January has arrived, and with it, new entries to Netgear’s long list of wireless routers for both gamers and professionals. This year, the major talking point is likely to be the new Nighthawk RAXE300, which sits a little below the flagship RAXE500 in the company’s high-end line. The RAXE300 offers a combined top WiFi speed of 7.8Gbps, plus the benefit of being able to leverage the 6GHz band for faster connectivity. Netgear promises that you’ll get around 2,500 square feet of coverage from the device, plus enough gigabit ethernet ports to connect the rest of your smart home to.

At the same time, Netgear wanted to take the opportunity to remind the world of the Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh NBK752, which was released late last year. It’s the first 5G tri-band mesh system, which can leverage the 5G modem inside for always-on mobile broadband or as a backup should a standard wired connection fail. Not to mention that, as like many of Netgear’s tri-band products, the backhaul network between the router and its satellite(s) should ensure a stronger, more reliable connection.

Rounding out the list is the Orbi Pro, SXK50, the company’s new mid-range device for small businesses and professional types working from home. It’s a little behind the top-tier SK80, with a cap of 75 concurrent devices, down from 100 for the flagship, as well as a slightly slower WiFi 6 speed, but it’s likely to be an ideal option for some businesses looking for faster and more reliable connectivity.

Netgear

Rounding out the announcements for this year is Game Booster, a paid-for add-on service for Orbi users so that they cam get the same lag-banishing features found in the Nighthawk routers. That includes the ability to track pings and pick the fastest server for specific online games, as well as a built-in ad-and-tracking blocker. Unfortunately, such features will set you back $50 per year after a 30-day free trial, and only if you currently own the Orbi series 750, 850 and 960.

The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 will be available in the first quarter of 2022, and will set you back $400, while the Orbi 5G is already available, priced at $1,099.99. The Orbi Pro SXK50, meanwhile, will be available in the US at some point in January 2022, and can be pre-ordered now for $450.

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

It’s been the better part of two years since Y-Brush started shipping, offering people a different way to clean their teeth. The retainer-shaped device is filled with nylon bristles which you put into your mouth, promising to sanitize your chompers in just 10 seconds. Now, at CES 2022, the company is showing off the concept for its second-generation device that’ll offer a lot more than its predecessor ever did.

The new Y-Brush concept has bristles on both sides of the retainer, meaning that users don’t need to pull the device out and flip it over to do the bottom half of their mouths. Instead, you’ll just need to move it to the sides a bit to ensure perfect coverage. More importantly, however, is that rather than just one program, this proposed new model will offer six vibration modes, including Gum Care, Whitening and Polishing.

A beefier base both enables inductive charging and helps reduce toppling while sat on the countertop, while a companion app will help you set different programs based on your brushing habits. Although given that the whole point of this thing is to shove in your mouth and not do much at all, we’re not sure how useful that would be.

For now, this second-generation Y-Brush is little more than a concept that the company wants to show off here at CES. But the thought is that this initial idea can be refined ready for the second-generation Brush, whenever that turns up.

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

China’s not-so subtle war against video games has reportedly caused a number of domestic publishers to close their doors. The SCMP says that the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) has not issued a new license to a game developer since July 2021. And that, as a consequence, a number of local firms have been forced to exit the business, while some of the larger players are looking to move operations overseas. It’s not clear if the NPPA’s inaction is the direct cause of these closures, especially given the broader debt crisis in China, but there’s a belief that something is up.

The NPPA has reportedly been tight-lipped about why it’s suddenly decided to stop issuing licenses, but you can likely guess why. China spent much of 2021 amplifying its already fierce criticism of video games, with a key state-owned news outlet describing them as “spiritual opium” in the summer. At the end of August 2021, limits on how long minors could play some titles was slashed to just three hours a week. And given China’s repeatedattacks on the biggest players in its tech sector, it seems like we shouldn’t get our hopes up for the NPPA to turn the faucet back on any time soon.

The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, is pledging that the European nation’s domestic flights would be “green” by 2030. As part of her New Year’s Address, she said that (translated) “by 2025, Danes must have the opportunity to fly green on a domestic route.” She added that “by 2030 at the latest, we must be able to fly completely green when we fly domestically in Denmark.” It was part of a broader commitment by the leader to toughen measures against polluters and to jump-start the country’s green transition.

There are, however, reasons to be concerned that such an ambitious deadline can be reached, given the lack of ready alternatives. Electric planes may never succeed, and hydrogen flying, while much more promising, is nowhere near ready to be rolled out to a major airline’s fleet. Not to mention, of course, that only hydrogen produced as a result of electrolysis, powered by excess renewable energy, can be called truly “green.” EnergiWatch has said that Denmark’s standing policy of waiting for magic bullet technologies to come to fruition is not going to help it reach its international commitments on climate emissions.

