French authorities have charged seven individuals allegedly involved in last month’s Lupin robbery, according to the BBC. On February 25th, some 20 masked thieves broke onto the set of the popular Netflix production while it was filming in a Parisian suburb and stole approximately $330,000 worth of equipment. The perpetrators set off mortar-style fireworks to carry out the heist, but thankfully none of the cast and crew on set at the time, including star Omar Sy, were injured.
Police charged the seven individuals with armed robbery as part of an organized gang. French authorities are holding three of the accused in custody and the other four under judicial supervision. The youngest of the group is 13 years old. Police said they recovered some of the equipment stolen during the heist and are still searching for everyone involved in the incident. Lupin isn’t the only Netflix project to fall victim to a robbery this year. Just one day before, thieves made off with more than $200,000 worth of antique props after breaking into vehicles used for the production of The Crown.
A new lawsuit against Google accuses the company of fostering a "racially biased corporate culture" that offers Black employees lower pay and fewer opportunities to advance than their white counterparts, reports Reuters. Filed on Friday with a federal court in San Jose, California, the complaint alleges the company subjected former diversity recruiter April Curley and other current and former Black employees to a hostile work environment.
In 2014, Google hired Curley to design a program to connect the company with Black colleges. Shortly afterward, she claims she was subjected to denigrating comments from her managers, who allegedly stereotyped her as an "angry" black woman while passing her over for promotions.
"While Google claims that they were looking to increase diversity, they were actually undervaluing, underpaying and mistreating their Black employees," Curley's lawyer told Reuters. The complaint notes Black people make up only 4.4 percent of employees at Google and approximately 3 percent of its leadership.
We've reached out to Google for comment.
Curley is not the first person to accuse Google of fostering a work environment hostile to Black employees and other people of color. In the aftermath of Timnit Gebru's controversial exit from the company, Alex Hanna, a former employee with the tech giant's Ethical AI research group, said she decided to leave Google after becoming tired of its structural deficiencies. "In a word, tech has a whiteness problem," Hanna wrote on Medium at the time. "Google is not just a tech organization. Google is a white tech organization."
On Friday, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia threw out a complaint that Attorney General Karl Racine had filed against Amazon accusing the retailer of anticompetitive behavior, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last June, Racine’s office alleged that Amazon had used a variety of contract provisions to prevent third-party sellers from offering their wares for less elsewhere.
“We believe that the Superior Court got this wrong, and its oral ruling did not seem to consider the detailed allegations in the complaint, the full scope of the anticompetitive agreements, the extensive briefing and a recent decision of a federal court to allow a nearly identical lawsuit to move forward,” a spokesperson for the attorney general told the outlet.
At the center of Racine’s suit was Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy. In 2019, amid antitrust scrutiny, the company stopped telling third-party sellers they couldn’t offer their wares at lower prices on competing marketplaces. The complaint alleged that Amazon added a near-identical clause under its Fair Pricing Policy. The suit said that those guidelines allow the company to impose sanctions on merchants that sell their products for less money elsewhere.
When Racine's office first filed its complaint, Amazon argued that many retailers employ pricing restrictions in their contracts. “The DC Attorney General has it exactly backwards — sellers set their own prices for the products they offer in our store," a spokesperson for the company told Engadget at the time. “Amazon takes pride in the fact that we offer low prices across the broadest selection, and like any store we reserve the right not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively. The relief the AG seeks would force Amazon to feature higher prices to customers, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law.”
Racine’s office said it was weighing whether to appeal the ruling. “We are considering our legal options and we’ll continue fighting to develop reasoned antitrust jurisprudence in our local courts and to hold Amazon accountable for using its concentrated power to unfairly tilt the playing field in its favor,” it told The Journal.
If you've been waiting for an excuse to pick up a robot vacuum, you'll want to turn your attention to Amazon. The retailer has discounted one of the best mid-range models: the Eufy RoboVac X8.
