ArduinoMania

The EU has issued a record-breaking €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) fine to Facebook owner Meta over data transfers. After a lengthy investigation, officials found the social network’s practice of moving EU citizens' data to US-based servers was in violation of the bloc’s key digital privacy rules. In a statement, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said that while Meta had attempted to address potential legal hurdles, “these arrangements did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects” in the Union.

This is the latest chapter in a saga that has now run for more than a decade examining how EU citizens’ private data is handled by Big Tech. Put simply, European privacy law is thought to be a lot tighter than its American counterpart, especially with a focus on individual rights. But any big tech company with servers all around the world has the ability to move data from one server to another without much effort. That means that an EU citizens’ data could be sent to the US, where such stringent privacy laws don’t apply, opening the door for unnecessary surveillance.

It’s something that the EU, often pushed into action by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems, has been working to address. Schrems found the existing Safe Harbor provisions to be insufficient, something that the Court of Justice of the European Union agreed with. So, the bloc worked with the US on the EU-US Privacy Shield, which was meant to tighten data controls when information was pushed between the two territories. Naturally, that was similarly ruled invalid by the European Court of Justice, leading to further contortions as Facebook and others said that their businesses, for reasons known only to them, wouldn’t function without this data transfer.

As part of the decision, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has ordered Meta to suspend any future data transfers of EU citizen data to the US within the next five months. It will also have to work to bring its operations “into compliance” with the GDPR, including any processing of EU citizens’ data on US servers, within the next six months. This will likely, however, be appealed and held up as a consequence of a wider political negotiation between the EU and the US as they look to agree a new framework to permit these data flows in a safe(r) way.

Sir Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, has written in his usual style that the company will appeal the fine, and the decision, saying that Facebook acted in good faith. He added that cross-border data flows are vital for many businesses, not just his own, and that he is “disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanism as thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe.”

Last year Lego released a set for the Atari 2600 console released in the 1970s, and now it's paying homage to the definitive '80s arcade game. The 2,650-piece Logo Icons Pac-Man set recreates the classic Pac-Man arcade cabinet, complete with a light-up coin-slot, joystick and mechanical crank that lets you move characters around the maze mechanically (though not actually play the game). 

There are brick versions of Pac-Man, along with the ghosts Blinky and Clyde, that can rotate on a base or be displayed on top of the cabinet. "Once complete, you can light up the coin-slot, plus there is a small vignette of a female mini-figure playing Pac-Man on an arcade, hidden inside the cabinet," Lego notes in a press release. 

Lego

Lego detailed some of the history for Pac-Man, noting that first focus test with members of the public was held 43 years ago today on May 22nd, 1980. The Pac-Man character shape is based on a pizza with a slice missing, and the game was released in Japan on June 29th, 1980 and the rest of the world a bit later. Pac-Man became the most popular arcade game of all time, with 293,822 units installed around the world seven years after it was first released. 

The main character's color was inspired by the "iconic yellow of the Lego brick," according to the game's creator Toru Iwatani. "Since Pac-Man yellow was actually inspired by the Lego Group yellow, it made the [collaboration] even more natural," said Bandai Namco's Aadil Tayouga. 

The Lego Icons Pac-Man Arcade set costs $270 (£230) and will be available to Lego VIP members starting on June 1st, then released to the general public June 4th. It follows the aforementioned Atari 2600 console from last year and the Lego NES console set released in 2020. 

Lego

Sony's WH-1000XM5 is the best wireless ANC headphone you can buy, thanks to the stellar sound quality, comfort and awesome active noise cancellation. Amazon currently has them on sale in both black and white for $348, the lowest price we've seen in months, saving you 13 percent or $52 over the regular price. 

The WH-1000XM5 scored an impressive 95 in our Engadget review, thanks to improvements across the board over our previous favorite headphones, the WH-1000XM4 (which are also on sale for $278 right now, by the way). Perhaps the biggest improvement is in fit and comfort thanks to the more optimal weight distribution, synthetic leather ear cups and reduced weight.

