Twitter has resumed paying its Google Cloud contract, according to Bloomberg. If you missed the initial news of the impending showdown, Platformer reported on June 10th that Twitter had been refusing to pay Google for its cloud services ahead of their contract’s June 30th renewal date. The possibility of losing access to Google’s infrastructure led to a frantic rush at Twitter to migrate as many of its services off of Google’s servers. However, that effort was reportedly “running behind schedule,” opening the door for some of the company’s in-house tools to go offline come the end of the month.

Now it appears Twitter has found a way to avoid that scenario. Bloomberg reports Linda Yaccarino, the company’s newly appointed CEO, “helped get the relationship back on track.” In fact, the two companies are reportedly negotiating a broader partnership that could include advertising and Google’s use of Twitter’s paid API. Twitter does not operate a public relations department Engadget could contact for comment.

Twitter’s Google Cloud contract dates back to 2018. According to Bloomberg, the contract has cost the company between $200 million and $300 million annually and was one of the early targets of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting. Google reportedly “struggled” to get in touch with the billionaire to talk about Twitter’s unpaid bills, and at one point attempted to reach him through SpaceX, which also does business with the tech giant.

Earlier this year, AST SpaceMobile, with the help of AT&T, managed to connect an off-the-shelf Samsung Galaxy S22 to a satellite in low-Earth orbit to complete a two-way voice call. The announcement marked a major milestone for satellite-based cellular communication. Now the company says it’s one step closer to bringing the technology to consumers.

On Wednesday, AST shared it recently completed multiple tests in Hawaii where its engineers saw download speeds of 10Mbps from the company’s BlueWalker 3 satellite to unmodified phones on the ground. “Successfully reaching double-digit download speeds during satellite-to-smartphone testing takes us one step closer to ensuring people across the United States will be able to stay connected no matter their location,” said Chris Sambar, AT&T network head.

As a next step, AST hopes to connect a phone to BW3 over a 5G signal. A SpaceX Falcon 9 carried the prototype satellite to low-Earth orbit in September. At 693 square feet in size, BW3 features the largest antenna of any commercial satellite to date and is easily one of the brightest objects in the night sky, making it difficult for astronomers to carry out their research.

AT&T is one of a few US carriers looking to use satellites to service underserved rural communities. In 2021, Verizon partnered with Amazon to use the company’s Project Kuiper satellite network for wireless access. More recently, T-Mobile said it would work with SpaceX to test Starlink-capable devices. Like AT&T, the carrier has said existing phones should work with its satellite offering.

Konami has finally shared a release date for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1. In case you missed the publisher’s original announcement, Konami announced the compilation alongside Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater during Sony’s recent PlayStation Showcase. At the time, the company provided precious few details about the Master Collection, a fact it remedied during the most recent Nintendo Direct.

During Wednesday’s livestream, Konami said the Master Collection would arrive on October 24th and include Metal Gear Solid, MGS 2: Sons of Liberty and MGS 3: Snake Eater as previously announced, plus Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake as well as the NES versions of Metal Gear and 1990’s Snake's Revenge. Additionally, the bundle will come with a wealth of bonus content, including strategy guides for each game and a digital soundtrack. It also comes with the Metal Gear Solid graphic novel and screenplay books that delve into the stories of Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater.

In other words, the Master Collection is shaping up to be the best way to play the Metal Gear series on modern platforms. Many of the games, including Sons of Liberty, aren’t available to purchase on platforms like GOG and the Microsoft Store after Konami ran into licensing issues for some of the content in those titles. Of course, whether you should buy the compilation will depend on how you feel about Konami’s treatment of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima. Since their public split in 2015, the company has gone out of its way to minimize – and, in many cases, erase – Kojima’s name from the series he gave three decades of his life to. Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Nintendo Switch. 

Between all the trailers Netflix shared yesterday during its Tudum event for properties like One Piece and 3 Body Problem, you may have missed some of the more grounded dramas the company was promoting at the same time. One of those was its upcoming adaption of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All The Light We Cannot See. Netflix shared a new teaser for its four-part miniseries of the same name.

If you haven’t read Doerr’s excellent 2014 novel, All The Light We Cannot See is set during the Second World War and follows Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a German orphan who is conscripted into the Nazi war machine at the start of the conflict. The two are connected to one another over the radio. Doerr’s lyrical prose is a highlight, but so is the novel’s attention to detail, with much of the narrative unfolding in the town of Saint-Malo.

