Sony has temporarily prevented existing PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now members from extending their subscriptions as it prepares to combine them into the revamped PS Plus. It's a clear attempt to stop users from getting years of access to the highest tier of the updated service on the cheap.
When Sony announced the new plans last month, it said PlayStation Now members would have their subscription converted to PS Plus Premium for the same length of time. That level of the service will include the current PS Plus benefits and 400 PS4 and PS5 titles from the middle tier, as well as hundreds of games from previous generations and cloud streaming on PS4, PS5 and PC.
Sony clarified this week that if a user has both PS Plus and PS Now memberships active when the new service launches in the coming weeks, they'll get access to PS Plus Premium for the longer of the two terms before having to renew. In other words, if you had seven years left to run on your PS Plus plan after stacking one-year memberships, but recently took out a 12-month PS Now subscription, you'd get seven years of access to PS Plus Premium at a significant discount after the switch.
Sony confirms that they have blocked stacking PS+/PS Now codes for existing members prior to the new PS+ launch. The codes will be redeemable after the launch. Anyone not a current member of the service the voucher is for can redeem a voucher https://t.co/PLbscXCxhTpic.twitter.com/F4M47vgZm1
As spotted by Twitter gaming deals maestro Wario64, Sony has updated its PS Plus FAQ section to note that current subscribers of PS Plus and PS Now are unable to redeem voucher codes and extend their memberships for the time being. They'll be able to redeem them again when either their current membership lapses or the new PS Plus service is available in their region — whichever of those occurs first. As such, the company has stopped people from taking advantage of the PS Plus Premium loophole.
"As we prepare to launch the new PlayStation Plus membership service, we are doing some work behind the scenes to make the transition as smooth as possible for all of our existing members," Sony said. "As part of this work, we’ve temporarily disabled stacking memberships for existing customers until after the launch."
If you have an unredeemed voucher, it will now convert to a length of time equivalent to its monetary value. So, if you aren't currently a subscriber and have a one-month PS Plus or PS Now code lying in a drawer somewhere, that can convert to a month of PS Plus Essential or 17 days of PS Plus Premium access. Sony has published a conversion chart detailing how that all works.
The revamped PS Plus service is scheduled to launch in some Asian markets on May 23rd, Japan on June 1st, the Americas on June 13th and Europe on June 22nd.
I spent about an hour hand-picking songs for my first Amazon AMP radio show. The social-audio-but-with-music app offers the chance to play radio DJ with just a phone and your imagination. I tried to pick a catchy name for my debut broadcast – “The best House Classics” or something like that. Like all music bores, I was confident I was about to blow some minds with my impeccable taste and hand-picked floor fillers. All that was left to do was click the “Go Live” button. Once you tap it, the app counts you down 5…4…3… . I cleared my throat and then… silence.
AMP was initially reported as something of a Clubhouse competitor, but that’s not really the best way to describe it. Yes, you can sorta-kinda use it as a live chat platform, but music is really the selling point here. When you create a “show” you can add songs from Amazon Music’s library and then stream them to your audience. In between hosts are doing anything from chatting about sports, to comedy skits, having guests call in or just letting the music play. On paper, it’s the app teenage me, with his dual cassette deck and microphone, had been waiting for all his life. It’s just a shame that, right now in its beta form, no one’s really listening.
I’ve spent the last week or two exploring the app and hosting shows and I barely peaked at four simultaneous listeners. Briefly. Usually I was lucky to get one or two people tuning in, but more often than not I was alone. And I definitely didn’t do a whole hour-long show talking to myself in between ‘90s drum & bass tracks. Definitely not a thing that happened. Twice.
Engadget
It’s hard to tell if this is a true reflection of the interest in AMP, given it’s in beta. It's not difficult to get in, as long as you have access to the US App Store / have an iPhone. Technically you also need an invite code, but given that the official AMP Twitter account has one right up top, the app is basically open to everyone who meets the first two criteria.
I speculated I am at a disadvantage being located in Europe, so my shows tend to fall in the middle of the American work day. But I checked the app regularly and even at typical US commute and evening times other people’s shows rarely had more than 10 listeners, usually half that. But again, this is a beta so not an indication of too much. I bring it up now though for the following reason: without a listener, you cannot play songs and that presents a problem. Hence the silence at the start of my big debut show.
In fact, there are a few more restrictions. Not only must you have at least one listener to play music, you can only play two songs from the same album or three songs from the same artist within a three hour period. These rules make some sense to prevent the free app being abused. But also that presents a big problem during the beta stage. If I have no listeners, I can’t play a song… so I can only talk. But what is the point of talking if no one is listening?
