The Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation this week into a large number of media, telecom and infrastructure companies that operate in the United States with ties to Russia, CNN reported. The probe, allegedly being conducted jointly with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, is aimed at firms considered a “national security risk,” and covers a wide array of business types including wireless providers, VoIP services and submarine cable operators.

The FCC’s review also arrives as many US cybersecurity experts warn of the increased danger of cyber attacks, especially on critical infrastructure. The US recently imposed a number of sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, and it’s possible Russia may retaliate through cyber warfare. Recent cyber campaigns suspected to have ties to the Russian government include the hacks of the Olympics, SolarWinds, Ukraine's government websites and coronavirus vaccine research in the US, UK and Canada. US cyber officials have also warned businesses, banks and state and local governments to be vigilant for ransomware.

A similar investigation against Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE launched by the FCC in 2019 over concerns their equipment allowed for Chinese surveillance of US activities. It’s unknown exactly how many similar companies with Russia ties will be covered by the probe. Russia also funds media companies in the US and other countries. UK prime minister Boris Johnson recently ordered a probe into the UK license for RT (Russia Today) a Kremlin-backed global news outlet with offices in the United States and across Europe. US company T&R Productions, which backs RT America, has received over $100 million from the Russian government, an Open Secrets investigation revealed.

Despite a litany of financial struggles and botched factory plans, Faraday Future has built its first production-intent car. The EV startup today unveiled the FF 91 at its Hanford, California-based plant, and announced it would begin production in Q3 of 2022. Since the best-laid plans of Faraday Future often go haywire, we won't hold our breath for the time being.

Here’s what we know about the FF 91 so far: Faraday Future’s flagship car is intended to be an “ultra-luxury EV” that can compete with the likes of Jaguar, Tesla, Polestar and other brands. It has three motors, which means that at least in terms of power, it would beat out even the newer Tesla models (except for the Cybertruck) and ostensibly be in the same league as Audi’s E-tron crossover. The system horsepower is a jaw-dropping 1050, and it can go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.39 seconds. The seats are zero gravity (meaning they recline in a fashion that makes you feel weightless) and ventilated. They also double as massage chairs.

The FF 91 can go 300 miles per charge, putting it roughly in the same league as a Tesla Model 3. It also includes a huge 130 kWh lithium-ion battery, which will no doubt be one of the reasons behind the vehicle’s inevitably large price tag.

Drivers who can’t wait to join in on Faraday’s vision of a future can reserve an FF 91 today. There’s a waitlist to join the FF 91 Futurist Alliance (which costs $5,000 but guarantees you a priority reservation), but you can still pay $1,500 for a standard reservation. Given the company's poor track record with deadlines, prospective early adopters should be cautious. The company's troubles don't seem to be over. Just earlier this month, the company restructured its leadership board after an internal investigation found that employees were lying to investors. Given that production of the FF 91 is about four years late; it's likely we shouldn't hold our breath for a timely release. 

Social audio app Clubhouse is adding a text chat function to its voice rooms, it announced Thursday. Similar to what you see in Discord or a Zoom call, users who don’t want to speak can write out their opinions in the room’s chat channel. While it may seem counterintuitive for an audio-only app to also feature text, it’s a change that some users have been gunning for. Especially in extra-large rooms or rooms dominated by a few celebrity speakers, an in-chat function may be the only way some people can join the discourse.

But a chat function can also be a moderation nightmare, as anyone who has spent a few minutes on Twitch can attest to. Clubhouse has laid out a few ways for creators to keep their rooms from flying off the handle. Creators can appoint mods to delete messages and kick out disruptive users from the room. You can also report messages that violate Clubhouse’s user guidelines to the platform. For those who would rather keep their rooms audio-only, the in-chat room function is optional. Creators can opt-out of in-room chat when they create their room. And if you choose to record your room’s audio, the written chat log will also be saved.

As social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Reddit add Clubhouse-like features, Clubhouse is starting to resemble the rest of social media. Once only available as a mobile app, Clubhouse last month rolled out a way for people to listen to conversations on their desktops. Users can also send direct messages to each other with Backchannel. As live voice chat rooms become less of a novelty, Clubhouse will likely have to get creative in order to keep up with competitors.