Sound quality also went up, due to the new 30mm carbon fiber drivers that deliver punchier bass. They offer more clarity that helps you hear fine detail, along with improved depth that makes music more immersive. And Sony's DSEE Extreme sound processing recovers detail lost to compression, without any noticeable impact on sound quality.

The ANC is equally impressive. With double the number of noise cancellation microphones found in the M4, along with a new dedicated V1 chip, the M5 does a better job at minimizing background noise. And in terms of the microphone, we found that the M5 offers superior call quality over its predecessor. Moreover, you get 30 hours of listening time with ANC enabled, enough for the longest of flights.

The main drawback of the WH-1000XM5 headphones is the $400 price tag, but you can pick them up right now in either white or black for just $348 and save $52 — but act fast before the sale ends.

Meta could turn to Magic Leap for help to stay ahead of Apple and other new entrants in the soon-to-be crowded AR space. According to the Financial Times, the two companies are in talks to sign a multi-year IP licensing and manufacturing pact. Details on the negotiations are few, but according to the outlet’s sources, a potential partnership is not expected to produce a jointly developed headset. Instead, a deal could see Magic Leap provide Meta with access to some of its optical tech. The partnership could also see the startup assist with manufacturing Meta devices, thereby allowing the tech giant to produce more of its VR headsets domestically at a time when there’s more pressure for US companies to lessen their dependence on China.

Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. Magic Leap told the Financial Times partnerships were becoming a “significant line of business and growing opportunity for Magic Leap.” Additionally, in a blog post titled “What’s Next for Magic Leap,” CEO Peggy Johnson said late last year the company had “received an incredible amount of interest from across the industry to license our IP and utilize our patented manufacturing process to produce optics for others seeking to launch their own mixed-reality technology.”

The timing of the report is notable for a couple of reasons. Meta is under pressure from investors to show something for all the money it has spent pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of computing. The company does not expect to make a profit from all of its metaverse projects for another few years. At the same time, it is burning about $10 billion annually on its Reality Labs division. Separately, Apple is widely expected to enter the AR headset market next month when the company holds its WWDC developer conference.

In less than two hours, private space firm Axiom Space is set to launch its second all-civilian flight. At approximately 5:37PM ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will attempt to carry the four-person crew, including former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, to the International Space Station. You can watch the mission as it unfolds from the Kennedy Space Center starting at 5PM ET. NASA will stream the launch on its website and YouTube channel. You can also watch the flight on Axiom Space’s website and right here.

Ax-2 is the follow up to Axiom Space’s first private space flight, which successfully carried a crew of civilian astronauts to the ISS last year. In addition to Whitson, the crew of Axiom Mission 2 is made up of entrepreneur John Shoffner and Saudi astronauts Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. After the Ax-2 team arrives at the ISS early Monday morning, they will spend the next eight days assisting the space station's crew with a handful of experiments. Axiom Space plans to fly another mission to the ISS later this year.

When forgetting to take medication on time can lead to a bad day or night, having a helper to keep you on track can greatly improve your life. [M. Bindhammer] faces this scenario every day, so he built his own robotic pill dispenser.

The core of the project is a 3D printed dispensing drum with individual pockets for morning and evening medication. It is mounted directly to a 360° winch servo, normally used for RC sailboats, while a second conventional servo opens a small sliding door to drop the pills onto the dispensing tray. The tray integrates a sensitive touch sensor which can detect when [M] picks up the pills, without being triggered by the pills themselves.

[M. Bindhammer] also included a small but loud speaker, connected to a speech synthesis module for audio reminders. The main controller is a Arduino Due with a custom breakout shield that also integrates a DS3231 real time clock. All the electronics are enclosed in a 80’s style humanoid robot-shaped body, with dispensing drum on its chest, and an OLED screen as it’s face.

The end result is a very polished build, which should make [M. Bindhammer]’s life with bipolar disorder a little bit easier, and he hopes it might help others as well.

For more medication related gadgets, take a peek at another pill dispenser and a 3D printed dosing spoon to replace an essential but discontinued commercial version.