It certainly made for some intimate moments. I joined someone’s show when they currently had no listeners. I could practically hear the host excitedly rushing to play a song now that they could. I then enjoyed a 1-on-1 human-curated show of hip-hop. Likewise for my own shows, there were definitely some weird moments when I realized it’s just me playing songs for someone else. I ended up using a second account on a spare phone so I wouldn’t have to wait for someone to join (hence the DnB party for one) to fully test the service for this story. This should be less of a problem in the future, but it was frustrating at the start, waiting up to 30 minutes sometimes for a listener to join so you could kick a song off.
Amazon also imposes other curious rules that seem a little ornery if not hard to enforce. For example, you may not make a show consisting mostly of listener requests, you may not announce playlists ahead of time and you may not announce a song until just before it is being played. The difference between can and may I’ll leave up to you.
Setting up a show is straightforward. Tap the button top left, add a title, choose some topics (tags), type a description and then either add songs to a playlist or just throw caution to the wind and go live, adding songs later. I’d recommend having a playlist fleshed out because navigating the song menu screen isn’t very slick right now. You can only enter global search terms – there’s no filter by artist or song title or genre etc. – so finding what you want can sometimes be hit and miss.
More importantly, the library doesn’t seem to be fully fleshed out right now. AMP’s official help pages claim there are “tens of millions of songs” but I sometimes couldn’t find what I was looking for. To be fair, this was usually down to my weird taste in niche ‘90s dance music but I did find songs on decent-size labels that were absent.
For example, “Gold Dust” by DJ Fresh is on Amazon Music for sure, but it wasn’t available in AMP. This is a real crime as anyone who knows that track will attest. I did check again over a week later and saw that a remix had since been added, so it seems the library is growing in real time. More surprisingly, another time I looked for a track by Hot Chip and noticed only half of their albums were listed.
A related issue is that you can’t preview tracks before adding them to your playlist. In my case, that meant a few occasions where I had found a version of the song I wanted, but golly was it not the one I was expecting when I played it, making for a slightly awkward record scratch moment. If you have better taste in music than I, you’re probably fine, but if you were hoping to spin niche cuts or even some fairly well known synthpop you might want to revise that plan for now.
I know AMP is designed to be a mobile-first experience, but I do wish there were at least some tools to prep your show on desktop first. I often resorted to finding tunes on my PC and then just looking up tracks on the phone while setting up the show. I also learned the hard way that if you schedule a show for the future and then sleep through the time it was set for, the show and all the tracks you added to it disappears (I’d at least have liked the option to reschedule it!).
Relatedly, you can’t add tracks to some sort of “record box” or bookmark them for later shows. I found myself thinking of great tunes for other shows but had to just keep a notepad going for later reference. Likewise, once you finish a show, that’s it, poof… gone. There’s no way for people to go back and listen again or scroll through your feed to see what you tend to play etc.
Engadget
In its current state, the app also doesn’t offer any way to fade out a song or speak over it while it’s playing. This seems minor, but it does mean you either have to wait until the bitter end of a song before you talk (and then with no music “bed”) or cut a track off prematurely. I heard people doing both but it would be nice to have a more gentle way to transition tracks.
Once your show is over, AMP will give you a little slide show of stats. As you can imagine, this was a bit painful for me as it gleefully told me I peaked at two listeners and had one like, but this would definitely be cool once you have an audience.
Amazon has enlisted some popular creators to showcase the platform and give it some gravitas. These are instantly identifiable as they will be the only shows with a bunch of people listening. AMP promotes these accounts and they are featured on the website, but I do wonder where all these listeners go the rest of the time. The fact you can’t currently click on the show's listener count to see who’s tuning in means you can’t size up potential listeners for your own show.
I'm live @OnAmp_ but there's no way to share the link etc so have fun with that!
In fact, the “social media” element of the app is possibly the most limited part right now. For starters there’s no way to share a link to your show. I know the app is in beta, but given how open that is, I would have thought sharing links is a basic enough thing to enable. AMP offers links to recommended shows in its newsletters which you can adulterate to link to your own but you need the app installed for them to work so that’s still less than ideal.
Discovery is also not fully fleshed out at this point. When you open the app you’ll be presented with shows currently on air as you swipe through one by one. Then once you reach the end you’ll see what’s scheduled for the future, but right now there’s no real way to drill down by genre or topic. You can search, but a host needs to have scheduled shows for them to turn up in results.
It’s also clear that, right from the start, Amazon is trying to encourage diverse voices to join and host. The company was explicit about that in the run up to its launch, and it seems to be working. The types of show and the people behind them have all been refreshingly varied and this I feel is important to AMP finding its way to stand out. The music aspect alone makes it different from rivals like Clubhouse, Greenroom and even Twitter Spaces. But the voices it amplifies will be the secret sauce.