That said, Denmark has made more steps than some countries to help make the transition toward zero-carbon technologies. The country has already issued a hard deadline to end oil and gas exploration and is a big player in the wind power industry. At the start of 2021, it committed to build an artificial island which could collect and store power from Denmark’s wind farms, enough to supply 10GW. At the same time, the country hopes that any excess wind power can be used to drive an electrolyzer, helping it develop a nice sideline as a producer of guilt-free Hydrogen.

COP26 was not a fist-in-the-air moment, and not the victory against climate change that humanity had been banking on. Sadly, politics and commerce put a hard thumb on proceedings, limiting the action possible. Commitments to “phase down” coal, rather than a firm pledge to eliminate it outright, show how far we still have to go. But the event also served to highlight the extent of what needs to be done if humanity’s going to survive beyond the next century.

One “victory” out of the event was the belief that ensuring global warming held at 1.5 degrees was still possible. It’s worth saying, however, that 1.5 degrees isn’t a target to meet so much as an acceptance of impending disaster. In October, the IPCC explained that such a temperature increase will cause significant upticks in the frequency of extreme heat waves, monsoon-like rainfall and widespread droughts. Extreme weather events that may have taken place once every 50 years a few centuries ago could become a regular, and fatal, occurrence.

All the while, the facts of the matter are unchanged: Humanity needs to avoid adding new carbon emissions while also tackling those we’ve already emitted. That means an aggressive reduction of every man-made carbon-emitting process everywhere on Earth, the total reformation of agriculture and an unprecedented rollout of carbon capture and storage technology. And, ideally, that process should have begun the better part of two decades ago.

There are many dispiriting facts about the world, but one that always hurts is the fact that coal plants are still being greenlit. Global Energy Monitor’s data has plants currently being permitted or under construction in (deep breath) China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Mongolia, Vietnam, Singapore, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. As Reuters says, each plant will be expected to run for at least 40 years, severely damaging efforts to go Carbon Negative. Not only is it in everyone’s best interest that these plants don’t go online, but wealthier nations have a moral obligation to help provide the funding to help at least some of those names move toward clean energy.

Tunvarat Pruksachat via Getty Images

The problem is that electricity is going to be the most important resource of the 21st century, especially if we’re going to tackle climate change. Many key technologies, like transportation, will ditch fossil fuels in favor of electricity as their primary source of fuel. The world’s demand for energy is going to increase, and we’re going to need to generate that power cleanly. The US Center for Climate and Energy Solutions believes that, by 2050, the world’s power needs will jump by 24 percent. So where will we get all of this clean power from?

Fusion has, forever, been held up as a magic bullet that will totally eradicate our worries about energy generation. Unlike Nuclear Fission, it produces little waste, requires little raw fuel and can’t produce a runaway reaction. Unfortunately, Fusion remains as elusive as The Venus de Milo’s arms or a good new Duke Nukem game. ITER, the internationally-funded, French-built experimental reactor won’t be finished until 2025 at the earliest and is still just a testbed. If successful — and that’s a big if — we’re still a decade away from any serious progress being made, at which point mass decarbonization will already need to be well underway.

That means any power decarbonization will have to come from the renewable technology that’s available to us today. Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Tidal power all need to be ramped up to fill in the gap, but the scale of the task in the US alone is staggering. According to the EIA, the US generated just short of 2,500 billion kWh using fossil fuels in 2020. If you wanted to, for instance, replace all of that with nuclear power, you’d need to build anything in the region of 300 reactors, or increase the number of solar panels installed in the US by roughly a hundred percent — and that’s before we talk about intermittency.

James Trew / Engadget

One thing we can do, however, is to reduce our demand for energy to lessen the need for such a dramatic shift. That can be, for instance, as easy as better insulating your home (in cold climates) or improving the efficiency of AC systems (in warm climates). Another smart move is to ditch the car in favor of public transportation, walking, or getting on your bike. There is evidence that e-bike adoption is becoming a big deal, with Forbes saying that sales are tipped to grow from just under 4 million annually in 2020 to close to 17 million by 2030.

None of this, however, will matter much unless we can also find a way to pay off the debts humanity has racked up over the last century. The IPCC believes that we need to extract up to one trillion tonnes of atmospheric CO2 in the near future. This can be done with massive tree planting works, more of which needs to be done, but also this process may need a little help.

That’s why a number of startups have been working on industrial processes to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Right now, such a process is very expensive, but it’s hoped that as the technology improves, the cost will start to tumble. There’s also a concern, of course, that running schemes like this will give polluting companies and nations a free license to avoid reform.