China’s cybersecurity regulator has banned Chinese firms from buying chips from US memory manufacturer Micron Technology. Per Reuters, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said Sunday it found that the company’s products pose “significant security risks” to critical Chinese information infrastructure, including state-owned banks and telecom operators. The ban comes after China announced a review of Micron imports in late March in a move that was seen at the time as retaliation for sanctions Washington has imposed on Chinese chipmakers in recent years.

Idaho-based Micron is the largest memory manufacturer in the US. The Chinese market accounts for about 10 percent of the firm’s annual revenue, though the majority of companies importing Micron products into China are manufacturers making devices for sale in other parts of the world. According to The Wall Street Journal, the CAC’s ban does not apply to non-Chinese firms in China. “We are evaluating the conclusion and assessing our next steps,” Micron told the outlet. “We look forward to continuing to engage in discussions with Chinese authorities.” The CAC did not say what Micron products would be affected by the ban, nor did it share details on what security concerns it had with the company's chips.

The ban is the latest development in an escalating feud over semiconductor technology between the US and China. In recent months, the Biden administration has moved to restrict its rival's access to advanced chipmaking equipment. In January, US, Dutch and Japanese officials agreed to tighten export controls on lithography machines from ASL, Nikon and Tokyo Electron. As The Journal notes, China has been trying to find ways to hit back at the US. Micron was an easy target given that most Chinese companies can turn to suppliers like South Korea’s SK Hynix to make up for any shortfall left by a ban.

With its long-awaited System Shock remake slated to arrive later this month, Nightdive Studios has shared a first look at System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition. The game doesn’t have a release date yet, but those who pre-order System Shock will get a copy of the remaster at no extra cost when it’s released by publisher Prime Matter.

On Friday, Nightdive said System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition features updated cinematics, textures, character and weapon models. The developer also partnered with Systemshock.org so that it could integrate the best community-made patches and mods into the remaster. Thanks to the fact Nightdive brought the game’s original source code over to its in-house engine KEX engine, System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition will be available on current generation consoles. Judging from the teaser trailer, the studio did a commendable job of preserving System Shock 2’s art style and atmosphere while increasing the quality of the game’s assets. Here's hoping Nightdive can avoid a repeat of Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition.

If you missed the chance to purchase the Apple Watch Series 8 at $329 earlier this year, Amazon is once again selling the 41mm model for that price. With that 18 percent discount, the Series 8 is $70 off its usual $399 starting price. What's more, Amazon has also cut the price of the 45mm model. It too is $70 off, meaning you can get that variant of the Series 8 for $359.

Although the Series 8 is only a modest upgrade over the Series 7, it’s still one of the best smartwatches you can buy. The Series 8 is fast and features a handy always-on display. It also sports robust app support and tight integration with Apple’s broader ecosystem. New to the Series 8 is a crash detection feature that can alert first responders in case of an emergency. It’s also the first wearable from Apple to feature a temperature sensor that can assist with ovulation tracking.

Of course, the Series 8 isn’t for everyone. For one, you can’t use the wearable with an Android phone. It’s also worth pointing out that the Apple Watch SE offers many of the same core features as the Series 8 but costs significantly less, especially when it’s sale like it is right now on Amazon. Alongside the Series 8, the retailer has discounted the SE. The 40mm model is 12 percent off or $30 off from its regular $249 price. You can also get the 44mm model for $30 off.

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Johnny Cash's Hurt hits way different in A Major, as much so as Ring of Fire in G Minor. The dissonance in tone between the chords is, ahem, a minor one: simply the third note lowered to a flat. But that change can fundamentally alter how a song sounds, and what feelings that song conveys. In their new book Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music, Dr. Larry S Sherman, professor of neuroscience at the Oregon Health and Science University, and Dr. Dennis Plies, a music professor at Warner Pacific University, explore the fascinating interplay between our brains, our instruments, our audiences, and the music they make together. 

Columbia University Press

Excerpted from Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music by Larry S. Sherman and Dennis Plies published by Columbia University Press. Copyright (c) 2023 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

The Minor Fall and The Major Lift: Sorting Out Minor and Major Chords

Another function within areas of the secondary auditory cortex involves how we perceive different chords. For example, part of the auditory cortex (the superior temporal sulcus) appears to help distinguish major from minor chords.