This for me was really the most rewarding part. I thought hosting my own shows would be fun, and it was, but it was the exposure to other music that was the most rewarding. I often joined shows with no listeners to allow them to kick off some tunes and then found myself staying. Other times I figured I’d dip into a show with a genre I don’t normally listen to and was more often than not surprised to find things I liked. Being a DJ is cool, but hearing new, hand-picked music is even cooler.
Rough edges aside, there’s a lot of promise here. It’s understandable that no one wants to listen to my favorite Happy Hardcore songs (the ones I could find on the app at least) at 2pm on a Wednesday. But if, like me, you kinda prefer the human touch over an algorithmic recommendation and the chance to stumble into new worlds of music then AMP makes a lot of sense. And of course, as with all such creator-based services as more people join, the culture and flavor of the platform starts to change organically (remember when TikTok was about people dancing to songs?). Once AMP is open to the public proper, it’ll be interesting to see where it goes. For now, if you want to hear rando dance music, I’ll be here… waiting.
As an all-electric racing series, Formula E presents a unique set of challenges for drivers. The hurdles include power management, when to enable attack mode and the constant effort not to overheat the tires. The day before the Monaco E-Prix, we stopped by the Avalanche Andretti Racing garage to chat with Formula E rookie Oliver Askew, the lone American driver in the series. Askew discusses the series’ challenges, racing in Monaco and the new Gen3 car.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Billy Steele: With this being your first year in Formula E, are there any specific challenges that are unique to this series? Are there things you didn't expect or aspects that have been more challenging?
Oliver Askew: Multiple things. We'll start with the tracks. They are very different from what I'm used to. I have raced street tracks from the Road to Indy and IndyCar, but there are different straight tracks, they're a lot more tight. Combine that with how I need to drive this car, which has very little grip. It's very heavy, no aero and we're on treaded tires. So that's been a bit of a challenge.
But it's a race car at the end of the day, and it has good power, good acceleration and it decelerates well. The window of operation is very small, so in the racing situation, with our energy, it's a completely different story.
SOPA Images via Getty Images
Qualifying is one thing, but when we go to the race, it's all a big chess match. You are racing other guys and deciding when to deploy energy and when to save energy. Obviously, qualifying is very important. But if you're able to go fast, while saving energy at the same time, you can overtake guys. It's a very action-packed race day, usually, and you keep seeing guys come from the back to the front by preserving energy in the beginning and then deploying it at the end – and vice versa.
We rely a lot on our engineering. Our preparation in the simulator is massive, especially for me. I show up on the race weekend, and I get like six push laps if I'm lucky before qualifying, which is nothing from what I'm used to.
BS: What is your favorite aspect of Formula E?
OA: I'd like to say that the car suits me. I do like operating in that very small window – the fine margins – especially when we go to the street tracks. It's a game of inches. And though I'm still learning how to get the most out of it, my development is on a very steep road at the moment. And I think it'll continue to be that way until we get to where we want to be at the front.
The traveling aspect I really, really enjoy. It can be tiring. But back in the States racing IndyCar the biggest trip that I would take would be from Florida to Indianapolis, or from Florida to the west coast, which doesn't take much time at all. Traveling to Jakarta and then going back to the simulator in Munich, seeing countries that I wouldn't have the chance to see before this experience, is pretty cool.
BS: And not the opposite. What’s your least favorite?
OA: Probably my teammate, Jake. Super annoying bloke.
Just kidding, we get along really well. I’d say the fact that we get virtually no practice.
BS: Most of your practice is in a simulator, right?
OA: Yeah, and at the end of the day, it’s very impressive what we're able to do there. But it’s still not the real thing.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
BS: What are your thoughts on the circuit here in Monaco? It’s quite different from other tracks.
OA: There is a lot of elevation. I've never been to this city before, so I didn't realize how vertical it was. Like you're literally taking elevators across town just to get to where you want to go.
On the track, Monaco is pristine – like everything about it. It's the most gorgeous three track I've ever been to. Combine the harbor and the yachts with the glitz and glam and it's definitely a special place. And just to imagine are legends of sport, icons racing around here. I'll definitely take that in for the first couple laps and then get to work.
BS: Are there any specific challenges to the circuit?
OA: This is our most high speed circuit. To put that into perspective, this is one of Formula 1’s slowest. So yes, these cars are not as quick as the F1 course, but they're very difficult to drive – combined with a very high speed circuit. Take turn three, for example, the line is a very long left hander, and you're cresting the hill on approach. It's difficult to find the braking zone. You have to rely a lot on the car settings through there. And then you take the hairpin, the heavy braking out of the tunnel into turn 10. Like we spoke about before, the brakes in this car are vital to get right.
