The Biden administration on Friday announced $930 million in grants designed to expand rural access to broadband internet. Part of the Department of Commerce’s “Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program,” the grants will fund the deployment of more than 12,000 miles of new fiber optic cable across 35 states and Puerto Rico. The administration said Friday it expects grant recipients to invest an additional $848.46 million, a commitment that should double the program's impact.

“Much like how the interstate highway system connected every community in America to regional and national systems of highways, this program will help us connect communities across the country to regional and national networks that provide quality, affordable high-speed internet access,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

According to the Commerce Department, it received over 260 applications for the Middle Mile Grant Program, totaling $7.47 billion in funding requests. The agency primarily awarded grants to telecom and utility companies, though it also set aside funding for tribal governments and nonprofits. Per Gizmodo, the largest grant, valued at $88.8 million, went to a telecommunications company in Alaska that will build a fiber optic network in a part of the state where 55 percent of residents have no internet access. On average, the Commerce Department awarded $26.6 million to most applicants. Grant recipients now have five years to complete work on their projects, though the administration hopes many of the buildouts will be completed sooner.

In addition to creating new economic opportunities in traditionally underserved communities, the government says the projects should improve safety in those areas too. “They can improve network resilience in the face of the climate crisis, and increasing natural disasters like wildfires, floods, and storms, creating multiple routes for the internet traffic to use instead of just one, like a detour on the freeway,” White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu told Bloomberg.

The funding is just one of many recent efforts by the government to close the rural digital divide. At the start of last year, the Federal Communications Commission announced an accountability program designed to ensure recipients of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund properly spend the money they receive from the public purse.

When Samsung hosts its next Unpacked event in Seoul next month, the company is widely expected to announce a new Galaxy Z Flip device with a larger cover display. Now we have a better idea of exactly how much bigger the Z Flip 5’s external screen could be when it arrives later this year.

An alleged marketing render shared by MySmartPrice (via The Verge) shows a phone with a secondary display that covers most of the front of the device when you have it flipped closed. MySmartPrice didn’t share the size of the cover display, but judging from the render, it’s significantly larger than the 1.9-inch one found on the Z Flip 4. Additionally, it appears Samsung has found a more elegant way to shape the display around the Z Flip 5’s main camera array than Motorola has done with the Razr+.

MySmartPrice

Naturally, a larger cover display would make it easier to frame selfies with the Z Flip’s main camera, but there are also some potential drawbacks. For one, a bigger secondary screen would impact battery life on the Z Flip 5 unless Samsung equips the phone with a higher-capacity battery. It’s also worth pointing out that a small cover screen is part of the Z Flip 4’s appeal. The minimal functionality it offers is a good way to partially unplug from the typical distractions that come with a smartphone while still having easy access to some information.

Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy Z Flip 5, alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 5, in late July. We’ll find out then if the company’s latest foldable display flip phone has a bigger screen.

When more than 8,000 subreddits went dark for 48 hours earlier this week to protest Reddit’s forthcoming API changes, there were signs the action had an immediate effect on the platform. On the morning of the first day of the protest, Reddit suffered a “major outage” affecting its desktop and mobile websites, as well as mobile apps. Days later, company CEO Steve Huffman went on a media offensive where he attempted to cast aggrieved users and moderators, many of whom give countless hours of their free time to make Reddit the vibrant platform it is today, as unreasonable. “These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free,” he said in an interview with The Verge.

But beyond those signs, it was hard to tell how much of a practical effect the protest had on the website’s traffic. Now we have a better idea. According to data provided to Engadget by internet analytics firm Similarweb, the impact was small but noticeable. On the day before the blackout began on June 12th, Similarweb logged more than 57 million daily visits to Reddit across desktop and mobile web clients. By the end of the first day of the protest, daily visits were below 55 million. Then, at the end of June 13th, Similarweb recorded fewer than 52 million daily visits to Reddit. Compared to the website’s average daily volume over the past month, the 52,121,649 visits Reddit saw on June 13th represented a 6.6 percent drop.

Over that same time period, Similarweb recorded a more dramatic decrease in the amount of time Reddit users were spending on the platform. The day before the protest began, an average session on the website was about eight minutes and 31 seconds long. A day later, that metric fell to seven minutes and 17 seconds, or the lowest that stat has been in the past three years. Reddit did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

Looking forward, a temporary drop in daily traffic is unlikely to affect Reddit’s near-term prospects. But as many subreddits continue to protest the company’s plans and its leadership contemplates policy changes that could change its relationship with moderators, the platform could see a slow but gradual decline in daily active users. That’s unlikely to bode well for Reddit ahead of its planned IPO and beyond.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Binance have come to an agreement that will allow the cryptocurrency exchange to continue operating in the US until a lawsuit filed by the SEC earlier this month is resolved. The regulator sued Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, on June 5th, alleging the company had artificially inflated trading volumes, mixed and diverted customer assets and failed to restrict US investors from trading on Binance.com when they were supposed to stay on a separate US system.

