The non-fungible token market is full of shady dealings, and British authorities hope to clean them up. BBC Newsreports HM Revenue and Customs has seized three NFTs as part of investigation into potential tax fraud. The suspects allegedly used 250 fake companies, false identities, prepaid phones, VPNs and other techniques to hide themselves as they sought to defraud the UK tax office of £1.4 million (nearly $1.9 million).
HMRC obtained a court order to take the unvalued NFTs as well as crypto assets worth roughly £5,000 ($6,760). This is the first time UK law enforcement has seized NFTs, the authority said.
The investigation is still ongoing. However, economic crime deputy director Nick Sharp believed the seizures would "serve as a warning" to other would-be crypto fraud perpetrators.
The lack of regulations and other protections around NFTs has led to significant problems with fraud and scams, including self-sales to boost prices (aka wash trading) and fake or plagiarized tokens. Cent recently halted most transactions due to "rampant" sales of bogus tokens, while marketplace giant OpenSea has been scrambling to develop safeguards after 80 percent of NFTs minted through a free tool were discovered to be fakes, copies or spam. Don't be surprised if there are more seizures like this one, at least until NFT marketplace owners have more ways to discourage fraud and other harmful activities.
Whether you pre-ordered one of Samsung's new Galaxy smartphones or have another Android handset, the company's Galaxy Watches are the wearables we'd recommend pairing with it. The Galaxy Watch 4 came out last year and earned a score of 85 from us, and we consider it to be the best Wear OS smartwatch available right now. You can pick one of the LTE models for less right now at Amazon as they are up to 27 percent off. The 40mm LTE Galaxy Watch 4 is $80 off and down to $220 while the 44mm LTE version is also $80 off and down to $250.
The Galaxy Watch 4 was the first to run Wear OS with One UI, which were the products of a closer collaboration between Google and Samsung. Tizen lovers need not fear — the interface doesn't look too different from that on previous Samsung smartwatches. Arguably the biggest perk of Wear OS is that the Galaxy Watch 4 can download apps directly from the Play Store. Samsung also added gesture controls to the Watch 4, which let you do things like flick your wrist to answer or dismiss calls.
In addition to smart features like receiving smartphone alerts, answering calls and messages and using apps on your wrist, the Galaxy Watch 4 has almost all of the fitness features most people will look for in a smartwatch. This includes a built-in heart rate monitor and GPS, plus support for sleep tracking (along with snore detection), blood oxygen measurements and more. It also has a new 3-in-1 biometric sensor that enables body mass scans using bioelectrical impedance analysis.
Samsung packed a lot of value into the Galaxy Watch 4, and the LTE models on sale take it one step further by letting you take and make calls, send texts and stream music without your phone present. If you like the idea of leaving your phone at home and still having some access to your digital life, an LTE smartwatch like this is a good option.
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Uber users will eventually be able to pay for rides using cryptocurrency, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg. However, the company is essentially taking the same tack as Tesla by waiting for changes that will lower transaction fees and make it more environmentally friendly.
"Is Uber going to accept crypto in the future? Absolutely, at some point," Khosrowshahi said. "As the exchange mechanism becomes less expensive, becomes more environmentally friendly, I think you will see us lean into crypto a little bit more."
If Uber does jump onto the crypto train, it would be joining a number of firms that already accept Bitcoin, most notably Microsoft, AT&T and Wikipedia. Other major companies have been more reluctant, however, as cryptocurrencies along with related products like NFTs have been under fire for using massive amounts of energy generated in part by burning fossil fuels.
Tesla was the highest-profile company to accept Bitcoin as payment for its EVs, but it suspended the practice, saying it would only use it again "as mining transitions to more sustainable energy." However, the company recently started accepting Dogecoin payments for some of its merch like the Cyberquad for Kids, with CEO Elon Musk tweeting that it's "better suited for transactions."