As much as we can hope that this technology matures quickly, the rate of progress needs to get a lot faster a, uh, lot faster. For instance, Climeworks’ Orca, its new flagship carbon capture plant in Iceland, will extract 4,000 tons of CO2 per year. If we’re going to reach the point where we can avert a climate catastrophe using extraction alone, we’ll need this capacity to increase by about a hundred million times.

The point of this is, broadly speaking, to outline how much more sharply our attitudes toward the climate need to shift. If we’re going to succeed at defeating climate change then we’re going to need to go onto the sort of war footing – where resources are devoted to nothing but solving the crisis – that few can ever imagine undertaking. But, as most of the resources point out, the only way that we’re going to stave off the damage after dragging our feet for so long is to go all-out in search of a solution.

Arrival, the Anglo-American startup which is hoping to revolutionize the design and manufacture of electric vehicles, is ready to talk about its first car. The Arrival Car, as it is known, is designed, first and foremost, to be used by rideshare drivers during their working day.

Much as the company doesn’t want to call it a taxi, this is more or less what the Arrival Car is, an electric update to the London black cab for cities of the future. But with a number of tweaks that mean it’s smaller and more efficient than current cars, but still has buckets of room inside.

The (capital-C) Car has been teased for a while, and back in May, Arrival announced that it had teamed up with Uber to create a “purpose-built vehicle for ride-hailing.” It’s a project with an ambitious deadline, too, with the first models expected to roll off the production line in Q3, 2023.

Visiting Arrival’s Oxfordshire HQ, I was able to look at, and sit in, the Alpha prototype, but the company is a little leery about sharing too many images of the same. That’s, in part, because it doesn’t feel the first model, built in about six months, is fully representative of what’s to come. I wasn’t allowed to take images of the car in all of its glory, and instead was supplied with a mixture of renders and close-up shots of various components.

Arrival

Part of the reason that Arrival feels confident that it can turn a car around in such a short space of time is that it’s standing very much on its own shoulders. After all, the Car uses the same integrated EV skate platform that was developed for the van and the bus. It means that Arrival can, effectively, cut its skate to the right size and plonk any cabin structure on top.

The Arrival Car is deeply uncool, a box on wheels with an emphasis on maximizing the internal space for passengers. It has the same silhouette as a French-made minivan; you could easily imagine a line of these parked outside a Saturday-morning under 15’s soccer match. But, because it wholly rejects the need to be aesthetic for the sake of aesthetics, it’s also quite cool.

And despite the sci-fi styling, there’s something quite humane about its design, something quite organic. Because the propulsion is on the floor, there’s no need for a pronounced bonnet, so the windshield just melts into the chassis. There’s a cambered glass roof stretching over the cabin, making the interior space airy and roomy.

One big focus, naturally, was on maximizing the interior space and legroom, and I’ve seen visitor centers that are more cramped. Despite sitting on (roughly) the same footprint as a VW Golf, the Car probably has more legroom than a (famously-roomy) London Black Cab. The front passenger seat can also be folded down and pushed slightly forward, should you need extra room. The height, too, means that you can easily step up and into this vehicle rather than awkwardly crouching down, which should help folks with mobility issues.

The only issue with this first version, which is likely to change in the second prototype, is the luggage space. This first model has a fairly small luggage compartment, designed for two large and two small suitcases and little else. But Tom Elvidge, EVP of Vehicle Platforms, believes that changes will be made to improve this for the second prototype.

Arrival

Arrival’s custom software platform drives the system, and the Car has a Tesla Model 3-esque 13-inch screen mounted in the middle of the dashboard. That’s good for localization, given that this will need to be made available in left and right-hand-drive models. But it also helps clear out some of the clutter that rideshare drivers sometimes have cluttering up their view.

Another driver-focused benefit is the fact that the Car has been designed to be comfortable but not full of delicate materials. Of course, a lot of this remains in flux, but the prototype uses brightly colored woven fabrics for seat covers and something spill-resistant on the floor. Given the risks of passengers dirtying up the vehicle, reducing the amount of time drivers can be on the road, ease of cleaning is a key priority.

It’s early days, and Arrival has still got the better part of two years to answer many of the key questions we have about this vehicle. Facts about battery capacity, range, speed and cost are all left blank since the company is, right now, focused on ironing out the design. We know that it won’t be speed-capped to only go around city streets, given that 10 percent of rideshare journeys are to the airports. And that it has to at least pass as a family hatchback for when drivers aren’t working and want to use the car as their own ride.

Arrival

And, of course, the cost will be a big factor to help drivers ditch their existing vehicles. Arrival thinks that many of the innovations it has already developed will help it there, but there are no concrete figures yet. Given how many taxi fleets adopted Priuses (and other Toyota hybrids) to help squeeze more range from their fuel budgets, you can imagine this becoming a hit.