For today only, it's $200 off, so you can purchase one for $400 instead of $600. The X8 is missing some features you'll find on more expensive robot vacuums. Most notably, it doesn't come with a clean base. It also doesn't include the mop functionality found on Eufy's X8 Hybrid model. However, if you can do without those two features, the X8 represents excellent value, particularly at $400. It comes with four cleaning modes and four suction levels. Even running the vacuum at its lowest setting, we found it could still thoroughly suction up dust and dirt. We also found it was easy to set up, with a mobile app that offers a handful of valuable features, including a "tap and go" one that lets you pinpoint any spot in your home for cleaning.
If you're looking for a more affordable option, consider the RoboVac 30C. It's not as powerful as the X8 and it features a less advanced navigation system but at its current price of $170, down from $300, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better robot vacuum for the price.
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Display technology has come a long way in recent years. OLED and LCD screens are brighter, more colorful and responsive than ever before, but at some point, they all still succumb to dust, dirt and grime. What’s worse is that there are a plethora of cleaning products out there that claim they can make your screen sparkle again. But in our testing, we’ve found that the simplest route is actually the best. In this how-to, we’ll show you how to clean all the screens in your home, from TVs to smartphones.
How not to clean your display
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
Before we get to how to clean a screen, there are a few ways you don’t want to go about the process. The first, and most important, is that you don’t want to clean a display using substances like isopropyl alcohol or Windex. Alcohol- and ammonia-based cleaners can damage your screen’s anti-reflective coating. Using those substances repeatedly can lead to clouding and the coating becoming uneven.
Companies like Whoosh make cleaning agents that won’t damage your screen, but in my experience, you’re best off using distilled water. It’s more affordable than a dedicated cleaning agent and more versatile too since you can use it on a variety of surfaces. It also won’t leave behind any residue on your display, which is something I’ve seen products like Whoosh do occasionally. You can buy distilled water at a grocery store or make it yourself with some simple cookware.
In a pinch, you can use tap water, but we recommend against it. Depending on the hardness of the water in your area and how your municipality treats it, there may be minerals and chemicals that will again either leave behind residue or, worse yet, damage your display’s coating.
Once you have some distilled water, you’ll want a separate spray bottle. One option is to reuse one you already have at home, but if you don’t have a spare, Muji makes these handy travel bottles in 100ml, 50ml and 30ml sizes that are perfect for the task, and you can find similar bottles on Amazon.
Next, be mindful of what you use to wipe your screen. You want to avoid using paper towel, dish rags and anything else that may have an abrasive surface that will damage the coating on your screen. You can use the sleeve of an old but clean t-shirt. That said, you’ll get the best results using microfiber cloths. That’s because the fabric they’re made from is extremely soft and good at attracting dust. We suggest buying a pack of them so that you always have a clean one on hand. The last thing you want to do is use a dirty one and transfer any dirt and grime onto your display.
Lastly, avoid spraying any liquid directly on a display. You’ll have a lot more control if you deposit it on your microfiber cloth and it’s much easier to avoid any of it making its way into the more sensitive parts of the display.
How to clean your display
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget
With all that out of the way, the actual process of cleaning a display is straightforward. If you’re only dealing with some dust, use a can of compressed air or an air blower to dislodge it. You can also turn to a dry microfiber cloth.
For anything more than that, dampen your microfiber cloth with a small amount of distilled water and then gently wipe the display. Once you’ve gone over the entire surface, turn over the cloth and use the dry side to remove any excess water. At this stage, avoid buffing the screen or using excessive pressure. You don’t want to work any particles into the surface of the screen.
That’s it. You should have a clean display now. Obviously, it will take longer to clean a bigger screen, but you can put to use the tips mentioned for all types of displays, including TVs, monitors and glass smartphone displays.