Finally, the two newest consoles are hitting their exclusive-game groove. Microsoft finally has its Halo, and while Forbidden West is available on PlayStation 4, it was made to sing on the more powerful PS5. Senior Editor Jessica Conditt has spent some time with the game, ahead of its launch later this week — read her full review right here — and, well, she likes it. (What’s not to like about an underwater Vegas?)
It’s going to be a busy few weeks for gamers. Destiny 2’s latest expansion, the Witch Queen, lands, alongside the hugely anticipated Elden Ring, which is coming to both Xbox and PlayStation. Meanwhile, I’m going low-fi and playing through Earthbound— a game from 1994 — on my Switch.
Amazon’s epic is almost here. The series is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. It will be drawing material from J.R.R.Tolkien's The Silmarillion, which details key events like Sauron's story and the forging of the rings of power. To whet your appetite, check out the minute-long teaser from this weekend’s Super Bowl.
Insurance companies are seeing a lot of claims for cracked TVs.
UK insurer Aviva said last year it saw a 31 percent increase in home contents claims involving VR headsets and a 68 percent overall increase since 2016. In 2021, the average claim for VR-related accidental damages was about £650 or $880, and most incidents involved cracked TVs screens. It’s reflecting a boom in VR: On Christmas Day 2021, the Oculus app hit the top of Apple’s App Store charts for the first time. Please remember where you are, folks.
Many of the pages were scams from Vietnam and Romania.
Facebook has recently removed several “trucker convoy” groups and pages run by scammers in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and other countries. The company said many of those groups had recently changed their names to adopt ones that use terms like “trucker,” “freedom” and “convoy” in hopes of taking advantage of the sudden interest in the rallies occurring in Canada. Many of those same pages included links to websites that sold pro-Trump and anti-vaccine merchandise. At the same time, most of the accounts that took part in those groups were tied to real people.
Lamborghini hopes to continue producing cars with internal combustion engines (ICE) into the next decade, CEO Stephan Winkelmann told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag this week. “After hybridization, we will wait to see whether it will be possible to offer vehicles with an internal combustion engine beyond 2030,” he said in the interview. Even if Lamborghini continues producing ICE cars into the 2030s, it may not be able to sell those vehicles in many places. In the US and other parts of the world, governments have moved to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by mid-decade.
More electric vehicle drivers will soon be able to charge their car's battery when they stop by the drugstore. EV charging network Volta is bringing another 1,000 DC fast-charging stalls to 500 Walgreens locations.
This marks a significant expansion of their partnership. The pair started working together in 2019 and there are currently Volta stations at 49 Walgreens stores. The companies say the latest agreement builds on Volta's plans to expand access to its DC fast-charging network and aligns with Walgreens' support of efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
"Walgreens is an ideal match for faster forms of Volta charging given the average time a Walgreens shopper typically spends in-store," Volta founder and CEO Scott Mercer said in a statement. "The next phase of our work with Walgreens will provide people with a quick, convenient, and meaningful charge that is tailored to their shopping experience while bringing us another step closer to a clean energy future."
Drugstores and grocery stores are good spots for EV charging stations, since drivers can top up their battery while grabbing some essentials. On top of that, the easier it is for folks to access fast-charging stations, the more likely they might be to switch to an EV. This week, the Biden administration announced a $5 billion plan to improve EV charging infrastructure across the US.
If you've been looking for wireless chargers, cables or high-speed chargers with surge protection, now is a good time to stock up. You can pick up various Anker products at Amazon with discounts up to 39 percent, including its magnetic 623 MagGo 2-in-1 Wireless Charging Station bundle, USB-C to Lightning cables and a USB-C surge protector strip with three 30-watt USB ports.
Anker's 632 MagGo 2-in-1 Wireless Charging Station delivers 20 watts of charging power for iPhone 13/13 Pro and iPhone 12/12 Pro models, while also letting you charge up your AirPods Pro wireless earbuds. Your phone attaches to the charging base magnetically, and it can even flip up 60 degrees so you can easily see the screen. Included is a 20-watt USB-C charger and USB-C to USB-C charging cable, all for $56 or 30 percent off, in powder blue only.