What we do know is that Arrival’s EV platform makes for an extraordinary driving experience and one that’s very fun to use. I was allowed to drive one of the test vans around the company’s car park-cum-test-track and it’s wild. This thing is a heavy-ass UPS-style package van that drives with the ease and precision of a go-kart. I’m sure that plenty of professional drivers will enjoy the feeling of connection to the road that this particular system offers.

For now, Arrival is working on identifying which elements from this first model don’t work, and refining them for the second prototype. There’s plenty of work to do between now and the end of 2023, however, and so we’ll wait and see how this shakes out in the end.

An Irish civil rights group believes that it has successfully exposed the so-called legal fictions that underpin the online advertising industry. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), says that Europe’s data protection regulators will soon declare the current regime illegal. At the heart of this complaint is both how the industry asks for permission, and then how it serves adverts to users online. Describing the situation as the “world’s biggest data breach,” the consequences of the ruling could have staggering ramifications for everything that we do online.

“The world’s biggest data breach”

Real-Time Bidding (RTB) is the mechanism by which most online ads are served to you today, and lies at the heart of the issue. Visit a website and, these days, you will notice a split-second delay between the content loading, and the adverts that surround it. You may be reading a line in an article, only for the text to suddenly leap halfway down the page, as a new advert takes its place in front of your eyes. This delay, however small, accommodates a labyrinthine process in which countless companies bid to put their advert in front of your eyes. Omri Kedem, from digital marketing agency Croud, explained that the whole process takes less than 100 milliseconds from start to finish. 

Targeted advertising is the lifeblood of the internet, providing social media platforms and news organisations with a way to make money. Advertisers feel more confident paying for ads if they can be reasonably certain that the person on the other end is inside the target market. But, in order to make sure that this works, the platform hosting the ad needs to know everything it can about you, the user.

This is how, say, a sneaker store is able to market its wares to the local sneakerheads or a vegan restaurant looks for vegans and vegetarians in its local area. Companies like Facebook have made huge profits on their ability to laser-focus ad campaigns on behalf of advertisers. But this process has a dark side, and this micro-targeting can, for instance, be used to enable hateful conduct. The most notable example is from 2017, when ProPublica found that you could target a cohort of users deemed anti-semitic with the tag “Jew Hater.”

Every time you visit a website, a number of facts about you are broadcast to the site’s owner including your IP address. But that data can also include your exact longitude and latitude (if you have built-in GPS), your carrier and device type. Visit a news website every day and it’s likely that both the publisher and ad-tech intermediary will track which sections you spend more time reading.

This information can be combined with material you’ve willingly submitted to a publisher when asked. Subscribe to a publication like the Financial Times or Forbes, for instance, and you’ll be asked about your job title and industry. From there, publishers can make clear assumptions about your annual income, social class and political interests. Combine this information — known in the industry as deterministic data — with the inferences made based on your browsing history — known as probabilistic data — and you can build a fairly extensive profile of a user.

“The more bidders you have on something you’re trying to sell, in theory, the better,” says Dr. Johnny Ryan. Ryan is a Senior Fellow at the ICCL with a specialism in Information Rights and has been leading the charge against Real-Time Bidding for years. In order to make targeted advertising work, the publisher and ad intermediary will compress your life into a series of codes: Bidstream Data. Ryan says that this is a list of “identification codes [which] are highly unique to you,” and is passed on to a number of auction sites.

“The most obvious identification is the app that you’re using, which can be very compromising indeed, or the specific URL that you’re visiting,” says Ryan. He added that the URL of the site, which can be included in this information, can be “excruciatingly embarrassing” if seen by a third party. If you’re looking up information about a health condition or material related to your sexuality and sexual preferences, this can also be added to the data. And there’s no easy and clean way to edit or redact this data as it is broadcast to countless ad exchanges.

In order to harmonize this data, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the online ad industry’s trade body, produces a standard taxonomy. (The IAB, as it is known, has a standalone body operating in Europe, while the taxonomy itself is produced by a New York-based Tech Lab.) The IAB Content Taxonomy, now in its third version, will codify you, for instance, as being into Arts and Crafts (Code 248) or Birdwatching (259). Alternatively, it can tag you as Muslim (461), Jewish (462), have an interest in sexual health (307), substance abuse (311) or if you have a child with special educational needs (199).

But not every bidder in those auctions is looking to place an ad, and some are much more interested in the data that is being shared. A Motherboard story from earlier this year revealed that the United States Intelligence Community mandates the use of ad-blockers to prevent RTB agencies from identifying serving personnel, data which could wind up in the hands of rival nations. Earlier versions of the Taxonomy even included tags identifying a user as potentially working for the US military.

