours only. This does cover a good 13 square kilometers (5 square miles) in Wuhan alone, though.

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