On Wednesday, Samsung held its first Unpacked of 2022. The event saw the company spend approximately an hour talking about updates to its Galaxy S and Tab S product lines. While it was mostly a by-the-numbers affair spoiled by pre-release leaks, Samsung still came out swinging with one of its strongest device lineups in recent memory. Here's everything the company announced at Unpacked.

Galaxy S22 Ultra

Samsung

After skipping a year, the Galaxy Note is back in all but name. The S22 Ultra is the successor to the Note 20 we never got in 2021. All the things that made the Note stand out are accounted for in the S22 Ultra. Not only does it come with Samsung’s S Pen, but there’s a space for the stylus built right into the phone. It’s also the company’s most capable phone to date. It features a 108-megapixel primary camera, the latest 4-nanometer chips from both Samsung and Qualcomm and up to 12GB of RAM. The phone is available to pre-order today, starting at $1,200. Samsung will ship the S22 Ultra and everything else it announced on Wednesday on February 25th.

Galaxy S22 and S22+

Samsung

Samsung’s Galaxy S22 and S22+ may not look that much different from the phones they’re about to replace, but the company has included a handful of notable upgrades in both devices. To start, they feature a new 50-megapixel main camera that has a sensor that is 23 percent larger than the one found on the S21 and S21+’s 12-megapixel shooter. Samsung has also made the phones more resilient with Corning’s new Gorilla Glass Victus+. At the same time, the company is attempting to reduce its environmental impact by making some parts of the phone from recycled fishing nets. The S22 and S22+ will start at $800 and $999 when they go on sale later this month.

Galaxy Tab S8, Tab S8+ and Tab S8 Ultra

Samsung

Alongside new phones, Samsung announced a fresh slate of high-end tablets. The new Tab S8 and Tab S8+ come with the fastest processors Samsung has ever included in its slate devices. For the first time, Samsung is also introducing an Ultra variant of one of its tablets. The Tab S8 Ultra features a massive 14.6-inch AMOLED display with 2,960 x 1,848 resolution and a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate. Oh, it also has a notch to accommodate its dual front-facing cameras. Pre-orders for all three models open today. They start at $700, $900 and $1,100, respectively.

Everything else

Samsung

For much of Unpacked, hardware took center stage, but Samsung also had some software-related surprise up its sleeve. To start, the company announced its Galaxy phones and tablets would support the new live sharing feature in Google Duo. That’s a tool that allows you and whomever you’re chatting with to view the same notes, photos, videos and more at the same time. The only catch is that live sharing is currently only supported by Galaxy and Pixel devices, so it’s not something that will work if your friend or a family member has an iPhone or a different make of Android device. Samsung also said it would support its new devices, as well as the Galaxy S21 family, with up to four years of Android updates. 

Catch up on all of the news from Samsung’s February Unpacked event right here!

Dark Souls fans on PC will have to wait until after the release of Elden Ring before developer FromSoftware reactivates player-versus-player servers. The announcement comes after a hacker identified a vulnerability within Dark Souls 3 that allowed them to access the computers of multiple streamers remotely. When news of the exploit first broke, FromSoftware and Dark Souls series publisher Bandai Namco shut down the multiplayer servers of Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls to investigate the issue. At the time, they didn’t say how long it would take to resolve the problem.

“Thanks to [the community], we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue,” the two companies said in an update posted to Twitter on Wednesday. According to From, multiplayer servers for the Dark Souls series won’t be back online until after February 25th due to the time needed to create a proper testing environment for each game. The studio promised to share more information as soon as it could. “We will continue to do everything we can to bring back these services as possible,” it said.

If you’re a fan of PvP combat in Dark Souls, it’s not great that you have to wait to enjoy that aspect of the game again. But if there’s a silver lining to the news, it’s that From and Bandai Namco say they’re working to address the vulnerability in Elden Ring ahead of the game’s release later this month. Hopefully, that means the highly-anticipated title won’t have any launch day issues.

In a few short hours, Nintendo will host its first Direct of 2022, and it’s one you won’t want to miss. The company has promised to spend approximately 40 minutes talking about games that will debut on the Switch throughout the first half of 2022. You can watch the entire presentation starting at 5PM ET through YouTube and Twitch, as well as right here.

As for what to expect from the company, Nintendo is likely to provide updates on upcoming games like Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as both titles are slated to arrive both the second half of the year. The company could also share updates on highly anticipated releases like Bayonetta 3 and the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Lastly, will we finally get a release date for Silksong? Whatever happens, make sure to visit Engadget later in the day, as we’ll have stories on all of the company’s biggest announcements.

On Wednesday, Samsung finally took the wrapping off the industry's worst-kept secret and announced the S22 Ultra at its first Unpacked of 2022. And in all but name, it’s the successor to the Note 20. Compared to its S22 siblings, it features a flat design that comes complete with built-in storage for Samsung’s S Pen stylus. And of the three phones the company announced today, the S22 Ultra is the only one that includes that feature.

