Much like they did in Texas, Lyft and Uber have pledged to cover drivers sued under Oklahoma’s forthcoming SB1503 law. The so-called Heartbeat Act prohibits most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy – a timeframe before many women know they’re pregnant.

And like its Texas counterpart, SB8, the legislation allows private individuals to sue anyone who assists a woman attempting to skirt the ban, including rideshare drivers who face fines of up to $10,000. The Oklahoma House passed SB1503 on Thursday, and Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to sign the bill sometime within the next few days.

On Friday, Lyft CEO Logan Green said the company would extend its commitment, first announced in September, to cover 100 percent of legal fees for drivers sued under SB8 to include those impacted by SB1503. Additionally, Green said Lyft was working with healthcare providers to create a program to cover the cost of rides for out-of-state abortion care. The company also plans to cover travel costs for insured employees, if those laws force them to travel more than 100 miles to find care.

“Women’s access to health care is under attack again, this time in Oklahoma,” Green said on Twitter. “We believe transportation shouldn’t be a barrier to accessing healthcare and it’s our duty to support both our rider and driver communities.” Women’s health activists

After Green’s tweet, Uber said it would offer similar protections for drivers. “Like in TX, we intend to cover all legal fees for any driver sued under this law while they’re driving,” a spokesperson for the company told CNBC.

Microsoft has consistently tried to get more people to use Edge. Some of the ways it has pursued that goal have been less well-received than others, but its latest effort to do so could make for a useful addition to the software. In a support page spotted by The Verge, the company revealed it’s adding a free built-in VPN service dubbed Edge Secure Network to its web browser. 

The company says the tool will encrypt your internet connection. You can use that functionality to protect your data from your internet service provider. As with most VPNs, you can also use Edge Secure Network to mask your location, making it possible to access services that might otherwise be blocked in the country where you live or are visiting.

If you find yourself frequently traveling, chances are Edge Secure Network won’t replace a paid VPN. The feature limits you to 1GB of data usage per month. It’s also worth noting you’ll need a Microsoft account to use the service. Microsoft has yet to begin testing the VPN. But once the feature is available, you’ll be able to enable it through Edge's three-dots icon. A new option titled “Secure Network” will turn the VPN on. Once you're done browsing, it will automatically turn off again. 

India has seized assets worth approximately $725 million from Xiaomi India after the country’s anti-money laundering agency found the subsidiary had broken local foreign exchange laws. According to Reuters, India’s Enforcement Directorate announced Saturday it recently determined Xiaomi had made illegal remittances when it attempted to pass off some transfers as royalty payments.

That money went to three foreign companies, including one under the wider Xiaomi banner. The Enforcement Directorate found Xiaomi designed the payments to benefit itself. "Such huge amounts in the name of royalties were remitted on the instructions of their Chinese parent group entities," the agency said. The Indian Enforcement Directorate began investigating the subsidiary, among a handful of other local Chinese firms, last December. It accused Xiaomi of providing “misleading information to the banks while remitting the money abroad.”

On Twitter, Xiaomi said it believes its payments were legitimate. "These royalty payments that Xiaomi India made were for the in-licensed technologies and IPs used in our Indian version products,” the company stated. “We are committed to working closely with government authorities to clarify any misunderstandings." We’ve reached out to the company for additional information and comment.

As of last year, Xiaomi was India’s leading smartphone manufacturer, with a dominant 24 percent share of the market. But like many Chinese firms in India, it has recently been forced to navigate a regulatory regime that has become less welcoming of Chinese business interests. In 2021, India temporarily banned TikTok following the country’s border dispute with China and later reportedly withheld WiFi device approvals to encourage domestic production.

Cat aficionados will have to wait a bit longer to get their paws on Stray. Developer BlueTweleve Studio’s feline simulator won’t release in early 2022 as previously announced. It’s now slated to come out sometime this summer. Sony shared news of the delay in a tweet spotted by The Verge. “Releasing summer 2022,” says the video accompanying the message.

The clip includes footage from the gameplay walkthrough publisher Annapurna Interactive shared last summer. And if you’re curious what Stray is all about, that video provides a few clues. In it, we see the game’s feline protagonist explore a neon-soaked city populated by robots of all shapes and sizes. Gameplay involves using his abilities as a cat to solve environmental puzzles. Partway through your journey, you’ll meet B-12, a drone that will allow you to converse with the city’s inhabitants. Naturally, as the cat, you can also do things like scratch furniture and rub up against the legs of robots you meet.

In response to fraudulent legal requests, companies like Apple, Google, Meta and Twitter have been tricked into sharing sensitive personal information about some of their customers. We knew that was happening as recently as last month when Bloombergpublished a report on hackers using fake emergency data requests to carry out financial fraud. But according to a newly published report from the outlet, some malicious individuals are also using the same tactics to target women and minors with the intent of extorting them into sharing sexually explicit images and videos of themselves.

It’s unclear how many fake data requests the tech giants have fielded since they appear to come from legitimate law enforcement agencies. But what makes the requests particularly effective as an extortion tactic is that the victims have no way of protecting themselves other than by not using the services offered by those companies. Law enforcement officials and investigators Bloomberg spoke to told the publication they believe the use of the tactic has become “more prevalent” in recent months.

All the companies that commented on Bloomberg’s reporting, including Google and Snap, said they have policies and teams in place to verify the legitimacy of user data requests.

"We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Engadget. “We block known compromised accounts from making requests and work with law enforcement to respond to incidents involving suspected fraudulent requests, as we have done in this case."

A Discord spokesperson said the company validates all data requests to ensure they come from a “genuine” source. “We are continuously investing in our Safety capabilities to address emerging issues like this one,” the spokesperson added.