It’s this specificity in the data, coupled with the fact that it can be shared widely and so regularly, that has prompted Ryan to call this the “world’s biggest data breach.” He cited an example of a French firm, Vectuary, which was investigated in 2018 by France’s data protection regulator, CNIL. What officials found was data listings for almost 68 million people, much of which had been gathered using captured RTB data. At the time, TechCrunch reported that the Vectaury case could have ramifications for the advertising market and its use of consent banners.

The issue of consent

In 2002, the European Union produced the ePrivacy Directive, a charter for how companies needed to get consent for the use of cookies for advertising purposes. The rules, and how they are defined, have subsequently evolved, most recently with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). One of the consequences of this drive is that users within the EU are presented with a pop-up banner asking them to consent to tracking. As most cookiepolicies will explain, this tracking is used for both internal analytics and to enable targeted advertising.

To standardize and harmonize this process, IAB Europe created the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF). This, essentially, lets publishers copy the framework laid down by the body on the assumption that they have established a legal basis to process that data. When someone does not give consent to be tracked, a record of that decision is logged in a piece of information known as a TC String. And it’s here that the ICCL has (seemingly) claimed a victory after lodging a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority, the APD, saying that this record constitutes personal data.

A draft of the ruling was shared with IAB Europe and the ICCL, and reportedly said that the APD found that a TC String did constitute personal data. On November 5th, IAB Europe published a statement saying that the regulator is likely to “identify infringements of the GDPR by IAB Europe,” but added that those “infringements should be capable of being remedied within six months following the issuing of the final ruling.” Essentially, because IAB Europe was not treating these strings with the same level of care as personal data, it needs to start doing so now and / or face potential penalties.

At the same time, Dr. Ryan at the ICCL declared that the campaign had “won” and that IAB Europe’s whole “consent system” will be “found to be illegal.” He added that IAB Europe created a fake consent system that spammed everyone, every day, and served no purpose other than to give a thin legal cover to the massive data breach in at the heart of online advertising.” Ryan ended his statement by saying that he hopes that the final decision, when it is released, “will finally force the online advertising industry to reform.”

This reform will potentially hinge on the thorny question of if a user can reasonably be relied upon to consent to tracking. Is it enough for a user to click “I Accept” and therefore write the ad-tech intermediary involved a blank check? It’s a question that ad-tech expert and lawyer Sacha Wilson, a partner at Harbottle and Lewis, is interested in. He explained that, in the law, “consent has to be separate, specific, informed [and] unambiguous,” which “given the complexity of ad tech, is very difficult to achieve in a real-time environment.”

Wilson also pointed out that something that is often overstated is the quality of the data being collected by these brokers. “Data quality is a massive issue,” he said, “a significant proportion of the profile data that exists is actually inaccurate — and that has compliance issues in and of itself, the inaccuracy of the data.” (This is a reference to Article 5 of the GDPR, where people who process data should ensure that the data is accurate.) In 2018, an Engadget analysis of data held by prominent data company Acxiom showed that the information held on an individual can be often wildly inaccurate or contradictory.

One key plank of European privacy law is that it has to be easy enough to withdraw consent if you so choose. But it doesn’t appear as if this is as easy as it could be if you have to approach every vendor individually. Visit ESPN, for instance, and you’ll be presented with a list of vendors (listed by the OneTrust platform) that numbers into the several hundreds. MailOnline’s vendor list, meanwhile, runs to 1,476 entries. (Engadget’s, for what it’s worth, includes 323 “Advertising Technologies” partners.) It is not necessarily the case that all of those vendors will be engaged at all times, but it does suggest that users cannot simply withdraw consent at every individual broker without a lot of time and effort.

Transparency and consent

Townsend Feehan is the CEO of IAB Europe, the body currently awaiting a decision from the APD concerning its data protection practices. She says that the thing that the industry’s critics are missing is that “none of this [tracking] happens if the user says no.” She added that “at the point where they open the page, users have control. [They can] either withhold consent, or they can use the right to object, if the asserted legal basis is legitimate interest, then none of the processing can happen.” She added that users do, or do not, consent to the discrete use of their data to a list of “disclosed data controllers,” saying that “those data controllers have no entitlement to share your data with anyone else,” since doing so would be illegal.

[Legitimate Interest is a framework within the GDPR enabling companies to collect data without consent. This can include where doing so is in the legitimate interests of an organization or third party, the processing does not cause undue harm or detriment to the person involved.]

While the type of sharing described by the ICCL and Dr. Ryan isn’t impossible, from a technical standpoint, Feehan made it clear that to do so is illegal under European law. “If that happens, it is a breach of the law,” she said, “and that law needs to be enforced.” Feehan added that at the point when data is first collected, all of the data controllers who may have access to that information are named.