Dodgebrawl brawler Knockout City will be free-to-play on all platforms, starting with the launch of its sixth season later this year. Game developer Velan Studios will also be publishing Knockout City in-house, instead of through its original publisher, Electronic Arts. According to an announcement published today on the game’s website, this will give Velan the ability to grow Knockout City’s global audience and carry out its vision for the future.

“We couldn’t have introduced Knockout City to the world without the incredible support of EA Originals, but now as we switch to free-to-play, the natural next step is for us to take over publishing responsibilities and work even more closely with our community. We have exciting plans for Knockout City, and bringing publishing in-house will allow us to fully realize our vision for the long-term future of this game. There’s so much to look forward to, because this is just the beginning,” wrote the studio, based in Troy, NY, in its announcement.

As a consequence of Velan focusing on Season 6’s rollout, Knockout City fans can expect Season 5 (to released on March 1) to be a lot lighter. There will be no Brawl Pass, fewer bundles and no new cosmetics. There will also be no new map or new ball. But expect Season 6 to be packed with new features, including a new special ball and multiple maps.

Velan revealed little else about Knockout City’s future, but promised there would be more announcements to come. While the multi-player dodgeball game was a knockout success after launching in May 2021 (it drew roughly 5 million new players in a month), the enthusiasm has died down a bit. Players have complained about the amount of time it takes to match with other players. Going free-to-play will likely reignite the game’s popularity for some time, but players will likely have to tolerate ads or fork over for additional features. For now, Knockout City’s future looks uncertain, but fans should stay tuned.

Facebook may be failing to tag a large amount of climate misinformation posted on its site, a study released today indicates. Researchers from the Center for Counter Digital Hate analyzed 184 exceptionally popular stories from what it identified to be the top ten publishers of climate change denial content in the world (a list that includes Russian state media, The Daily Wire, Breitbart and others). It found that roughly half (50.5 percent) of the stories failed to trigger Facebook’s information labels designed to flag coverage on climate change. Stories from such heavily trafficked news outlets should be the easiest targets for fact-checkers, suggesting that much more climate misinformation is evading Facebook’s screening.

Last year Facebook (which has since rebranded as Meta) promised to flag climate change coverage in a number of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK and the US. Such posts would be marked with an informational label that would direct users to the platform’s “Climate Science Information Center”, which contains information that debunks myths on the climate. The study’s authors began their research following Facebook’s May 2021 announcement that it would tackle climate change denial propaganda, and all articles included in the analysis were posted after that date.

Independent fact-checkers also flag climate change stories that are false, and Facebook adds a warning label and reduces distribution. "When they rate this content as false, we add a warning label and reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. During the time frame of this report, we hadn't completely rolled out our labeling program, which very likely impacted the results,” Facebook spokesperson Kevin McAllister told NPR.

Facebook has made multiple efforts to scrub misinformation posted on its platform over the past few years, for topics like the 2020 presidential election, the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines. But as Engadget and other outlets have covered, a large amount of misinformation is still able to clear Facebook’s algorithms without proper labeling.

But nearly a year later, Facebook’s review system on climate change content is still missing the mark. I was able to post a number of different climate change stories on Facebook without hitting its algorithms, including articles entitled “Why the West Coast Heat Wave Has Nothing To Do With Climate Change” from The Federalist and “Alarmists: Global Warming Causes ‘Unprecedented Cold’ in Tajikistan”, published in Breitbart.

Facebook hasn’t been specific on what type of outlets or information is eligible for an info label. Engadget has reached out for comment, and will update when we hear back.

While there’s some evidence that suggests efforts by social media platforms to tag misinformation and hoaxes has worked to stop their spread, a large amount of misinformation still slips through the cracks. And unfortunately, additional research indicates that the absence of these warnings (the lack of a climate information label, for instance) increases the "perceived accuracy" of content.

Twitch has launched an incentive program that will guarantee select streamers a certain amount of ad revenue per month. Many creators have spoken out about the difficulties of earning a consistent living from the livestreaming platform for all but the top-tier of streamers. Unless you have a consistent base of followers, the income you earn from Twitch can vary widely from month to month.

“Having a reliable floor of ad revenue should enable you to better plan for the future, whatever that may look like. We hope it’s an important step towards empowering creators,” wrote Twitch on its site.

