When Harley-Davidson debuted its first electric motorcycle back in 2019, it was held back by an expensive price tag and early production issues. After spinning out LiveWire as a separate brand earlier this year, the company is back with its second electric bike, and it looks to address those issues.

Harley-Davidson

The most eye-catching feature of Harley-Davidson’s new LiveWire One is its price tag. The electric motorcycle will cost $21,999. That’s almost $8,000 less than the $29,799 the original LiveWire sold for when it came out in 2019. With federal subsidies, Harley-Davidson told The Verge it expects most people will be able to buy the LiveWire One for less than $20,000.

But a more attractive entry point isn’t the only change. Harley-Davidson has also improved the motorcycle’s range. Driving on slower city streets, the company claims the LiveWire One can travel 146 miles on a single charge. By comparison, its predecessor was limited to a maximum of about 110 city miles. Using a DC fast charger, the company says you can get the LiveWire One’s battery from dead to a full charge in about an hour, or from zero to 80 percent in approximately 45 minutes. The motorcycle also comes with a six-axis inertial measurement unit to assist with breaking and turns.

Harley-Davidson

Harley-Davidson will officially debut the LiveWire One at the Northern California International Motorcycle Show on July 18th. In the meantime, you can already order the motorcycle from the LiveWire website. Initial availability is limited to customers who live in California, New York and Texas since only 12 dealerships in those states are authorized to sell the LiveWire One at the moment. However, the bike will be available at more dealers come this fall.

Dodge will release an all-electric muscle car in 2024, just don’t call it an EV. The automaker announced its first foray into the battery electric vehicle market earlier today as part of an event held by Stellantis, its parent company.

The announcement started with Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis declaring the automaker “will not sell electric cars,” only for him to add then it will instead make “American eMuscle.” After that branding exercise, the executive went on to mention the environment only once in his pitch, noting the company’s upcoming EV will “tear up the streets, not the planet.”

“Performance made us do it,” Kuniskis said by way of trying to explain the pivot away from internal combustion engines. He went on to mention the company’s engineers believe they’re approaching a “practical limit” with existing ICE technology. “They know we know that electric motors can give us more,” he said. “And if we know of a technology that can give our customers an advantage, we have an obligation to embrace it.”

As for the car itself, we didn’t get to see much of it, but the concept Dodge showed off looks to borrow design cues from the company’s iconic 1969 Charger. Moreover, based on an earlier part of the Stellantis EV Day 2021 presentation, Dodge will build the EV on top of the company’s new STLA Large platform. When the technology rolls out in 2024, Stellantis claims it will allow its cars to go 0 to 60 in as little as two seconds and feature a maximum power output of 886 horsepower, as well as a maximum range of up to 500 miles. 

After announcing the $40 Cam last year, Petcube is back with a new twist on its signature treat dispenser. The most important feature of the Bites 2 Lite is its price. At $125, it costs half as much as its predecessor did at launch. Naturally, that means some compromises. What you won’t find on the Bites 2 Lite is Alexa. Amazon’s voice-activated assistant made the Bites 2 into more than just a treat dispenser and home camera. You could also use it as a smart speaker with all the usual functionality that comes with an Echo device. It also came with a Petcube-specific Alexa skill that allowed you to sling treats at your pet.

Other compromises include a camera with a narrower 160-degree field-of-view and no support for 5GHz WiFi connectivity. On that front, the Bites 2 Lite limits you to a slower 2.4GHz connection. Beyond those missing features, there aren’t a lot of meaningful differences between Petcube’s newest device and its predecessor.

Petcube

It comes with a 1080p camera that features automatic night vision and 8x digital zoom. It also comes with support for two-way audio. If you want to customize your new Bites 2 Lite, Petcube plans to sell separate treat containers that come three new colors: pink, blue and orange. Like with Petcube’s other products, paying for the company’s Care subscription service unlocks perks like the ability to upload video clips to the cloud. Similarly, you can use Vet Chat, Petcube’s other paid feature to book telehealth appointments for your pet.