Part of what has allowed the fake requests to slip through is that they abuse how the industry typically handles emergency appeals. Among most tech companies, it’s standard practice to share a limited amount of information with law enforcement in response to “good faith” requests related to situations involving imminent danger.

Typically, the information shared in those instances includes the name of the individual, their IP, email and physical address. That might not seem like much, but it’s usually enough for bad actors to harass, dox or SWAT their target. According to Bloomberg, there have been “multiple instances” of police showing up at the homes and schools of underage women.

The issue of fake data requests is reportedly prompting companies to think of new ways to verify legitimate ones. It has also pushed US lawmakers to weigh in on the issue. “No one wants tech companies to refuse legitimate emergency requests when someone’s safety is at stake," said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon last month. "But the current system has clear weaknesses that need to be addressed."

Since 2019, Ableton’s Learning Synths website has been a fun and free way to learn all the cool things you can do with synthesizers. If you don’t know what oscillators, filters and envelopes do, the company will teach you. Best of all, you don’t need anything other than a modern web browser to start. And if you want another excuse to check it out, Ableton just rolled out a new update.

The latest version of the website allows you to export whatever you create with the included Playground soft synth to Ableton Live. It’s now also possible to capture up to 60 seconds of audio, allowing you to record the synth as you experiment with it. On the interface front, Ableton has added an “Open in Playground” button that enables you to jump directly to the soft synth from a lesson. Additionally, the synth includes a new configurable XY pad adding to the amount of experimentation possible. Oh, and there’s a dark mode now too, and the addition of Turkish, Finnish and Portuguese language support. All of that should make the tool accessible to even more people.

Ahead of the June 23rd release of Sonic Origins, Sega announced today it would delist the standalone digital versions of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD. Outside of a handful of Nintendo-related exceptions (for instance, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will continue to be available through the recently announced Switch Online Expansion Pack), you won’t have the option to buy those titles through marketplaces like Steam as of May 20th. If you don't already own those titles after that date, you'll need to obtain them by buying Sonic Origins, which will remaster and bundle them together.    

The announcement comes just days after Sega shared the first details on the different versions of Sonic Orgins it plans to sell. In a chart that has since been roasted endlessly, the company revealed some of the collection’s new features would be locked behind DLC and special editions of the game. If you want the full experience, you must pre-order the “Digital Deluxe” version of Sonic Origins. Contrast that to the original releases of the games included in the collection: those shipped as complete games without the need for you to pay extra for additional features.

For the first time, the UK’s annual Proms classical music festival will feature a concert dedicated to video game compositions. On August 1st, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Robert Ames, will perform a selection of music from Battlefield 2042, Dear Esther, Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of the Colossus and other influential titles.

“Fantastic worlds, epic adventures, complex characters and huge moral choices – the universe of computer gaming is a natural match for orchestral music, and in the 21st-century games have created a huge and passionate global audience for some of the most vivid, ambitious and inventive music currently being written for symphony orchestra,” the BBC writes of the upcoming concert.

“From 8-Bit to Infinity” will take place at the historic Royal Albert Hall. If you imagine you’ll find yourself in London this summer, tickets start at £14. And if not, the BBC plans to broadcast the concert on August 5th. The full program will be announced at a later date. 

For a while now, Instagram has allowed you to pin your favorite Stories to the top of your profile as a way to save them beyond their expiry date. And the company may soon allow you to do the same with posts to ensure they stand out in their own way.

As noted by TechCrunch, Instagram recently began testing a feature that allows users to highlight specific posts above their photo grid. If you’re among the people the company has enrolled in the trial, you can access the feature by tapping the three dots icon at the top of a post and selecting the new “pin to your profile” option. “We’re testing a new feature that lets people feature posts on their profile,” Instagram told the outlet.

Evidence the company was considering adding a way to highlight regular posts was first spotted in January by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. A handful of other social media platforms – including Twitter and TikTok – allow you to highlight posts in much the same way. As you can imagine, it’s a feature that’s particularly helpful for people who post a lot and want to showcase their best work.

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs is investigating a phishing attack after a hacker stole nearly $2.5 million worth of NFTs through the official Bored Ape Instagram account. The company disclosed the hack on Monday morning in a tweet warning followers not to click on links or mint new tokens.

Per a screenshot shared by The Block, the hacker behind the attack stole 133 NFTs after using BAYC’s Instagram account to promote a fake “airdrop.” Essentially, the scam promised people free tokens if they connected their MetaMask wallets to the site linked through the post. It’s unclear how the hacker accessed BAYC’s Instagram account, and Yuga Labs has yet to announce whether it will compensate those affected by the scam.

“At the time of the hack, two-factor authentication was enabled and security surrounding the IG account followed best practices,” the company said. “We’ve regained control of the account, and are investigating how the hacker gained access with IG’s team.”

Among the stolen NFTs are four Bored Apes. As noted by The Verge, the most expensive token in the trove, Bored Ape 6623 (pictured above), recently sold for 123 Ethereum, making it worth approximately $354,500 at the current exchange rate. The four apes together are worth more than $1 million. One estimate by Molly White, the creator of Web3 is Going Great, puts the value of the entire theft at approximately $2.4 million.

Monday’s incident is the latest NFT theft to involve a high-profile phishing attack. More than two dozen OpenSea users lost access to about 250 tokens worth an estimated $1.4 million in February. As The Verge points out, what likely made this most recent scam particularly effective is that it not only came from the official Bored Ape Instagram account but that MetaMask currently only allows users to visually see their NFTs within its mobile app.