Billy Steele/Engadget
BS: With this weekend being the debut of Gen3, do you have any initial thoughts on the new car?
OA: Hopefully I get to drive it at some point! On paper, it seems very powerful and very fun to drive. I think the other drivers are in the same boat. It's impressive what they've been able to put into this car. And I think it's going to be a lot more enjoyable to drive than the Gen2.
BS: Is there one aspect that stands out more than the others in terms of the new technology on board?
OA: With four-wheel regeneration, we're able to put twice as much battery into the car throughout a race. We put back 40 percent into the battery of what we use energy-wise during a 45 minute race, which is pretty impressive. The brake zones are kind of going to condense with that extra front axle breaking. I don't know what that's going to do to the racing aspect of the series. It's probably going to make it a lot more difficult to overtake but the excitement is still gonna be there.
It's an ideal moment to buy wireless earbuds for those springtime walks and workouts. Amazon has put the Beats Fit Pro on sale for $180, or $20 off — a good value when the store previously offered a gift card in lieu of a discount. You can also buy the Beats Studio Buds for $100 (down from $150) if you're more interested in a lower price than an abundance of features, and the Apple-branded AirPods Pro are currently discounted to $175 (normally $249).
The Beats Fit Pro remain one of Apple's best-kept audio secrets. They offer good active noise cancellation, balanced-but-forceful bass and many of the usual Apple earbud conveniences, but in a lower-cost, potentially more comfortable design with long battery life and better Android support. And yes, you have more color choices than the typically monochromatic AirPods.
There are some compromises. You won't find a case with wireless charging, and we found that accidental button presses were occasionally an issue. There are still a few features that are reserved for Apple device owners, too. If those aren't problems, though, you'll likely be happy at this price — even when the AirPods Pro are cheaper.
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Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion: How, and more importantly, why? – 1:43
The Android 13 public beta is now live – 26:02
Dear Motorola, stop with the endless rehashes! – 39:15
Working on – 46:06
Pop culture picks – 50:04
Video livestream
Credits Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Sam Rutherford Guests: Karissa Bell and Dan Howley Producer: Ben Ellman Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Back in February 2021, the Perseverance rover landed on Martian soil after a seven-month journey. A cone-shaped backshell protected it while traveling in deep space and during its fiery descent, while a parachute with a secret message that says "Dare mighty things" slowed it down enough for a safe landing. Perseverance had to leave those components behind when it started roaming the planet. On April 19th, the rover's companion helicopter, the Ingenuity, took photos of the debris left on the landing site — and now NASA has shared images showing what it looks like.
JPL's Ian Clark said Perseverance had the best-documented landing in history so far, but Ingenuity's photos offer a different perspective that could help ensure safer landing for future spacecraft. That includes the Mars Sample Return Lander mission, which will retrieve the samples Perseverance collects so they could be sent back to Earth for analysis. The program's engineers were the ones who asked whether Ingenuity can take photos of the debris.
"If [the images] either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures are still phenomenal and inspiring," Clark explained.
In the photo above, you'll see what remains of the backshell and the overall result of the spacecraft hitting the surface at 78 mph. NASA notes that the shell's protective coating remains intact, and so are the suspension lines linking the shell to the parachute that's now buried in dirt. The agency's scientists will analyze the images over the next weeks to determine a final verdict, which will likely include information that could aid future missions.
Formula E officially unveiled its Gen3 car yesterday, ahead of this weekend’s Monaco E-Prix. There are some big power and efficiency changes coming when the new cars hit the track next season. Much of the focus on Gen3 has been the massive upgrades to performance, but the car also sports a new overall body design.
Wheel covers are gone, making the new model more of a true open-wheel car, and there are no wings over the rear wheels. Instead, the Gen3 has two jet-like fins on the back, with the new aerodynamic shape inspired by fighter aircraft — an F-18 on wheels. Engadget’s Billy Steele went to take a look in person over in Monaco — life is hard for Mr. Steele. Check out his full report right here — with more stories on the way over the next few days.
Apologies to any listeners of The Morning Edition, Engadget’s early morning news podcast. I lost my voice over the last week, making it, well, impossible to talk into a mic. I’ll make my triumphant return to podcasting next week. I have many vocal exercises planned for the weekend.
And an operating loss of $128 million as Musk deal approaches.
As it prepares itself for the possibility of being owned by Elon Musk, Twitter revealed it overstated its user figures between 2019 and 2021. In its newest financial reports, the platform says users with multiple accounts were inadvertently counted as multiple people. The difference was apparently never more than two million either way.
