Following the recent announcement of the HomePod and new M2 MacBook Pros, as noted by MacRumors Apple has quietly adjusted the trade-in values it offers for its own devices. In the US, iPhone models are now frequently worth less than before. For instance, if you plan to trade in an iPhone 13 Pro Max anytime soon, Apple says it will offer up to $570 towards purchasing a new device. Previously, you could get as much as $650 for the company’s 2021 flagship. Other iPhone 13 models have similarly decreased in value. As of this week, an iPhone 13 Pro will net you up to $470 toward a new purchase, down from the up to $550 you could expect before. Meanwhile, iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini trade-ins are now valued at a max of $400 and $350, down from $450 and $380, respectively.

Not every iPhone has seen its trade-in value decline. For example, you can get up to $200 for an iPhone 11, just like you could before this week. The same is true of even older models like the iPhone X and iPhone 8. The value of iPad trade-ins hasn’t declined either. Bring an iPad Pro to your nearest Apple Store and the company will offer you up to $445. Interestingly, Apple is now offering more for most Mac trade-ins. Specifically, an old MacBook Pro model can now net you up to $670 on your next purchase, up from $630 previously, while you can expect up to $460, up from $440, for an older MacBook Air. You can find the complete list of trade-in values on Apple’s website.

Forza Motorsport, the eighth mainline entry in Turn 10 Studios' long-running simulation racing series, will arrive later this year, the developer announced during Microsoft and Bethesda's Developer Direct showcase. The release date technically constitutes something of a delay, as Microsoft announced last June it would release the game in the spring of this year. Moreover, if you were hoping to play the game on an Xbox One console, you'll need to turn to the company's Xbox Game Pass service to do so; Microsoft plans to release Forza Motorsport on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox Game Pass and PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam. 

On Wednesday, Turn 10 promised Forza Motorsport would take full advantage of the latest Xbox and PC hardware to deliver the franchise's most immersive racing experience yet. The game will feature more than 500 cars for players to collect, including 100 vehicles that are new to the series. To make those cars look their best, Turn 10 used a spectrophotometer to scan the paint jobs of the cars featured in the game. "With this new sourcing technique, our paint models have a more realistic light response across colors, metal flake and gloss levels," the studio said in a blog post published after the showcase. Each car will now also feature context-aware damage and dirt buildup that Turn 10 says is "authentic and unique" to each vehicle.   

During the showcase, the studio showed off Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit in South Africa, one of the five new racing tracks featured in the game. With the help of photogrammetry and laser-scanned images, Team 10 says the environments in Forza Motorsport feature 10 times more realistic detail than past entries in the series. With the addition of dynamic time of day and weather simulation, Turn 10 says fans can expect no two laps around a track to look or play the same.    

Expect Microsoft to share more details about Forza Motorsport later this year.

CNET has issued corrections for over half of the AI-written articles the outlet recently attributed to its CNET Money team. Following an internal audit after it was first notified of an AI-written article with substantial errors, CNET Editor-in-Chief Connie Guglielmo says the publication identified additional stories that required correction. She claims a “small number” needed “substantial correction,” while others had “minor issues” that saw CNET fix things like incomplete company names and language the outlet deemed was vague. In all, of the 77 articles the publication now says were written as part of a trial to test an “internally designed AI engine,” 41 feature corrections.

As The Verge points out, some articles feature corrections that note CNET “replaced phrases that were not entirely original.” In those instances, the outlet says its plagiarism checker tool either “wasn’t used properly” by the editor assigned to the story or it failed to identify writing the tool had lifted from another source. Earlier this week, Futurism, the publication that first broke the news that CNET was quietly using AI to write financial literacy articles, said it found extensive evidence the website’s AI-generated content that showed “deep structural and phrasing similarities to articles previously published elsewhere.” Pointing to one piece on overdraft fees, Futurism noted how CNET’s version featured nearly identically phrasing to an earlier article from Forbes Advisor. It’s worth noting that AI, as it exists today, can’t be guilty of plagiarism. The software doesn’t know it’s copying something in violation of an ethical rule that humans apply to themselves. If anything, the failure falls on the CNET editors who were supposed to verify the outlet’s AI tool was creating original content.

Despite the public setback, CNET appears set on continuing to use AI tools to write published content. “We've paused and will restart using the AI tool when we feel confident the tool and our editorial processes will prevent both human and AI errors,” Guglielmo said. “In the meantime, expect CNET to continue exploring and testing how AI can be used to help our teams as they go about their work testing, researching and crafting the unbiased advice and fact-based reporting we're known for.”

After a last-ditch attempt to block India’s landmark Android ruling failed last week, Google has detailed how its mobile operating system will change to accommodate orders from the country’s Competition Commission. In a blog post spotted by The Verge, Google said it would give Android users in India the option to decide on their device’s default search engine “via a choice screen” that appears when they first set up a new phone or tablet.

Additionally, starting next month, all apps and games downloaded from the Play Store will support third-party billing options, allowing developers to skirt Google’s fees on in-app purchases. The company will also begin allowing users to uninstall the first-party apps that came with their devices.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google the equivalent of $162 million last October, alleging the company had abused its “dominant position” in search, video and the web to unfairly disadvantage competitors. Besides changing what Indian consumers can expect from Android, the order will reshape the company’s relationship with Android manufacturers. On Wednesday, the company said it would allow OEMs to license individual first-party apps to pre-install on their devices. The company will also update Android’s compatibility requirements to better support forked operating system variants.