Feehan also said that IAB Europe had practices and procedures put in place to deal with members found to be in breach of its obligations. That can include suspension of up to 14 days if a violation is found, with further suspensions liable if breaches aren’t fixed. IAB Europe can also permanently remove a company that has failed to address its policies, which it signs up to when it joins the TCF. She added that the body is currently working to further automate its audit processes in order to ensure it can proactively monitor for breaches and that users who are concerned about a potential breach can contact the body to share their suspicions.

It is hard to speculate on what the ruling would mean for IAB Europe and the current ad-tech regime more broadly. Feehan said that only when the final ruling was released would we know what changes the ad industry will have to institute. She asserted that IAB Europe was little more than a standards-setter rather than a data controller in real terms. “We don’t have access to any personal data, we don’t process any data, we’re just a trade association.” However, should the body be found to be in breach of the GDPR, it will need to offer up a clear action plan in order to resolve the issue.

It’s not just consent fatigue

The issue of Real-Time Bidding data being collected is not simply an issue of companies being greedy or lax with our information. The RTB process means that there is always a risk that data will be passed to companies with less regard for their legal obligations. And if a data broker is able to make some cash from your personal information, it may do so without much care for your individual rights, or privacy.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Mobilewalla, an Atlanta-based ad-tech company, had enabled warrantless surveillance through the sale of its RTB data. Mobilewalla’s vast trove of information, some of which was collected from RTB, was sold to a company called Gravy Analytics. Gravy, in turn, passed the information to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Vental, which then sold the information to a number of federal agencies and related partners.

This trove of information may not have had real names attached, but the Journal says that it’s easy enough to tie an address to where a person’s phone is placed most evenings. And this information was, at the very least, passed on to and used by the Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service and US Military. All three reportedly tracked individuals both in the US and abroad without a warrant enabling them to do so.

In July 2020, Mobilewalla came under fire after reportedly revealing that it had tagged and tracked the identity of Black Lives Matter protesters. At the time, The Wall Street Journal report added that the company’s CEO, in 2017, boasted that the company could track users while they visit their places of worship to enable advertisers to sell directly to religious groups.

This sort of snooping and micro-targeting is not, however, limited to the US, with the ICCL finding a report made by data broker OnAudience.com. The study, a copy of which it hosts on its website, discusses the use of databases to create a cohort of around 1.4 million users. These people were targeted based on a belief that they were “interested in LGBTQ+,” identified because they had searched for relevant topics in the prior 14 days. Given both the unpleasant historical precedent of listing people by their sexuality and the ongoing assault on LGBT rights in the country, the ease at which this took place may concern some.

Looking to the future

On November 25th, the APD announced that it had sent its draft decision to its counterparts in other parts of Europe. If the procedure doesn’t hit any roadblocks, then the ruling will be made public around four weeks later, which means at some point in late December. Given the holidays, we may not see the likely fallout — if any — until January. But it’s possible that either this doesn’t make much of a change in the ad landscape, or it could be dramatic. What’s likely, however, is that the issues around how much a user can consent to having their data used in this manner won’t go away overnight.

Tesla is selling a scaled down kiddie version of its Cyberquad ATV for the scions of EV owners around the world. For the uninitiated, when Tesla announced its beefy, alien-looking Cybertruck, it also promised a similar-looking ATV would debut alongside. While both the truck and ATV remain in the works, you can get your kids a unit that’ll impress everyone at the next off-road meet you go to. Packing a lithium-ion battery with a reported 15 miles of range and a 10MPH top speed, the kiddie Cyberquad will set you back $1,900, but bear in mind orders are not guaranteed to reach you before the holidays.

— Dan Cooper

Alexa can now tell you if your washing machine stops or water is running

The smart-home gizmo gets some quality-of-life additions.

Today’s edition of “intrusive or useful” features Alexa, after Amazon updated its Custom Sound Detection with new features. Long story short, while you could manually train Alexa to keep its microphones listening for water running or a beeping washing machine, now it’ll do that automatically. That means your phone will let you know if someone’s been a bit lax at the taps or needs to go change over the laundry. Another big addition is the ability for Alexa to refill prescriptions via Amazon Pharmacy, all from the comfort of wherever your Alexa is currently parked.

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Apple reportedly warned suppliers of slowing demand for iPhones

The chip shortage and a desire for something newer is reportedly to blame.

David Imel for Engadget

Apple has reportedly told suppliers to expect a smaller number of iPhone 13 orders across the next year. Apparently, demand for the new handset has begun to dip ahead of the holiday season, due to both the chip crisis and rumors of the iPhone 14. Apple had previously cut its initial orders by 10 million, but had told suppliers at the time that it'd order more when materials were less constrained. That is, however, reportedly no longer the case, but we’re sure Apple will — as per usual — still report mega profits when it publishes its quarterly reports.