After announcing the charges, the SEC sought to freeze Binance’s US assets. The regulator said the move was necessary to protect customer funds and prevent the company from potentially moving money abroad. Binance, meanwhile, argued an asset freeze would put it out of business in the US. On Tuesday, the judge overseeing the litigation ordered the two sides to come to a compromise that would safeguard customer assets. 

In a court filing seen by The New York Times, the SEC said Friday that Binance had agreed to move all assets belonging to US customers stateside. Additionally, the company’s US operation is prohibited from providing access or control of domestic assets or funds to Binance’s international operation or Zhao. Until the ligation is resolved, Binance.US is "solely" allowed to transfer assets “to make payments for expenses or to satisfy obligations incurred in the ordinary course of business.” Additionally, the exchange is required to create new customer wallets which its international employees can’t access. The deal still needs approval from Judge Amy Berman – and won’t resolve the SEC lawsuit even if it’s put in place.

“Given that Changpeng Zhao and Binance have control of the platforms’ customers’ assets and have been able to commingle customer assets or divert customer assets as they please, as we have alleged, these prohibitions are essential to protecting investor assets,” the SEC said Saturday. “Further, we ensured that US customers will be able to withdraw their assets from the platform while we work to resolve the alleged underlying misconduct and hold Zhao and the Binance entities accountable for their alleged securities law violations.”

Zhao took to Twitter on Saturday morning to comment on the deal. “Although we maintain that the SEC's request for emergency relief was entirely unwarranted, we are pleased that the disagreement over this request was resolved on mutually acceptable terms,” he posted. “User funds have been and always will be safe and secure on all Binance-affiliated platforms.”

The SEC’s lawsuit against Binance is part of a broader crackdown by the watchdog against the crypto industry. At the end of last year, the agency accused FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried of carrying out an alleged multi-year scheme to defraud investors. One day after suing Binance, the SEC filed a complaint against Coinbase, the largest crypto trading platform in the US, alleging the company had failed to register as a broker, national securities exchange or clearing agency.

If you’re in the market for a new SSD, Amazon is holding a sale on Crucial drives. The company might not have the brand recognition that Samsung and SanDisk do, but rest assured, Crucial’s products are known for their reliability. The highlight of the sale is the company’s P5 Plus NVMe drive. If your PC features a Gen4 M.2 connection, the P5 Plus offers sequential read speeds of up to 6,600MB/s. It’s also worth noting the P5 Plus is fully compatible with the PlayStation 5; in fact, it’s one of Engadget’s top picks for the best storage you can get for Sony’s latest console. The 1TB model is 24 percent off, making it $65 at the moment.

If you don’t have an M.2 slot on your PC but still want to upgrade your storage, consider the MX500. After a 48 percent discount, the 1TB model is $52. The MX500 is Engadget’s pick for the best 2.5-inch SATA drive you can buy. It hits the perfect balance of price, performance and reliability. If you won’t take our word for it, consider that the MX500 holds a five-star Amazon rating on more than 90,000 reviews.

For those looking for a portable drive, you can get Crucial’s X6 1TB SSD for $60, or 45 percent off its usual $110 price. I haven’t tested the X6, but it has a solid spec sheet, offering transfer speeds of up to 800MB/s and USB 3.2 connectivity. Crucial claims the X6’s enclosure is also shock- and vibration-proof, so that should offer some peace of mind. For what it’s worth, the X6 carries a four-and-a-half star rating on more than 8,000 reviews.

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On Monday, it was Ubisoft's turn to take center stage at Summer Game Fest. After Microsoft's strong showing on Sunday, the publisher's showcase was a more sedate affair, with Ubisoft mostly providing updates on games that it had already been previously announced. 

However, the event did have its share of highlights. One surprise announcement saw Castlevania showrunner Adi Shankar take the stage in a seriously ridiculous getup to reveal Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, an animated series based, of all things, on Far Cry 3's Blood Dragon expansion from 2013. After years of development, Ubisoft also offered a first look at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. But the star of the show was undoubtedly the first gameplay trailer Massive Entertainment shared for its upcoming Star Wars project, Outlaws. The 10-minute clip offered a comprehensive look at what Star Wars fan can expect from the open world title in 2024. If you missed any part of the presentation, our video summary will catch you up in less than 14 minutes.   

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

New York is about to become the first city in the United States to mandate a minimum wage for food delivery workers. Starting next month, delivery apps, including Uber Eats and GrubHub, will be required to pay their workers $17.96 per hour, plus tips, by July 12th. Then, by 2025, the city will mandate Uber, GrubHub and other players in the space pay delivery workers $19.96 per hour, with adjustments for inflation to follow thereafter.

