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In little more than a year, Elden Ring has sold approximately 20.5 million copies. That’s according to an investor report spotted by a ResetEra forum user (via Eurogamer). “Repeat sales of existing titles such as Elden Ring were strong, especially overseas, [with] worldwide sales reaching 20.5 million,” Bandai Namco writes in the document. The publisher adds that it expects “a pullback” in repeat sales of the game. However, if Elden Ring can sell a few million more copies, it will land among the best-selling games of all time, a list that includes titles like God of War (2018) and Grand Theft Auto V.

The milestone comes a year after Elden Ring had the best-ever opening for a FromSoftware title. In just 18 days, Bandai Namco sold more than 12 million copies of the action RPG. Pretty good for a game that was expected to sell about 4 million copies in five days. The ongoing strong performance of Elden Ring bodes well for FromSoftware’s next game, Armored Core VI. When it arrives this August, the title will be the first entry in the Armored Core series in nearly a decade.

Apple has begun offering a free one-month trial for MLS Season Pass. The promotion is available in every country where you can sign up for the streaming package, and both new and returning monthly subscribers can take advantage. Apple says the offer will remain available through the end of October, meaning it roughly overlaps with what’s left of the MLS season. After the trial is over, your subscription will automatically renew, unless you cancel it beforehand. MLS Season Pass costs $15 per month. If you’re an Apple TV customer, you’ll get a discounted rate of $13 per month.

It’s worth noting the Apple TV app isn’t limited to Apple devices. You can also install it on Roku devices, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, Chromecast, Amazon Fire devices, Android TV, cable streaming boxes (including those from Comcast and Verizon) and smart TVs from Samsung, Vizio, Sony, LG and Panasonic. 

Meta has patched a Facebook bug that saw the social network send automatic friend requests when users would visit any profile. In a statement the company shared with The Daily Beast on Friday, Meta apologized for the glitch. “We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly,” a Meta spokesperson told the outlet. “We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Predictably, the glitch generated equal amounts of amusement and confusion. Many quickly pointed out that the technical oversight temporarily made it impossible to “Facebook stalk” other users. More worryingly, some found that Facebook sent friend requests to people they were trying to block. Notably, news of the bug comes after Meta said it would lay off 10,000 employees. Mark Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” will see the company reduce its workforce by at least 21,000 by the end of 2023.

Google’s ongoing feud with Match Group over in-app payments has spilled over to India, with potentially significant ramifications for the search giant. According to a regulatory order seen by Reuters, Match, the parent company of Tinder and Hinge, joined a group of Indian startups this week to request that the Competition Commission of India investigate Google’s User Choice Billing system. The CCI is the same regulatory body that last year barred the tech giant from requiring OEMs to bundle first-party Google apps and services with Android. The order, which the company began to reluctantly implement at the start of the year, also mandates Google to support third-party billing options.

In a complaint it made with the Alliance of Digital India Foundation, Match argues Google’s new User Choice Billing system still imposes a high “service fee” between 11 and 26 percent on app developers. The company claims the cost of using the system means Google has not complied with the CCI’s previous order. Per Reuters, the watchdog said Friday it was “of the opinion that an inquiry needs to be made." The company now has four weeks to comply with an information request from the CCI. Google did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. When Match sued the company last year over its Play Store billing policies, Google accused it of carrying out a “self-interested campaign to avoid paying for the significant value they receive” from the Android and Play Store ecosystems. 

If you’ve been eyeing Apple’s 5th-generation iPad Air for a while, now is a great time to purchase one. On Amazon, a handful of the 64GB WiFi models are $99 off at the moment. Specifically, you can get the Space Gray, Blue and Starlight colorways for $500. That’s a record-low price for the iPad Air.

Of all the different tablet models Apple currently offers, the iPad Air is the one that’s the best for most people. Engadget Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham awarded the tablet a score of 90 when he reviewed it last spring. The iPad Air features the same elegant design language as the iPad Pro while costing significantly less. It’s also no slouch, with Apple adding its M1 system-on-a-chip to the 2022 model. That’s the same processor you’ll find on some of the company’s older Mac laptops, making it more than powerful enough to handle any task you could throw at it. The iPad Air also comes with a bright and vivid 10.9-inch display, a USB-C port for charging and a battery that can power the device for about 12 hours before it needs time at the outlet. About the only issue with the iPad Air is that the base model only comes with 64GB of storage. Keep that in mind if you decide to take advantage of Amazon’s sale.