If you're tired of losing iPhone charging cables and just want to get a bunch of them, Anker's USB-C to Lightning cable is available in a five-pack for $40, or 39 percent off the regular $66 price. For that, you get three 3-foot cables and two 6-footers, each compatible with USB-C chargers up to 87 watts. They also allow you to connect your iPhone to a Mac for seamless sync and charging.
Finally, take a look at Anker's USB-C surge protector power strip on sale for $30, or 36 percent off. It comes with six AC outlets and three USB charging ports, including a dedicated USB-C Power Delivery (PD) port with up to 30 watts of power. It offers 1,280 joules of overload protection, ensuring that random power surges won't bork your gear. You'll also find other Anker deals here for PD and wireless chargers, battery banks and more, while the sale lasts.
Dell's Alienware monitor that uses Samsung's quantum dot OLED (QD-OLED) tech will arrive this spring for a surprisingly reasonable $1,299, the company announced via a tweet. Dell first unveiled the curved, 34-inch gaming display at CES promising the ultra-high contrast of OLED displays with improved brightness, color range and uniformity.
That price might not seem cheap, but other OLED monitors can cost far more. LG's 32-inch UltraFine OLED model costs $3,999, and even its 27-inch UltraFine model is $2,999.
The Alienware model has specs more designed for gamers than content creators, though, with 3,440 x 1,440 of resolution, a 175 Hz refresh rate, 99.3 percent DCI-P3 color gamut, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 250 nits of brightness with 1,000 nits peak. It also offers HDR, conforming to the minimum DisplayHDR True Black 400 standard for OLED displays.
Samsung's QD-OLED technology uses blue organic light-emitting diodes passed through quantum dots to generate red and green. That compares to standard OLED, which uses blue and yellow OLED compounds. Blue has the strongest light energy, so QD-OLED in theory offers more brightness and efficiency. Other advantages include a longer lifespan, more extreme viewing angles and less potential burn-in.
How it performs is yet to be seen, however, as the technology is brand new. We'll learn more once the Alienware monitor comes to market this spring, and you can expect to see 55- and 65-inch QD-OLED Bravia TVs from Sony in the near future, as well.
When Guerrilla Games revealed that Horizon Forbidden West would have underwater gameplay, I was not excited. I was in the minority with this feeling, but I have a ridiculous, lifelong fear of large things in deep bodies of water, and games in these settings genuinely freak me out. I’m still recovering from the shark scene in Batman Arkham Asylum.
However, Forbidden West has won me over, thalassophobia and all. The underwater environments are terrifying and filled with gigantic robot monsters, but they’re also beautiful and rich, inviting Aloy to explore new layers of her world. From the submerged ruins of Las Vegas to a volcanic hot spring buried under a mountain, swimming is shockingly one of my favorite activities in Forbidden West. That, and overriding Tallnecks.
Forbidden West takes place right after the events of Horizon Zero Dawn, and Aloy is once again on a quest to save the world. She has to restore GAIA, a planet-wide AI system that will rid the lands of a devastating disease, and also investigate waves of murderous machines that are appearing across the continent. She has a Focus, which allows her to scan enemies and environments for information, unlocking the secrets of past civilizations.
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Aloy travels to the southwest and west coast of the former United States, crossing snowy mountaintops and sand dunes dotted with Joshua trees before arriving at the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge. Here, it has to be said: Forbidden West is gorgeous. I played on PlayStation 5, and some of the landscapes in the game left me breathless. There’s something special about sunsets in the southwest; they burn brilliant reds and purples in the thin desert air, and Forbidden West captures this essence beautifully. I should note that the game’s Photo Mode tends to blow out nighttime scenes, so it’s harder to save those moments as they appear during play.