The Petcube Bites 2 Lite is available to buy today exclusively through Amazon.

Google has yet another antitrust lawsuit on its hands. Politico reports 36 states and Washington DC have banded together to sue the company over its handling of the Play Store. They say Google's control over the marketplace violates US antitrust law.  

This latest action is the fourth antitrust lawsuit launched against Google following three similar claims in 2020. In December, a group of 38 states and territories led by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed antitrust charges against the company over its search business. The company is also the subject of a Department of Justice probe.     

We've reached out to Google for comment, and we'll update this article when we hear back from the company.       

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For the third time in its short history, OnePlus finds itself embroiled in a controversy over the performance of its phones. This week, AnandTech published a report in which it said it found the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 throttle the capabilities of their Snapdragon 888 processors when running popular apps like Chrome, Twitter and WhatsApp. AnandTech wasn't able to sus out a complete list of all the applications where the two phones limit their CPU output, but what's notable about the outlet's findings is that the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 don't throttle any benchmarking tools.

After AnandTech published its report, GeekBench, one of the more popular tools for benchmarking, completed a separate investigation and went on to delist the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro from its charts. "It's disappointing to see OnePlus handsets making performance decisions based on application identifiers rather than application behavior," the company said. "We view this as a form of benchmark manipulation."

OnePlus has since responded to the report. It toldXDA Developers it tweaked the behavior of the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 in response to complaints people had about the battery life.

Our top priority is always delivering a great user experience with our products, based in part on acting quickly on important user feedback. Following the launch of the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro in March, some users told us about some areas where we could improve the devices' battery life and heat management. As a result of this feedback, our R&D team has been working over the past few months to optimize the devices' performance when using many of the most popular apps, including Chrome, by matching the app's processor requirements with the most appropriate power. This has helped to provide a smooth experience while reducing power consumption. While this may impact the devices' performance in some benchmarking apps, our focus as always is to do what we can to improve the performance of the device for our users.

If you've been following OnePlus for a while, you'll know the company is no stranger to this type of controversy. Back in the days of the OnePlus 3T, the company included code in OxygenOS that would artificially boost the clock speeds of the phone's Snapdragon processor when running certain benchmark apps. XDA caught the company doing something similar with the OnePlus 5.

On the face of things, the situation here is different. OnePlus is throttling the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 to save on battery life. And while most people won't notice unless they have another Snapdragon 888 device next to their phone, the company was still mispresenting the capabilities of those devices based on the fact they it throttle benchmarking apps.

The reports were accurate: TikTok is expanding into job recruitment. As of today, the company has launched a pilot program that allows people in the US to apply for entry, associate and senior level positions by tagging videos they upload to the platform using the #TikTokResumes hashtag. You can see a list of the approximately three dozen companies that are taking part in the pilot, as well as the jobs they're hiring for, by visiting TikTok's dedicated resumes website. Some of the more notable brands taking part include Shopify, Target and the Detroit Pistons. Applicants have until July 31st to apply for the first set of jobs posted on the platform.

In expanding in this way, the company says it "believes there's an opportunity to bring more value to people's experience with TikTok by enhancing the utility of the platform as a channel for recruitment." And while it might seem strange for TikTok to push its users to upload video resumes, it's a reflection of the fact the platform was never just about viral dance videos. You can already find creators dedicated to helping other TikTok users build their careers. And as Gen Z faces uncertain job prospects following the pandemic, it makes sense for TikTok to support the demographic that makes up a significant portion of its userbase.

As expected, former President Donald announced on Wednesday he plans to file class action lawsuits against Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as the CEOs of each respective company. Trump announced the legal bid at a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, promising the case would lead to an "end of the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing and the cancelling that you know so well." Trump and his lawyers, many of whom he said come from the to tobacco industry, plan to file the cases in the Southern District of Florida. Trump alleges the tech giants violated his First Amendment rights.   