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Canadians will no longer have access to the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Binance has announced that it's withdrawing from the Canadian marketplace due to new stablecoin and investor limits in the country. Back in February, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released new guidance that gives crypto trading platforms operating in the region 30 days to register or to leave. The crypto firms that decide to register and stay will have to adhere to stricter rules, such as seeking the CSA's approval before allowing users to buy or deposit stablecoins. 

According to CoinDesk, Binance will have to pass authorities' due diligence checks before it gets approval. The crypto exchange has been under intense scrutiny in North America over the past years. In the US, the DOJ and the Internal Revenue Service have been looking into reports that Binance is being used for money laundering schemes since 2021. It's also reportedly under investigation for allowing users to bypass sanctions against Russian financial institutions. In March this year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Binance for allegedly offering unregistered crypto derivatives, among other things. 

In its announcement, Binance said it put off the decision as long as it could "to explore other reasonable avenues to protect [its] Canadian users." Indeed, Bloomberg says its Canadian affiliate filed paperwork to begin its registration process in March. But in the end, it had decided that continuing its operations in the country is "no longer tenable."

Binance ended its announcement with a note saying it's confident it will return to Canada, it's CEO Changpeng Zhao's home country, someday. It also said it hopes to continue engaging with Canadian authorities when it comes to forming a "thoughtful, comprehensive regulatory framework."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is calling for a recall of 67 million airbag inflators after a lengthy investigation over allegations that they could rupture and injure drivers and passengers. These inflators were designed by ARC Automotive, Inc. and were manufactured for the US market during the 18-year period before January 2018. They were supplied to six airbag manufacturers, which then incorporated them into the airbag modules used in vehicles by at least 12 automakers. 

In the NHTSA's letter (PDF) to ARC urging the company to issue a recall, it listed nine incidents wherein a driver (and, in some cases, a passenger) had been injured because an inflator had ruptured. Seven of those incidents happened in the US, and one had resulted in death. There was one other incident outside the US wherein the driver had sustained fatal injuries. The agency wrote in its letter: "Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury."

ARC, however, disagrees with the agency's tentative conclusion that certain inflators manufactured by the company have a safety defect. "After nearly eight years of intensive scrutiny, none of [the manufacturers using its products] has identified a systemic or prevalent defect across this inflator population," the company wrote in a response letter (PDF) addressed to the NHTSA. It also mentioned a test on 918 inflators taken from vehicles in salvage yards. Apparently, none of them exploded when they were subjected to various testing in the lab. 

ARC said it believes the incidents wherein the inflators had ruptured resulted from "one-off" manufacturing anomalies that had already been properly addressed by automakers though lot-specific recalls. GM, for one, issued a recall (PDF) on May 10th for 1 million vehicles that "may have received a suspect airbag inflator." The NHTSA warned the company, though, that it will have to write a full explanation with "additional analysis of the problem beyond ARC's past presentations" it it decides not to issue a recall. Further, it might still decide that ARC's inflators have a safety defect, and it "may take other appropriate action."

The NHTSA has been investigating airbag rupture-related incidents over the past 15 years. Over 67 million airbags by the now defunct Japanese manufacturer Takata have already been recalled in the United States, with 100 million more recalled around the world. Like the ARC-made inflators, Takata's could also explode and unleash metal fragments inside the vehicle. Takata's airbags were involved in at least 18 deaths and more than 400 injuries, which led to numerous lawsuits, a massive settlement and, ultimately, the company's closure. 

The idea of an acoustic synthesizer might sound like an oxymoron, but it's exactly the sort of unexpected concepts that Korg Berlin was created to pursue. This independent, R&D-focused division was cofounded in 2020 by Maximilian Rest and Tatsuya Takahashi, the man behind the Volcas, Minilogue and countless other modern classics. But it has remained pretty quiet since its inception. That changed this week at Superbooth where the team showed off its first prototype the Acoustic Synthesis_phase5. 