As Aloy heads west, hostile tribes and violent machines regularly appear in her path, providing ample opportunities to level up, test new skills, collect special valuables and override some robots to make them rideable — yes, even the flying Sunwing that's heavily featured in the game's marketing.
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My personal favorite mount is the Bristleback: It’s a big warthog-like machine with a plump booty and the ability to harvest metal shards as it waits for Aloy to finish a mission. Returning to piles of sparking Bristleback salvage is a necessary perk of saving the world, as far as I’m concerned.
Plenty of familiar faces join Aloy on her journey, including Varl and Erend, and she ends up collecting new companions like Pokemon at her west coast base. There are also new threats in this world, and without spoiling any story points, the game’s narrative arc covers class warfare on an extreme scale, with egocentric trillionaire technology leaders at its core.
The new friendly characters have distinct personalities, backgrounds and skills, and they’re incredibly charming. By the final missions, it feels like Aloy has her own little Scooby-Doo gang, Bristleback included.
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However, Aloy is often on her own – and this is especially true when it comes to underwater levels. Aloy ends up crafting a breathing apparatus that allows her to dive infinitely, and with the whole oxygen problem out of the way, she’s free to investigate a series of vast underwater landscapes, slinking among massive Snapmaws in the process. Her Focus behaves differently beneath the surface, pinging like submarine radar when it’s left on. Underwater, it feels like Aloy is flying around an alien planet, and these moments are so quietly engaging I almost forget to be scared of the giant, murderous dinosaur robots that are also swimming around.
Almost.
The most memorable underwater environment is Las Vegas. It’s submerged but still soaked in neon coral, with crumbling escalators leading nowhere and buildings cracked through with algae and seaweed. The base of the replica Eiffel Tower grounds the entire scene in a twisted kind of reality, and it makes Aloy’s fight to save the world feel more urgent. Once the water drains out of this space and Aloy has to fight off a contingent of amphibious robots, a new battlefield emerges with opportunities for parkour, sniping and sneaking on the ground. Water adds versatility to Forbidden West, not just terror.
Underwater gameplay is only a portion of Forbidden West, and most of the action plays out on land. This game is truly open world, with side quests, battles and interactive moments scattered around an expansive map. Aloy ends up at various villages and fortresses, where she’ll often find hunters, cooks, designers and weapons dealers to trade with, and a workbench to upgrade her equipment. Different outfits grant Aloy specific perks, while weapons and clothes can be infused with ability upgrades. Crafting and loadout customization are significant aspects of Forbidden West, and alongside the skill tree, these features put a generous amount of power in the player's hands, making each win taste even sweeter.
Two new tools stand out in Forbidden West for their fun factor alone: the Shieldwing and the Pullcaster. The Shieldwing is technically a glider, but in action it looks more like an illuminated umbrella, which is less hardcore but still perfectly effective. Whatever you call it, Aloy can use the Shieldwing to cover large gaps and leap from mountaintops, giving her more room to roam. The Pullcaster is a grappling hook that Aloy uses to open vents and snap to out-of-reach locations, and it’s especially helpful in the middle of intense fights against multiple machines. Both of these tools are reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and they add a delicious layer of mobility and environmental puzzle-solving to Aloy’s journey.
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Any area that looks climbable generally is, allowing Aloy to scale mountainsides and abandoned buildings with relative ease. Pressing R3 on the DualSense highlights areas that Aloy can grab onto in yellow, and there are usually multiple ways to reach the same destination.
This led to at least one instance where I got stuck – while hunting for valuables, I scaled an old tower and crouched through a suspiciously small crack in its façade. Inside, I found a crate and cracked it open, and then I tried to leave, only to find escape impossible. I jumped around for a few minutes before restarting from my last save, which thankfully wasn’t long before. Use those campfires, people.