The new payment model, which Twitch is calling the Ad Incentives Program or AIP, offers a select group of partners and affiliates a flat payout every month. In exchange, creators agree to stream for a minimum amount of hours per month while running ads. Twitch already has tapped a select group of streamers to participate in AIP for the time being. Selected streamers will see a message on top of their Ads Manager dashboard inviting them to join the program.

Twitch streamers typically earn money from a variety of different sources, including ads, subscriptions, Bits (virtual goods that viewers buy to cheer you on) and donations from followers. Not every streamer can earn money on Twitch. The platform requires a certain number of followers and broadcast hours before inviting streamers to its Affiliate program, which offers the ability for creators to monetize their streamers. Affiliates who attain enough followers and views can then take part in the more lucrative Partner program. But maintaining a consistent fan following is incredibly hard, and many creators burn out due to the many hours required. Twitch typically collects 50/50 of the revenue that streamers earn from subscriptions, a significantly worse deal than YouTube, Facebook and other platforms.

Streamers will get the option to pick from different payment models, and the amount Twitch is offering each streamer will vary. In the examples Twitch laid out on its site, a user who agrees to stream for 40 hours per month can select the option of either a $100 payout to run 2 minutes of ads per hour, a $300 payout to run 3 minutes of ads per hour, or a $500 payout to run 4 minutes of ads per hour. Streamers will earn this guaranteed amount of money regardless of how many people watch. After they stream the minimum amount of hours required, they’ll continue to earn revenue at their normal rate.

While an earnings floor may provide some stability for a select group of Twitch streamers, a number of streamers on Twitter have already pointed out that smaller streamers (the most likely to need a source of guaranteed income) won’t benefit in the least. The streamers who qualify for Twitch’s new AIP program already have a medium to large fanbase who already watch their streams. But for that select group, AIP may eliminate some of the guesswork when it comes to deciding which ad strategy will work best.

A study by MIT scientists on a group of epilepsy patients discovered that a specific group of neurons in their brains respond only to singing — and not to instrumental music or any other type of sound. The findings of the study were published today in the science journal Current Biology. Scientists are still working to nail down the implications of the study for epilepsy patients, some of whom rely on music as a form of therapy to reduce seizures.

“The work provides evidence for relatively fine-grained segregation of function within the auditory cortex, in a way that aligns with an intuitive distinction within music,” says Sam Norman-Haignere, the lead author of the study and assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Given how small and specific the study's sample size is (fifteen people), there's not much we can conclude from this single study alone. But it will likely advance further studies on the link between neuroscience, epilepsy and music in the future.

The study’s participants were a group of fifteen epilepsy patients, all whom consented to have electrodes implanted in their skull. They were then asked to listen to hundreds of different sounds, both natural and synthesized. Scientists, assisted by fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, observed how neurons in the auditory cortex of participants reacted to each sound.

Back in 2015, the same researchers used fMRI imaging to identify what they believe are a group of neurons that respond only to music. 

The neurons only elicited mild reactions when hearing the sound of human voices, but fired up at the sound of instrumental or vocal music. In the new study, the researchers found that there was a special subset of neurons right next to the original group that specifically lights up when the brain hears human singing.

"There's one population of neurons that responds to singing, and then very nearby is another population of neurons that responds broadly to lots of music. At the scale of fMRI, they're so close that you can't disentangle them, but with intracranial recordings, we get additional resolution, and that's what we believe allowed us to pick them apart," says Norman-Haignere.

The research could also advance our understanding of the link between music and epilepsy. While certain kinds of music can reduce the number of seizures that epilepsy patients suffer from, some rare cases of epilepsy can also be provoked by music. One recent study published in Scientific Reports last year found that listening to 30 seconds of Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major” helped drive down the neuron activity that causes seizures in epilepsy patients.

Former President Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, which launched only two days ago, is struggling with technical glitches and onboarding new users in the early stages of its rollout. The site, which billed itself as a sort of free speech alternative to Twitter with more lax content moderation policies, has already booted a few users off of its platform. Other users are struggling to even access the platform, which now has nearly half a million people on its waitlist.

User Matt Ortega was rejected from Truth Social on the basis of his username, @DevineNunesCow, reported Mashable. A parody Twitter account of the same name poked fun at former Rep. Devin Nunes, who is currently the CEO of Truth Social’s parent company.