Unlike a traditional synth that uses oscillators, the phase5 uses tuned metal forks. Those forks are specially designed to produce specific fundamental notes and overtones. And since the core sound generation here is an acoustic resonator, it has certain qualities a normal synth does not. For instance it will feedback like a guitar when held near an amp and ring when struck on its side. Takahashi told Fess Grandiose of Reverb, "we're trying to kind of capture this rawness of instruments, while being at the same time, controllable like a synthesizer."

So that's the "acoustic" part: metal tines that ring, resonate and decay, almost like a Fender Rhodes. The synth part comes from the magnets inside the phase5 that allow it to sustain just the fundamental note, or the fundamental and the overtones, or just the overtones. The overtones can also be modulated with an LFO creating a sound that can only be described as a sea sick bell. 

In general the sound it generates in the short demo video above is quite unique. It does have a ringing, vaguely Rhodes-like quality to it. But it also kind of sounds like what you might expect of a singing bowl patch on a '90s sample-based synth. It's a touch otherworldly. 

Right now the phase5 is just a prototype and it's likely to stay that way. Right now Korg Berlin is simply gauging interest in the technology. And if it seems like there's a market for this sort of strange hybrid acoustic synth, then it will explore ways to develop it further into a finished product. 

TikTok is still fighting to remain operational in the United States, but a new lawsuit could complicate things even further for the company. A former ByteDance executive has alleged TikTok’s owner used bots and stolen content to inflate the app’s engagement.

The lawsuit, filed by former head of engineering Yintao Yu and reported byThe New York Times, claims that ByteDance wrongly fired Yu after he pushed back on company practices like stealing other apps’ material. It also claims that ByteDance acted as a “useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party,” and that China-based employees could access US users’ data.

As The New York Times points out, Yu’s allegations “describe how ByteDance operated five years ago” and come after “several years of mediation.” Still, the claims are still likely to fuel even more scrutiny for TikTok, which is facing the prospect of a nationwide ban in the United States. Lawmakers and other officials have claimed that TikTok is a national security threat and that the app can’t be trusted to protect the data of US users.

Yu’s allegations could intensify those concerns. The lawsuit details “a special unit of Chinese Communist Party members” at ByteDance offices in Beijing who “guided how the company advanced core Communist values.” He also alleges that ByteDance employees manipulated Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to suppress content about protests in Hong Kong and “elevate content that expressed hatred for Japan.”

Some of Yu’s claims also relate directly to TikTok. Notably, he claims that ByteDance engineers stole popular content from apps like Instagram and Snapchat and put the videos onto TikTok. He also alleges that the company used bot accounts to juice the app’s engagement metrics when it was just starting out and trying to gain a foothold in the US. (Yu left the company in November 2018, shortly after ByteDance rebranded Musical.ly as TikTok.)

Spokespeople for ByteDance and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But TikTok has repeatedly tried to downplay its ties to ByteDance and China, including in CEO Shou Zi Chew’s congressional testimony in March. The company has also dedicated more than a billion dollars into Project Texas, which aims to wall off TikTok’s US user data from the rest of ByteDance in an effort to allay the concerns of US regulators.

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro announced this week that it’s laying off 30 percent of its workforce, or around 340 employees, as reported by TechCrunch. It will now shift its focus away from commercial operations and toward R&D. It’s the company’s second round of layoffs in the last year; it let go of about 300 people in November.

As part of the restructuring, Nuro says it’s delaying the previously planned production of its third-generation Nuro bot (R3) vehicle. In addition, it will reduce the scale of its commercial pilots and “explore more efficient deployment models with partners.” The company says the changes will let it operate twice as long without raising more money.

Nuro was founded in 2016 by former Google Waymo engineers Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson. Since then, the startup has raised over $2 billion while gaining regulatory approval for testing on public roads in Arizona, California and Texas. Last year, it announced the kickoff of an Uber Eats delivery program as part of a 10-year partnership.

“While in the past we developed autonomy systems, designed and built custom vehicles, and deployed commercial pilots with partners in parallel, we will now pursue a more sequential development model,” the company wrote in a blog post. “With our new approach, Nuro will not only get through this economic downturn, but we hope to emerge stronger on the other side.”