Outside of that and a design that will be nostalgic for some, the primary reason to buy the S22 Ultra over its more affordable counterparts is the fact the phone comes with a 108-megapixel camera with an f/1.8 aperture lens. Like its predecessor, the S21 Ultra, the company's latest flagship features a 2.4um main sensor, making it the best of Samsung's phones at capturing photos in low light. The phone also includes a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera and two 10-megapixel telephoto cameras that come with the company's 100x Space Zoom feature.  

Samsung

Internally, the S22 Ultra features a 4-nanometer system-on-a-chip. If the past is any indication, the North American version of the phone will ship with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, while in Europe and other parts of the world it will come with Samsung’s own Exynos 2200. In addition to being faster and more efficient than their predecessors, both chips support the latest connectivity standards, including WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. The S22 Ultra features a 6.8-inch adaptive AMOLED display with a QHD+ resolution, dynamic 120Hz refresh rate, a 240Hz touch sampling rate and a built-in fingerprint sensor. It also covers the full DCI-P3 color gamut and can reach a peak brightness of 1,750 nits. 

Powering everything is a 5,000mAh battery Samsung claims can go a full day on a single charge. With 45W fast charging supported, the company notes you can record a 50-minute video after just 10 minutes at the outlet. However, you’ll need to buy the adapter separately as it doesn’t come supplied in the box.

Samsung

The phone will ship with Android 12 and One UI 4.1 out of the box. Building on the software policy it announced in 2020, Samsung said it would support the S22 Ultra with up to “four generations of Android OS upgrades.” Previously, the company only offered up to three full years of platform updates on its flagship phones. Samsung said it would scale that effort across its product lineup. In the immediate future, that means the rest of the S22 line and entire S21 series, as well as the Z Fold 3, Z Flip 3 and the newly announced Tab S8 series, will get similar support.

Samsung will release the Galaxy S22 Ultra on February 25th. Pre-orders for the device open today with pricing beginning at $1,200 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Samsung will also offer variants of the S22 Ultra with 12GB of memory and up to 1TB of space. Should you decide to pre-order the phone, you can upgrade to a higher storage tier, and Samsung will provide you with a $200 credit you can use toward the purchase of a Galaxy Watch 4 or Freestyle projector. You’ll also get 25 percent off any Galaxy Tab S8 device.

Catch up on all of the news from Samsung’s February Unpacked event right here!

Earlier today, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who allegedly attempted to launder more than 25,000 Bitcoins that were stolen as part of the 2016 hack of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. What was unclear to us at the time was that an even greater crime had played out across Morgan's social media pages: her rap career. 

Spotted by NBC reporter Kevin Collier, Morgan — who performed under the alias Razzlekhan — seemingly spent all of the time she was not allegedly shifting around $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency shooting rap videos, leaving precious little bandwidth to actually learn how to write or perform music in a pleasing way. On her YouTube page, can find Morgan’s rap videos sprinkled in between unboxing clips and a review of 13 different kinds of aluminum-free deodorant. Morgan, the self-proclaimed “Crocodile of Wall Street,” states that she experiences synesthesia, which results in "art" that "often resembles something between an acid trip and a delightful nightmare." 

We implore you to form your own opinion:

"Cutthroat Country," embedded above, provides an overview of Morgan's many talents as a rapper. Her delivery is tuneless, the bars are cringe and the accompanying music video isn't much better. But the best part is that Morgan seemingly implicates herself in the exact money laundering scheme she stands accused of carrying out. "Spearfish your password / all your funds transferred," she says in the 2:36 mark of the song.

But her magnum opus is perhaps "Versace Bedouin," a "rap anthem of misfits and weirdos":

"Always be a GOAT, not a god damn sheep," she raps at the start of song. "Spirit of a revolutionary, power of a dictator / love to be contrary, but I'm fly like a gator," she says later. What's striking about both videos are the low-budget production values on display. Morgan and her husband allegedly laundered billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin, and yet it looks like they shot the clips on a shoestring budget. 

We could say more about the videos, but we think YouTube user Gudi said it best. “The Man couldn’t allow this much talent to roam the streets. RIP.” Morgan and Lichtenstein face money laundering and conspiracy charges. If convicted, they face up to a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The next PlayStation 4 and PS5 system update will add a handful of new accessibility and quality of life features to Sony’s consoles. Among the additions is support for voice commands on PlayStation 5. Sony’s previous-generation console has had that feature since launching in 2013, but it’s now making its way to the company’s latest console too.

Starting with a beta Sony will make available to English-speaking users in the US and UK first, the company is adding a system option that will make the console respond to “Hey PlayStation.” It’s a feature you can turn off, but leaving it on will allow you to use your voice to launch games and other apps, as well as open the system menu and control media playback. The update will bring other new accessibility features, including one that makes headphones output mono sound. Sony notes that’s something that should be particularly helpful to players with unilateral hearing loss.

As part of the same update, Sony is also tweaking how group chats work. Moving forward, they’ll be known as parties, and you’ll have the option to decide whether they’re private or open to the public. Should you leave your party open, not only can your friends join without an invite, but so can their friends as well.

Another new PS5 feature will allow you to filter your games by genre, as well as keep up to five of them to your console’s home screen for quick access. Sony has also updated the design of trophy cards and added support for more screen reader languages, among other changes.