In addition to a star-studded cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, as well as Aria Mia Loberti and Louis Hofmann as the story’s protagonists, All The Light We Cannot See features some noteworthy talent behind the camera. Steven Knight, best known for his work on Locke, Spencer and Peaky Blinders, wrote the adaption, while Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy directed the series. All The Light We Cannot See will start streaming on November 2nd, giving you some time to read the source material if you’re so inclined.

If Google’s Pixel Pro family has had your interest for a while, but the thought of using a phone with a curved display prevented you from buying the Pixel 7 Pro or Pixel 6 Pro, the Pixel 8 Pro could be interesting. According to an Android Authority report published Saturday, Google’s next flagship will feature a flat display.

After writing last week about the camera upgrades Google has planned for the Pixel 8 family, leaker Kamila Wojciechowska says the Pixel 8 Pro will sport a 6.7-inch OLED panel sourced from Samsung with a 1,344 x 2,992 resolution and 490 PPI pixel density. If you don’t have a Pixel 7 Pro on hand, each figure is slightly smaller than the specs offered by Google’s current flagship, which features a curved 6.71-inch display with a 1,440 x 3,120 resolution and 512 PPI pixel density. However, according to Wojciechowska, the Pixel 8 Pro’s screen will get much brighter, reaching 1,600 nits of peak brightness – compared to 1,000 nits on the Pixel 7 Pro – when displaying HDR content. Additionally, the 120Hz panel will be able to transition more smoothly between refresh rates.

As for the Pixel 8, it too is slated to receive a new display. Interestingly, the device will reportedly feature a smaller screen than the one found on the Pixel 7. Android Authority claims the phone will ship with a 6.17-inch screen that has a 1,080 x 2,400 resolution. That’s the same resolution as the Pixel 7’s 6.31-inch screen, meaning the new phone will offer a higher dot pitch. Moreover, the screen reportedly offers 1,400 nits of peak brightness, up from 1,000 on its predecessor, and a 120Hz refresh rate instead of 90Hz like the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7a. Speaking of Google’s latest mid-range phone, there have been rumors the 7a could be the company’s final a-Series phone, which may explain why the Pixel 8 reportedly comes with a smaller display.

Android Authority reports both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro will feature more rounded corners than Google’s current pair of high-end phones, corroborating a previous report from leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer. That change would make them easier to use with one hand. Between their new displays and the larger primary camera sensor Google reportedly plans to equip the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro with, the company’s new phones are shaping up nicely. Expect more information to come out about devices in the weeks and months leading up to their release later this year.

Earlier this month, a group known as Anonymous Sudan took credit for a service outage that disrupted access to Outlook, OneDrive and a handful of other Microsoft online services. After initially sharing little information about the incident, the company confirmed late Friday it had been the target of a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks. In a blog post spotted by the Associated Press (via The Verge), Microsoft said the attacks “temporarily impacted” the availability of some services, adding they were primarily designed to generate “publicity” for a threat actor the company has dubbed Storm-1359. Under Microsoft's threat actor naming convention, Storm is a temporary designator the company employs for groups whose affiliation it hasn’t definitively established yet.

“We have seen no evidence that customer data has been accessed or compromised,” the company said. In a statement Microsoft shared with the Associated Press, the tech giant confirmed Anonymous Sudan was responsible for the attacks. It’s not clear how many Microsoft customers were affected by the attacks, or if the impact was global. The company believes Storm-1359 likely relied on a combination of virtual private servers and rented cloud infrastructure to carry out its operation.

Per Bleeping Computer, Anonymous Sudan began carrying out cyberattacks at the start of 2023. At the time, the group claimed it was targeting countries that meddle in Sudanese politics and promote anti-Muslim policies. However, some cybersecurity researchers believe the group is in fact an offshoot of the Kremlin-affiliated Killnet gang, and the reference to Sudan is a false flag designed to mislead casual onlookers. The likelihood of that link became more apparent on Friday when Anonymous Sudan said it was forming a “Darknet Parliament” with Killnet and Revil, another pro-Russian gang. As a first order of business, the alliance threatened to target SWIFT, the international interbanking system the United States and European Union cut Russia off from in response to its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

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.