A few users have pointed out that Truth Social’s moderation policy is significantly more strict than that of Twitter, despite its claim to be a refuge from Big Tech’s censorship. Unlike Twitter, Truth Social users can get suspended or booted from the platform altogether for posting content that moderators consider to be false, defamatory or misleading. While Twitter has had broad bans in the past on Covid-19 and election misinformation, it regularly allows other types of misinformation to fly by. Truth Social users also can get banned for posting content that moderators deem to be “libelous, slanderous, or otherwise objectionable”. Twitter tends to be selective in how it handles disputes between users, unless it involves targeted harassment campaigns.

Still, it’s unlikely Truth Social will be able to enforce such a strict moderation policy should it continue to grow in scale. The platform is relying on a combination of volunteer moderators, user reports and bots to handle content removal.

New and prospective users are also running into technical glitches while attempting to sign-up on the app, which is only available on iOS. The platform faced a 13-hour service outage just hours after its Sunday evening debut due to a flood of new users. It is now rate-limiting the number of new accounts which can be registered on the site. A waitlist to join the app, at the time of publishing, is more than 500,000 people long.

The app currently has a 4.1 star average user rating on Apple’s App Store, though a number of 5-star reviewers noted they hadn’t been able to sign up on the app yet. One reviewer who rated the app five stars wrote that they had yet to receive an email confirmation from Truth Social that hadn’t expired: "Every time I try to create an account, I don’t receive the email to confirm my email address. No, it’s not in junk mail either. One time I received the email many hours later and it was already expired. I keep trying and will continue to keep trying. 5 stars because I think someone is playing games and the review doesn’t matter because I haven’t even been able to set up an account yet. Just trying to resolve an issue.”

A new wave of 5G-enabled cars are headed our direction. Audi is the latest automaker to announce it will offer 5G connectivity in select models of future cars. The German manufacturer announced today that select models of Audi vehicles, beginning in 2024, will be able to connect to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network. 

Drivers of the new Audi 5G lineup can expect a host of new features, including higher speeds to download or stream entertainment, an improved in-car navigation system with 3D mapping, cloud-based user-profiles and even the (arguably dangerous) ability to buy things in your car.

Just note that drivers will likely need to pay a subscription to access Audi's 5G in-car services. While Audi didn't disclose how much a 5G subscription would cost, the current Function On-Demand plan with 4G in-car WiFi and navigation is $849 a year on most models. 

The new 5G vehicles will also build on Audi’s current crop of in-car connected services, including information on traffic lights and low-latency road alerts. This will likely mean an even faster and more detailed version of what Audi’s 4G-enabled cars already offer. We’ve already seen current Audi models that offer integrated payment for toll roads and will alert drivers when they’re near a school bus, cyclists, road crews and other obstacles.

Audi’s 5G cars will also be equipped with mobile edge computing, which likely means better autonomous driving features since the cars will be able to react to data instantly. The tech industry has pushed for mobile edge computing on cars as a way to improve the safety of AV features. Edge computing will allow for real-time data processing, so cars can respond faster to other cars, infrastructure, and connected devices on the road.

The US is getting closer to the connected car future that major automakers like Audi, BMW, Volvo, Ford have pushed for. Roughly 60 percent of US drivers rode a connected vehicle in 2021, and that number is expected to grow to more than 70 percent by 2025, according to an eMarketer report. While drawbacks for drivers include the added costs of subscription plans and cybersecurity risks, many still enjoy the added safety and entertainment features.

Audiences will get another chance to watch CODA, the first Apple Original movie nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, in theaters. Apple is re-releasing the film, which is about a deaf family, in a limited run of free screenings with open captions. Directed and written by Sian Heder and featuring a primarily deaf cast, the film received three Oscar nods in total. Heder, who adapted the movie from a French film called La Famille Bélier, is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Troy Kotsur is also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and is the first deaf man to earn that distinction.

The film follows Ruby (played Emilia Jones) , a high school student who navigates life as the only hearing member of a deaf family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Kotsur plays her father, a struggling fisherman attempting to connect with his daughter. Ruby’s mother is played by Marlee Matlin (best known from Children of a Lesser God and The L Word), and her older brother is played by Daniel Durant, who starred in the 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening.

The screenings will run in all major cities in the US and London, beginning Friday, February 25 through Sunday, February 27. You can view a list of showtimes and theater locations here.