Remarkably, from there, major and minor chords are processed by different areas of the brain outside the auditory cortex, where they are assigned emotional meaning. For example, in Western music, minor keys are perceived as “serious” or “sad” and major keys are perceived as “bright” or “happy.” This is a remarkable response when you think about it: two or three notes played together for a brief period of time, without any other music, can make us think “that is a sad sound” or “that is a happy sound.” People around the world have this response, although the tones that illicit these emotions differ from one culture to another. In a study of how the brain reacts to consonant chords (notes that sound “good” together, like middle C and the E and G above middle C, as in the opening chord of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”), subjects were played consonant or dissonant chords (notes that sound “bad”together) in the minor and major keys, and their brains were analyzed using a method called positron emission tomography (PET). This method of measuring brain activity is different from the fMRI studies we discussed earlier. PET scanning, like fMRI, can be used to monitor blood flow in the brain as a measure of brain activity, but it uses tracer molecules that are injected into the subjects’ bloodstreams. Although the approach is different, many of the caveats we mentioned for fMRI studies also apply to PET studies. Nonetheless, these authors reported that minor chords activated an area of the brain involved in reward and emotion processing (the right striatum), while major chords induced significant activity in an area important for integrating and making sense of sensory information from various parts of the brain (the left middle temporal gyrus). These findings suggest the locations of pathways in the brain that contribute to a sense of happiness or sadness in response to certain stimuli, like music.

Don't Worry, Be Happy (or Sad): How Composers Manipulate our Emotions

Although major and minor chords by themselves can elicit “happy” or “sad” emotions, our emotional response to music that combines major and minor chords with certain tempos, lyrics, and melodies is more complex. For example, the emotional link to simple chords can have a significant and dynamic impact on the sentiments in lyrics. In some of his talks on the neuroscience of music, Larry, working with singer, pianist, and songwriter Naomi LaViolette, demonstrates this point using Leonard Cohen’s widely known and beloved song “Hallelujah.” Larry introduces the song as an example of how music can influence the meaning of lyrics, and then he plays an upbeat ragtime, with mostly major chords, while Naomi sings Cohen’s lyrics. The audience laughs, but it also finds that the lyrics have far less emotional impact than when sung to the original slow-paced music with several minor chords.

Songwriters take advantage of this effect all the time to highlight their lyrics’ emotional meaning. A study of guitar tablatures (a form of writing down music for guitar) examined the relationship between major and minor chords paired with lyrics and what is called emotional valence: In psychology, emotions considered to have a negative valence include anger and fear, while emotions with positive valence include joy. The study found that major chords are associated with higher-valence lyrics, which is consistent with previous studies showing that major chords evoke more positive emotional responses than minor chords. Thus, in Western music, pairing sad words or phrases with minor chords, and happy words or phrases with major chords, is an effective way to manipulate an audience’s feelings. Doing the opposite can, at the very least, muddle the meaning of the words but can also bring complexity and beauty to the message in the music.

Manipulative composers appear to have been around for a long time. Music was an important part of ancient Greek culture. Although today we read works such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, these texts were meant to be sung with instrumental accompaniment. Surviving texts from many works include detailed information about the notes, scales, effects, and instruments to be used, and the meter of each piece can be deduced from the poetry (for example, the dactylic hexameter of Homer and other epic poetry). Armand D’Angour, a professor of classics at Oxford University, has recently recreated the sounds of ancient Greek music using original texts, music notation, and replicated instruments such as the aulos, which consists of two double-reed pipes played simultaneously by a single performer. Professor D’Angour has organized concerts based on some of these texts, reviving music that has not been heard for over 2,500 years. His work reveals that the music then, like now, uses major and minor tones and changes in meter to highlight the lyrics’ emotional intent. Simple changes in tones elicited emotional responses in the brains of ancient Greeks just as they do today, indicating that our recognition of the emotional value of these tones has been part of how our brains respond to music deep into antiquity.