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Polestar offers an early camouflaged glimpse at its electric SUV

It’ll be the first model made in the US, too.

Polestar

Polestar has offered-up an early look at the Polestar 3, the company’s first US-made SUV, due to launch at some point in 2022. The camouflage-covered whip promises to be more environmentally friendly (but, you know, it’s still a SUV) and full of even more tech. Gadgets and gizmos we’re likely to see include new LiDAR sensors paired with NVIDIA's computing tech, for hands-free highway driving. Naturally, details will continue to be drip-fed over the coming months, but it certainly looks the part, doesn’t it?

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Rocket Lab details its reusable Neutron launch vehicle

You’ll get serious ‘You Only Live Twice’ vibes from this.

Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab is showing off its next-generation Neutron vehicle, a fully reusable satellite launch platform. The company has focused on maintaining the light weight and ease of re-use, despite the larger size, with a new carbon composite body. And, unlike conventional rockets, the first stage carries the second stage to the heavens inside its body. Once aloft, the first stage opens its faring — described as a Hungry (Hungry) Hippo mouth — to send the second stage on its way.

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The most-used emoji in 2021 are mostly unchanged from 2019

Although I’m not sure we’re all using the same emojis in the very same way.

Today, I learned the Unicode Consortium describes the cry-laughing emoji as Tears of Joy. And not, as I had thought, That Sense of Ennui Felt When Things Go Wrong In The Most Stupidly Ironic Way Possible. However you describe it, the tears-down-your cheek image is the world’s most used emoji and has been since 2019. In fact, while much of the world has changed since 2019, the way we use little images to convey our emotions has not. Especially if you’re sharing with the world how you’ve messed something up in the most stupidly ironic way possible.

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The biggest news stories you might have missed

Adidas's first foray into the metaverse will likely include NFTs

EA is going 'all-in on Battlefield' with plans for a connected universe

Apple's 2021 App Store Awards highlight 'connection'

Microsoft Office's simplified visual update is now available

If there’s one thing we should all admire about Elon Musk, it’s his knack for helping folks part with their hard-earned cash. Tesla yesterday launched Cyberwhistle, a $50 whistle designed with the same angular lines as its forthcoming Cybertruck. The company is happy to explain that the Cyberwhistle is a “premium collectible” hewn from medical-grade stainless steel. Sadly, not long after Musk tweeted a link to the sale page, the whistle sold out, but there’s hope another round will be available at some point in the future. Or, if you’re really, desperately in need of one of these, you can find pre-orders being scalped for around $300.

— Dan Cooper

Barnes & Noble releases its first Nook GlowLight e-reader in four years

It’s apparently the first of many new Nooks in the pipeline.

Barnes & Noble

Given how slowly e-reader technology moves, it’s not a massive surprise it’s been four years since Barnes & Noble last touched the GlowLight. The fourth-generation model gets a thinner and lighter body, a USB-C port and 32GB storage, but that’s about it. Most of the spec list, from the month-long battery life to the 6-inch 300DPI e-paper display, remain the same. Plus, the price of $150 puts it a little way beyond the Kindle Paperwhite in terms of cost, but if you want to swerve Amazon and Kobo, this is likely your best bet. B&N CEO James Daunt has also said the company plans to revive the range, so keep a look out for more new Nooks in the coming months.

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Urtopia e-bike is basically a computer on wheels

It’s a tech-heavy e-bike from China.

James Trew

As Engadget’s Editor-at-Large James Trew writes, e-bikes are normally little more than a bike with a motor slapped on the back. Chinese brand Urtopia, however, has decided to make a futuristic rideable with features you’d expect to see on a car. That includes an integrated display, fingerprint reader, GPS, 4G, an integrated alarm and mmWave sensors for nearby vehicle detection.

Sadly, James wasn’t able to try some of those features on the prototype he rode, and control of the lights is voice only, which is problematic when you’re on a busy highway. That said, his overall review was positive, with the light weight, fun riding style and added features putting the gloss on a very good bike. Worth saying, however, is that the Indiegogo pre-order price of $2,000 is likely to skyrocket when the hardware is retail ready, so if you’re eager, dive in soon.

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Spotify's 2021 Wrapped is here to chronicle your year in music

With color-coded Audio Auras and a quiz about your listening habits.

Spotify

It’s December, and that can only mean one thing: Spotify Unwrapped is upon us, allowing us to humblebrag (or not) about our music taste. Fire up the app and you’ll be able to find out your most popular artist, what genres you particularly love and how long you spent listening to tunes this year. You’ll also get an Audio Aura, a color chart explaining what your most listened-to music moods are — I got Melancholy and Energy, which sounds about right for me. At the same time, Spotify has announced the most popular artists on the platform, with Bad Bunny taking the top spot for the second year running.