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When Texas was hit by an extreme cold snap earlier this year and the state’s independent power grid failed, many people couldn’t use their phones to access the internet and get information about the situation as it developed. Climate change is making those types of previously once in a lifetime weather events a more frequent occurrence and it’s forcing carriers to adapt.

On Tuesday, Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) introduced the Tactical Humanitarian Operations Response (THOR) vehicle. The carrier built THOR using a modified Ford F650 truck. The front of the vehicle has seats for a driver and five passengers, while the “command center” you see at the back has room for three individuals. THOR can bring 5G and satellite connectivity to an area where a natural disaster may have knocked network access out or there wasn’t any connectivity in the first place.

Verizon envisions THOR assisting first-responders and the military “under nearly any conditions,” be that wildfires out in California or following a hurricane in Florida, as just some examples. The company developed the prototype with help from the Pentagon’s NavalX and the SoCal TechBridge. Outside of connecting first-responders and military personnel, it also comes with a tethered drone that can be used for search and rescue operations and collecting information on a disaster.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a US carrier trot out an initiative like this. Back in 2019, AT&T showed off FirstNet One, a 55-foot aerostat the carrier said could float above disaster sites and provide wireless communication for first responders.

After years of advocacy work, the right to repair movement in the US could soon see a significant breakthrough. According to Bloomberg, President Joe Biden will “in the coming days” direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draft new regulations to empower consumers to repair their devices on their own and at independent shops.

While there aren’t many details on the executive order just yet, it will reportedly mention phone companies as a possible target of regulation. However, farmers are expected be the primary beneficiary. During Tuesday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the order would give them "the right to repair their own equipment how they like.” White House economic adviser Brian Deese said on Friday that the order is broadly designed to drive “greater competition in the economy, in service of lower prices for American families and higher wages for American workers.”

Over the years, states across the US have tried to pass right to repair legislation. However, companies like Caterpillar, John Deere, and Apple have consistently lobbied against those efforts, claiming they would put consumers at risk by compromising the security and safety of their devices. And to date, no state has passed legislation that makes it easier for consumers to repair their products independently. As Motherboard notes, Biden’s order will mark the first time a president has weighed in on the issue.

The move comes as support for the right to repair movement builds in other parts of the world. In 2020, the European Commission said it would introduce legislation to push manufacturers to create products that are easier to repair and reuse. That same year, the European Parliament voted to direct the Commission to develop and introduce a mandatory labeling system that assigns a reparability score to products.

We’ve reached out to the Consumer Technology Association, which represents electronics manufacturers, for comment. We’ve contacted iFixit as well. We’ll update this article when we hear back from them.

Twitter has shared concepts for four features that could give users more control over who can see, read and find their accounts, and it wants feedback from the public on what it showed off. The first of those features would make it easier for those with protected accounts to make their tweets publicly viewable in instances where they want to reply to non-followers. “If you have a protected account and reply to someone who isn’t following you, you may not know they can’t see your reply,” Lena Emara, Twitter people experience designer, wrote in a thread. So one idea is to include a prompt that reminds people of that fact, as well as give them the option to easily switch their tweets to public.

Twitter

Another potential feature would help those with multiple accounts. A mockup Emara shared shows an interface element that would allow you to switch to a different account directly from Twitter’s main composition window. What’s more, the new interface would allow you to see, at a glance, the name, handle and privacy status of your accounts all in one place.

The two other concepts Emara shared focus more on privacy. One of those details a feature that would periodically touch base with users to see if they’re happy with their current discoverability and conversation settings and make it easy to tweak them as needed without visiting the app’s settings menu. Lastly, the second one would create a system for notifying you when people search for your username and give you more control over whether your account is discoverable that way. That’s something that could be significant for limiting online harassment.

Twitter

As with the last time Twitter showed off several concept features, everything you see above “are just ideas and not being built (yet?).” They may never mature into features the company ships. That said, the feedback Twitter collects could inform other tools the company builds in the future.