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My biggest glitch occurred in the middle of a big battle against a mammoth-like Tremortusk and its captors. Mid-combat, I activated my Valor Surge, a special ability tied to my skill tree choices, and instead of turning on camouflage, I entered a weird kind of developer view, where Aloy was invisible and I was able to fly around the battlefield, untethered. I eventually fixed this by selecting a new weapon, which brought Aloy back into view.
Given the sheer size and density of Forbidden West, these issues feel incredibly small, and they haven’t spoiled my positive perception of the game. I mean, I haven’t even talked about the Tallnecks yet – just like in Zero Dawn, I’m lowkey obsessed with these lanky loafs, and I will always detour to climb all over them. And override them, of course. The view from the top of that satellite head is worth it, every time.
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There are plenty of new cyber-beasts in Forbidden West, including Tremortusks, an invisible bat called a Dreadwing, and massive cobras called Slitherfangs, and they’re all intimidating in their own special ways. Scanning enemies with the Focus reveals their weaknesses and strengths, including elemental damage possibilities and whether their weapons are detachable. My advice is to take fights slow and strategize, just like in Zero Dawn – use environmental traps whenever possible, take the time to investigate the machines before attacking, hide in the grass and Silent Strike when no one’s looking. And when that all flies out the window, Pullcast your way to safety.
Forbidden West is a triumph in many ways. Its world feels alive and packed with secrets, and the story advances swiftly as Aloy makes her way to the Pacific coast. Combat is frenzied, with an arsenal of elemental weapons at Aloy’s disposal and multiple ways to attack any situation. The environments range from flooded, neon-lit facilities to expansive deserts and thick jungles, complete with dynamic weather and time progression. The machines are as stunning as they are terrifying. And throughout it all, Aloy’s voice actor, Ashly Burch, tells an emotional, complex story of survival, collaboration and evolution, demonstrating incredible versatility along the way.
This is a game worth diving into, no matter how afraid of the water you are.
Amazon used Super Bowl LVI to show off the first trailer for its ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. The 60 second teaser gives us our first look at some of the main characters, potential action and visual effects. "Haven't you ever wondered... what else is out there?" a voice intones to kick it off.
As we learned earlier, the series is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. It will be drawing material from J.R.R.Tolkien's The Silmarilion, which details key events like Sauron's story and the forging of the rings of power.
The new teaser briefly shows several principal characters including Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark). Other stars include Benjamin Walker, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Owain Arthur, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Joseph Mawle, Sara Zwangobani and Megan Richards.
Amazon spent $250 on the rights to the material and reportedly spent $465 million on the first season alone, according The Hollywood Reporter. It's hard to tell from the trailer whether all that money made it to the screen, but we'll find out for sure when it arrives on Amazon Prime Video on September 2nd, 2022. The series has already been renewed for a second season.
Meta’s Reality Labs VR division has yet to disclose how many Quest 2 headsets it has sold to date. What we do know is that it recently became more popular than ever. On Christmas Day 2021, the Oculus app hit the top of Apple’s App Store charts for the first time. The software achieved that milestone thanks to everyone who bought a Quest 2 headset to gift to their friends and loved ones.
In another more amusing sign of just how popular VR headsets are becoming, insurer Aviva said last year it saw a 31 percent increase in home contents claims involving VR headsets and a 68 percent overall increase since 2016. In 2021, the average claim for VR-related accidental damages was about £650 or $880, and most incidents involved cracked TVs screens.
“As new games and gadgets become popular, we often see this playing through in the claims made by our customers,” Kelly Whittington, Aviva’s UK property claims director, told The Guardian. “In the past, we’ve seen similar trends involving consoles with handsets, fitness games and even the likes of rogue fidget spinners.”
Less than a month and a half into 2022, Aviva has already had to process a number of VR-related claims and the company expects more to come in throughout the year. That still doesn’t tell us how many VR headsets are out there. As far as the Quest 2 is concerned, the closest we have to a solid number is a third-party estimate Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon shared in November 2021. At the time, he said Meta had shipped approximately 10 million units of its latest VR headset.