Activision is rolling out its RICOCHET anti-cheat system to Call of Duty: Vanguard and has also revealed that the countermeasure punishes cheaters with "Cloaking." In a wonderful twist, cheaters will be the ones at a disadvantage. Any detected will be unable to see or hear opponents, even their incoming bullets.
A judge ruled he can't get out of his 2018 SEC deal.
Elon Musk won't be able to get out of his agreement requiring oversight of his tweets about the company. A judge has rejected his request to drop the 2018 deal made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required a company lawyer to approve any Tesla-related tweets. The judge also denied Musk's request to block an SEC subpoena related to possible insider trading.
Snap has officially revealed its first selfie drone. The pocket-sized device, called Pixy, doesn't even have a controller. Instead, it tracks and trails you. The drone can float, orbit or follow you directly. Once you're done, Pixy lands in your hand — which sounds adorable. Folks in the US and France can buy the $230 Pixy now.
Psyonix is announcing an updated Rocket League Formula One Fan Pack for 2022, giving players a way to unify their passions of cars bumping into one another to score points and… also that. Much like last year’s offering, you’ll get a freshly-updated F1 car model, new audio and Pirelli-branded Wheels. You’ll also be able to deck your ride out in the livery of Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri, Ferrari, McLaren, McLaren Miami and AlphaTauri's farm team, Red Bull.
The car model will be based on Rocket League’sDominus Hitbox, the same one that’s used to underpin many of its crossover models. Between May 4th and May 10th, to coincide with the Miami GP, players can drop down 1,100 credits to get the Fan Pack, and those who buy now will get two additional updates through the rest of the season thrown in for free. That includes decals for Mercedes, Haas, Williams, Aston Martin and Alpine, while the fall update will include different color variants for the Pirelli wheels.
Insider is reporting that infamous weight loss app Noom is laying off a significant number of its coaches as it shifts its strategy. The company, which presently enables users to engage in text chat with experts, will reportedly shift to a system of scheduled video calling, reducing the need for so many workers. Internal documents suggest that the people who remain will see higher workloads to cover for the departures. 180 coaches are believed to have already been let go, with a further 315 due to join them in the coming days. Individuals who take voluntary severance can expect eight weeks’ pay, although the site says that Noom will not cover the cost of unused vacation days.
Noom, which garnered $540 million in fresh venture funding in 2021 saw its business surge as a consequence of the pandemic. TechCrunch reported that the platform had earned $400 million in profit across 2020 as users flocked to its promised mix of live coaching and CBT-inspired practices. Its critics, however, believe that Noom’s unique spin on weight loss is nothing more than a standard heavily-restrictive diet, packaged in the language of wellness. In 2021, Noom branched out into mental health coaching under the banner Noom Mood.
As FastCompany outlined last year, Noom’s key metric is calorie restriction, tasking men to limit their intake to around 1,400 calories per day. (There’s a lot of debate about the proper calorie limit for weight loss, but that figure is seen as problematically low and well below what the CDC recommends.) Last year, an Outside investigation found that Noom was not tailoring its recommendations to the age, height and weight of its users, instead issuing a stock limit for the majority of participants. That same investigation found that there is little pre-screening for people who may have lived with disordered eating beforehand. Casey Johnston, who writes She's A Beast, has also called into question Noom's advertising practices, potentially misleading customers as to its effectiveness.
Apple announced back in February that it's introducing changes that would make AirTags easier to find after several stories of bad actors using the tracker to stalk people came out. One of the upcoming changes it promised is adjusting the sound AirTags emit to be as loud as possible to make them "more easily findable." Now, as MacRumors reports, the tech giant has started rolling out that capability with the device's latest firmware update.
While Apple has published release notes to reveal what the update adds to the tracker, it didn't mention that the company is gradually making the feature available on a staggered basis. According to the publication, only one percent of users received the update when it went out on Tuesday, but it will be delivered to 10 percent of users by May 3rd and to 25 percent by May 9th. Apple expects to complete the rollout by May 13th.
Earlier this April, Motherboard had obtained police data that included 50 cases of women receiving notifications or hearing alert sounds revealing that someone was tracking them with an AirTag. While that's not a particularly large number, it suggests a growing number of cases wherein the trackers are being used for stalking purposes. In an effort to prevent the device from a creepy character's tool of choice, Apple promised a handful of anti-stalking features that include showing people a warning that it's a crime to use the device to track people. The company will also update newer iPhones' precision finding technology to make them capable of displaying the direction and distance to an unknown AirTag.