One of the classics of the real-time strategy genre is coming to mobile devices. On April 7th, Sega will release Total War: Medieval II on Android and iOS, the company announced today. First released on PC back in 2006, Medieval II allows players to control one of 17 factions in a campaign to build a Middle Ages empire. As with other entries in Creative Assembly’s long-running Total War series, you’ll need to use a mix of military might, subterfuge and diplomacy to take your faction from a fledging kingdom to a powerful player on the world stage.
Sega says the mobile version of Medieval II offers a rendition of the game that is “without compromise.” Feral Interactive, which previously ported Total War: Rome to Android and iOS and later remastered the game for PC, handled this release. The studio designed a new interface to make controlling the game easier on a small touchscreen but left pretty everything else untouched. That means you can still control armies made up of hundreds and even thousands of individual knights, archers and foot soldiers in real-time battles. Total War:Medieval II will set you back $15.
Slack has furnished its iPad app with a much-needed update. The highlight of the release is a redesigned interface that introduces a two-column layout to the app. If you’re already familiar with the desktop version of Slack, you know what to expect. You have access to a sidebar that allows you to quickly access different channels and direct messages, with the content of those conversations appearing in a separate right-hand pane. Slack suggests the layout makes it easier to multitask and stay productive.
Complementing the new layout are a handful of enhancements to the sidebar. For instance, you can now long-press on a channel to access a contextual menu that allows you to do things like copy a link to it. Slack has also made it so that your section preferences will sync between the desktop and iPad versions of the app, so your sidebar will stay consistent between devices. Lastly, the update features a few accessibility enhancements. As just one example, Slack has added improved support for Apple’s VoiceOver screen-reading feature.
The timing of the update could not have been better. This week, following a delay late last year, Apple released its new Universal Control feature. Once you installed iOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 on your devices, you can use a single keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) to control your Mac and iPad at the same time. In that way, you can use your iPad as a kind of secondary display.
For many people, the first thing they do when they start planning a new trip is to seek inspiration in travel guides, blogs and documentaries. It’s safe to say a podcast probably isn’t top of mind when you start daydreaming about your next escape. But iHeartRadio wants to change that. It’s launching PodGuides, a platform that curates podcasts designed to inspire your next trip.
When you visit the PodGuides website, you’ll find a map with more than 70 destinations pinned to it. Click on one, and you’ll get a curated list of podcasts that highlight what you can see, eat and experience in the place you want to visit. Most destinations include about five to 10 episodes, with productions like Lost and Found and Where to Go featured frequently. You can also find podcasts organized by interests like photography, food and nature hikes. You can listen to all the episodes directly on the website.
PodGuides probably won’t replace a proper travel guide if you’re looking for something exhaustive, but it’s clear that’s not the platform's goal. Instead, think of it as a complement to the resources you already turn to when wanderlust hits. And if nothing, it may help you discover a new podcast to listen to daily.
Apple ordered the evacuation of a "portion" of its Apple Park headquarters on Tuesday after first responders from the Santa Clara County Fire Department found an envelope containing an unidentified powdery white substance, according to NBC Bay Area.
We'll update this article once more information on the situation becomes available.
Since last June, Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service has been broadly available on iOS devices, but for many iPhone and iPad owners, the experience wasn’t up to what the company offered on other platforms. On Monday, however, Microsoft announced it had implemented a series of enhancements that would improve performance on all iPhone and iPad devices. At the time, it didn’t provide details on the work it had done, noting only they would lead to a “smoother and more responsive gameplay experience.”
But following an email from Engadget, Microsoft has shared more details on the update. The company says it optimized video output and network data transmission on iOS devices. It also found a way to reduce overall input lag. Since input lag is something that can easily take you out of a game, the work Microsoft did there should be easily noticeable.
One of the tricky things about Xbox Cloud Gaming on iOS is that Microsoft is forced to offer it through Safari, as opposed to a dedicated app, due to Apple’s policies on game streaming apps. Browser APIs have come a long way in the past few years, but a web experience still isn’t a substitute for a native app.