You can help Sony beta test the update by signing up to do so on the company’s website. Look for an email in your inbox on Wednesday to find out if you’ve been selected to take part. Sony will release both PlayStation 4 and PS5 system updates later this year.

Meta has “absolutely no desire to withdraw from Europe.” The company issued the statement in a blog post it published on Tuesday after some media outlets published reports claiming it had “threatened” to pull Facebook and Instagram from the continent amid uncertainty over whether the US and European Union would agree to replace a scrapped transatlantic privacy agreement.

The “threat” Meta made came in the form of a disclosure the company made in its latest earnings report. Published last week, the document said the company would “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe” if the US and European Union failed to ratify a new data transfer agreement and the company couldn’t depend on other existing mechanisms. Meta has issued similar warnings in the past, but it did so without naming Facebook and Instagram specifically.

At the center of Meta’s fears over its future on the European continent are the Safe Harbour Agreement and Privacy Shield, both of which were struck down by the European Court of Justice in recent years over fears of what happens to the data of EU citizens once it’s on servers in the US. As the company points out, it’s not the only business facing uncertainty over whether officials can agree to a substitute. It notes at least 70 other companies have voiced similar concerns.

"We want to see the fundamental rights of EU users protected, and we want the internet to continue to operate as it was intended: without friction, in compliance with applicable laws — but not confined by national borders,” the company said.

For the most part, European lawmakers seemed to welcome the prospect of Meta leaving the EU market. “I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire when asked to comment on the possibility of Meta pulling Facebook and Instagram. “Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty.”

The Department of Justice has seized approximately $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. At the time, the incident was the second-largest heist of its kind, with a hacker stealing 119,756 units of Bitcoin, then valued at approximately $63.7 million. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced the seizure of more than 94,000 Bitcoins and the arrest of the duo who allegedly tried to launder the fortune.

According to the agency, husband and wife Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan obtained the cryptocurrency after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s systems and initiated more than 2,000 illegal transactions. The cryptocurrency was deposited in a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein. The two then allegedly spent the next five years moving more than 25,000 Bitcoins using a “complicated” laundering process that eventually saw some of the money end up in their financial accounts. Following a court order, federal agents obtained online files from Lichtenstein that included the private keys to the digital wallet that held the stolen cryptocurrency.

“Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.”

The case marks the largest financial seizure in the Justice Department’s 151-year history. Before today, its largest cryptocurrency seizure involved the Silk Road dark web marketplace. In 2020, the agency recovered 69,000 Bitcoins, worth about $1 billion at the time. Lichtenstein and Morgan face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the money laundering and conspiracy charges brought forward by the Justice Department.

When Samsung announces its 2022 Galaxy S lineup on February 9th, the phones it reveals will be partly made from a new, more sustainable material. On Sunday, the company said it has started using ocean-bound plastic made from discarded fishing nets in its latest devices. Samsung said it would incorporate the material first into the products it announces next week before it eventually begins utilizing it throughout its entire device lineup.

As Samsung notes, we tend to think of plastic bottles and grocery bags as the main culprit of ocean debris like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but its microplastics and discarded nets that marine biologists are most worried about. Derelict fishing gear leads to ghost fishing, a phenomenon where those tools continue to trap and kill marine life, including endangered species like the Hawaiian monk seal. With more than 640,000 tons worth of fishing nets discarded every year, it’s a problem that’s only getting worse.

Samsung isn’t the first company to incorporate discarded trash into its devices. Last year, Microsoft announced the Ocean Plastic Mouse. It features a shell made from 20 percent recovered plastic. Like Microsoft, Samsung is positioning its use of ocean-bound plastics as part of its larger sustainability push. In 2019, under pressure from consumers and environmentalists, the company said it would begin using more sustainable materials in the packaging of its devices.

Catch up on all of the news from Samsung’s February Unpacked event right here!

The price of removing Chinese equipment from American wireless networks is likely to cost more than the government had anticipated. According to Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, US carriers have requested approximately $5.6 billion in reimbursements to “rip and replace” their existing Huawei and ZTE infrastructure.

In 2019, the FCC voted unanimously to ban US carriers from using the Universal Service Fund to subsidize the cost of purchasing networking equipment from companies deemed a “national security threat.” The first two firms the agency added to that list were Huawei and ZTE. In 2020, former President Donald Trump signed the Secure and Trusted Telecommunications Networks Act, mandating that carriers replace equipment from the two manufacturers.

That same year, the FCC established a program to reimburse smaller telecom operators for replacing equipment the law had deemed a risk to national security. At the time, the agency estimated it would cost carriers more than $1.8 billion to comply with the order, and it subsequently set aside $1.9 billion to cover reimbursements.

“While we have more work to do to review these applications, I look forward to working with Congress to ensure that there is enough funding available for this program to advance Congress’s security goals and ensure that America will continue to lead the way on 5G security,” Rosenworcel said.

US carriers sent 181 applications to the FCC for funding support before the filing window closed on January 28th, 2022. As things stand, the agency only has enough money to grant about a third of all the requests it received.