The minimum wage in New York City is $15 per hour. By setting the hourly pay for delivery workers above that, the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) agency notes it’s accounting for the fact Uber, GrubHub and DoorDash classify their delivery workers as contractors, who tend to pay higher taxes and often need to pay work-related expenses out of their own pocket. According to an estimate from the DCWP, there are more than 60,000 food delivery workers in New York, earning an average of $7.09 per hour.

The final hourly rate the city announced on Monday is less than the $23.82 figure the agency had called for in 2022 (PDF link). In March, the DCWP revised its estimate to account for “multi-apping,” a practice wherein some workers will deliver for more than one app at the same time. App companies, including Uber and GrubHub, pushed back against the regulation, and now that it’s set to finally go into effect, they’re still not happy about it. "The city is lying to delivery workers – they want apps to fund the $30 per hour wage by eliminating jobs and reducing tipping while forcing the remaining workers to deliver orders faster," Uber spokesperson Josh Gold told Engadget.

“While we believe New York City had good intentions, we are disappointed in the DCWP’s final rule, which will have serious adverse consequences for delivery workers in New York City,” a GrubHub spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, New York City chose not to partner with the industry on a solution that would have benefited all aspects of the gig economy.”

How delivery apps pay their workers is up to them, so long as they meet the minimum set by the city. Companies that pay only for trip time must pay approximately 50 cents per minute, while firms that compensate workers for the entire time they’re logged in, including any downtime waiting for an order, must pay approximately 30 minutes per minute, not including tips. The law comes after New York began enforcing a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers in 2022.

When Ubisoft shared the first look at Star Wars Outlaws on Sunday during Microsoft's Xbox and Starfield Showcase, the publisher promised it would have an extended gameplay trailer to share during its Ubisoft Forward event on Monday. And boy did it deliver. The company shared 10 minutes of footage that offers a comprehensive look at the upcoming game. 

The clip opens on the planet of Toshara with protagonist Key Vess and her trusty companion Nix sneaking through a criminal syndicate facility. Key can call on the adorable Nix to help her traverse the environment, while she takes care of knocking out enemies. If she's caught sneaking by a guard, Key has a moment where she, like Han Solo before 1997, can shoot first. Once things get messy, combat revolves around a blaster pistol that features a handful of different ammunition types. For instance, there are enemies with energy shields. In the heat of battle, Nix can retrieve blaster rifles dropped by enemies for Key to use, though it appears they come with limited ammunition. Star Wars Outlaws won't limit you to walking everywhere on foot. You can traverse the game's world on a speeder bike, and even take to the skies and space with a starship, with seemingly no loading between different elements of the game.  

Star Wars Outlaws will be available next year on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Massive Entertainment, best known for its work The Division franchise, is leading development on the project, with what seems like Ubisoft's entire stable of first-party studios on support duties. The game runs on Massive's in-house Snowdrop engine and looks stunning as a result. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

AT&T has supported RCS messaging on Android phones since 2021. But if you ask some of the carrier’s customers, the experience hasn’t always been great, with interoperability between different devices sometimes not working as expected. That’s about to change. Over the weekend, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president of Android, tweeted (via Android Police) that AT&T is migrating its RCS backend to Google’s own Jibe platform. Per Lockheimer, the change means AT&T customers will get the latest RCS features “instantly.” It should also resolve any lingering interoperability issues between AT&T phones and devices on different networks.

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have been committed to RCS since forming the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative in 2019, but it was only after announcing the end of that partnership in 2021, and Google becoming more directly involved with pushing the platform, that RCS began finding a foothold in the US. In 2021, T-Mobile became the first carrier to commit to preloading Google Messages on its Android devices. A year later, Verizon did the same.

At I/O 2023, Google announced that there are more than 800 million people using RCS globally, with that number expected to increase to 1 billion by the end of the year. Still, the platform faces a major hurdle. Apple has shown no signs it’s interested in supporting RCS, even if Google keeps bringing up the subject. Until something changes, that means RCS features like end-to-end encryption don’t work when Android users text friends and family members who use iPhones.

Even if an 11th-hour leak may have ruined the surprise, Atlus had big news to share during Microsoft's Xbox and Starfield showcase on Saturday. The publisher is remaking 2006's Persona 3 for modern platforms. Persona 3 Reload will reimagine the PlayStation 2 classic with modern graphics built inside of Epic's Unreal Engine and integrate gameplay enhancements introduced with 2016's Persona 5. Judging from the trailer Atlus shared, it's unclear if the remake will incorporate elements from the original's 2008 expanded rerelease, Persona 3 FES, and 2010 PlayStation Portable port, Persona 3 Portable. The latter introduced an entirely new female protagonist that has since become a fan favorite.      

Alongside Persona 3 Reload, Atlus announced Persona 5 Tactica. As the name implies, it's a strategy RPG starring the cast of Persona 5. Persona 5 Tactica will arrive on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on November 17th, with day one availability on Game Pass. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!