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Microsoft will be required to disclose sexual harassment cases after shareholder vote

Despite the company advocating against the move.

Microsoft investors have passed a resolution requiring the company to publicly report how it handles sexual harassment cases. The tech giant had planned to make some of these details public anyway, but shareholders pushed for more specific disclosures. As a consequence, the Windows maker will also have to offer details about investigations into any executive misconduct. Investors pushed for the rule change after reports emerged concerning co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates’ conduct during his tenure.

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The best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy

Bag yourself a hybrid in the run-up to the holidays.

Dana Wollman

Our Buyer’s Guide has turned its attention to 2-in-1 machines, which operate both as a laptop or tablet when required. Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low cast an expert eye over the market, finding the best equipment for every type of user. We won’t spoil the results, but suffice to say, there’s a big pile of great devices in this list that is sure to delight many. And there’s just about enough time left in the year for you to drop hints to your nearest and dearest about what you want.

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The biggest news stories you might have missed

Nothing's 'Black Edition' brings a modern touch to its funky Ear 1 buds

Digital car keys arrive on Pixel 6 and Samsung Galaxy S21

Verizon and Bang & Olufsen made soundbars with Android TV built-in

HTC Vive Focus 3 gets more accurate hand tracking in new update

Sony's $9,000 drone for its Alpha cameras is available for pre-order

Microsoft is testing a few ways to improve Windows 11's Start menu

Meta/Facebook is today updating the world on how its efforts to remove fake and adversarial networks from its platform are going. The social network has released a new report saying that it has successfully closed down a number of networks for Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). But in addition to networks of fake profiles all working in tandem, the company has also shed some light on how it deals with additional threats. This includes Brigading — the use of negative comments and counter-posting to drown out an individual’s posts — and Mass Reporting, where Facebook’s own anti-harassment tools are used as a weapon. This is another step beyond the broader tactics the company announced back in September, where it pledged to combat broader social harms that took place on its platform.

With Brigading, the company took down what it describes as a “network of accounts that originated in Italy and France” which targeted medical professionals, journalists and public officials. Facebook says that it tracked the activity back to a European anti-vaccine conspiracy movement called “V_V,” adding that its members used a large volume of fake accounts to “mass comment on posts” from individuals and news agencies “to intimidate them and suppress their views.”In addition, those accounts posted doctored images, superimposing the swastika onto the faces of prominent doctors and accusing them of supporting nazism.

In Vietnam, Facebook took down a network that was being used to target activists and users critical of the local government. The network would submit “hundreds — in some cases thousands — of complaints against their targets through our abuse reporting flows.” Attackers also created duplicate accounts of the users they intended to silence and then reported the real account as an impersonator from the fake account. Facebook added that some of these fake accounts were automatically detected and disabled by the company’s automatic moderation tools.

As for the more old-fashioned methods of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior, the company took down networks in Palestine, Poland, Belarus and China. The first was reportedly tied to Hamas, while the second two were crafted to exacerbate tensions during the humanitarian crisis on the border there. In a call with reporters, Facebook said that the Polish network had very good operational security and, so far, it has not been able to tie it to a real-world organization. The Belarusian network, on the other hand, had much poorer operational security, and so the company has tied the activity to the Belarusian KGB.

The final network, out of China, has prompted Facebook to publish a deep dive into the activity given the depth of what took place. In its report, the company says that a group created a fake profile of a Swiss biologist called Wilson Edwards who posted material critical of the US and WHO. 48 hours later, and his comments were picked up by Chinese state media, and engaged with by high-level officials. But there was no evidence that Wilson Edwards existed, which prompted the platform to close the account.

Researchers found that Edwards’ was “the work of a multi-pronged, largely unsuccessful influence operation,” involving “employees of Chinese state infrastructure companies across four continents.” Facebook wanted to make it clear that Edwards’ comments were not engaged with organically, and it was only when the posts were reported by state media did things suddenly rise in prominence.

One thing that Facebook did identify is the use of guides which were used to train potential network members. The V_V network, for instance, published videos through its Telegram channels that suggested that users replace letters in key words so that it wouldn’t be picked up by automatic filtering. The people behind the Chinese network, too, would sometimes inadvertently post notes from their leaders, written in Indonesian and Chinese, offering tips on how best to amplify this content.

In addition, Facebook has announced that it has launched a tool, through CrowdTangle, to enable OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) researchers to study disinformation networks. This includes storing any content taken down by the company, allowing a small list of approved third parties the chance to analyze it. Access has, so far, been limited to teams from the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Stanford Internet Observatory, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Graphika and Cardiff University.

Facebook believes that offering greater detail and transparency around how it finds these networks will enable researchers in the OSINT community to better track them in future.