Naturally, Google is not enthusiastic about re-engineering Android to accommodate the CCI’s orders. “Implementation of these changes across the ecosystem will be a complex process and will require significant work at our end and, in many cases, significant efforts from partners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and developers,” the company said. In the meantime, it plans to “respectfully appeal certain aspects” of the Commission’s decisions. “We take our commitment to comply with local laws and regulations in India seriously,” Google added.

Google has tried to mollify regulators and avoid this kind of intervention by introducing programs like its User Choice Billing pilot, which allows developers to implement alternative in-app purchasing systems within their apps. At this point, Google could be swimming against the tide. On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice sued the company in a bid to break up its ad tech division. The tech giant also faces the prospect of US lawmakers ordering it to open the Play Store to more competition.

Lyft has quietly started charging late fees to customers who make their drivers wait for them. In a recently published support document, the company outlines a policy that will see it add wait time fees to trips where drivers arrive at a pickup location and wait for more than two minutes for a passenger to get into their car.

The fees won’t apply to Shared, Access, Assisted and Car Seat rides, and if a driver cancels on you due to a no-show, you won’t need to pay a wait time penalty on top of a cancellation fee. Additionally, Lyft offers a five-minute grace period for Lux Black and Lux Black XL rides. And if a driver arrives early, the clock won’t start ticking until after the original estimated pickup time.

“Wait time fees help keep our platform running smoothly – try to be on time and ready to meet your driver when they arrive at the pickup location,” the company says. “Additional wait time charges may apply to your trip depending on how busy it is. Wait time fees vary by location.”

Users with disabilities or those who frequently accompany people who may need more time to board a car can request a waiver from the fees from Lyft. The company says those customers can also request refunds for wait fees they may have incurred in the past.

The change aligns Lyft with Uber’s wait time policy, which the latter has had in place since 2016. Notably, those include the terms designed to accommodate riders with disabilities. Last year, Uber settled with the US Department of Justice after the agency accused the company of overcharging passengers with disabilities.

Alongside eight states, the US Department of Justice is suing Google to break up the company’s advertising business. In a complaint filed Tuesday with a federal court in Virginia, the agency accused Google of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising market. “Google’s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged,” the Justice Department alleges.

"Today’s lawsuit from the DOJ attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector,” a Google spokesperson told Engadget. “It largely duplicates an unfounded lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed by a federal court. DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow."

As Bloomberg notes, the lawsuit represents the Biden administration’s first significant attempt to challenge the power of one of the nation’s largest tech firms. The agency previously sued Google in 2020. At the time, the Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, said the company had a monopoly over search and search-related advertising. It also took issue with the terms around Android, which the Justice Department said unfairly advantage Google by forcing manufacturers to preload their devices with the company’s applications and search engine.

Google faces intense government scrutiny over its hold on the digital advertising market. In 2020, Texas filed a multi-state lawsuit accusing the company of using its "monopolistic power to control" ad pricing. One year later, the European Commission opened a probe into the company’s advertising business, a move that seems to have forced Google to reconsider how it handles ads on YouTube. Last year, the Senate also introduced legislation designed to prevent companies like Google from participating in more than one part of the digital advertising ecosystem.

“Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the Justice Department says in its most recent complaint. It accuses Google of using acquisitions to take out both “actual or potential” competitors, in addition to abusing its marketplace dominance to prevent publishers and advertisers from using competing products effectively. “Whenever Google’s customers and competitors responded with innovation that threatened Google’s stranglehold over any one of these ad tech tools, Google’s anticompetitive response has been swift and effective,” the Justice Department alleges.

One estimate suggests Google controls as much as 26.5 percent of the US digital ads market. The company’s ad unit is expected to generate about $73.8 billion in US ad revenue over the next year, with much of that money coming from search advertisements.

SpaceX’s next-generation Starship super heavy-lift rocket is one step closer to the day when it may finally fly. On Monday, SpaceX fueled a fully stacked Starship for the first time. The “wet dress rehearsal” saw the company load the vehicle’s Super Heavy and Starship stages with more than 10 million pounds of liquid oxygen and methane fuel. Additionally, SpaceX ran through some of the countdown procedures it will need to complete on launch day. “Today’s test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-light operations,” SpaceX posted on Twitter.

As Space.com notes, Monday’s test means SpaceX is on track to complete an orbital flight of Starship sometime in the coming months. The company filed the necessary paperwork for that test in May 2021, following its first successful landing of a Starship prototype. Since then, the Starship program has encountered a handful of setbacks. For instance, a lengthy review saw the Federal Aviation Administration order SpaceX to take more than 75 actions to mitigate the impact of Starship launches on the environment surrounding the company’s Boca Chica site in Texas. More recently, a booster test fire ended with a fiery explosion. Following this week’s wet dress rehearsal, SpaceX must complete a few more on-the-ground tests before Starship can fly. One of the more critical trials will require the company to simultaneously fire all of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor engines.

The native iOS and macOS versions of Fortnite are about to become even more limited. Since the start of its legal feud with Apple back in the summer of 2020, Epic Games has allowed players who had Fortnite installed on their devices prior to the game's removal from the App Store to continue playing. However, due to the removal, Epic hasn’t updated those versions of the game, meaning they’ve been stuck on Fortnite’s 13.40 release for more than two years. Effectively, that meant they’ve existed in a sort of limbo. All of the gameplay changes Epic has made to Fortnite since then (and there have been many), as well as all new cosmetics and seasonal passes the company has introduced, haven’t made their way over to the native iOS and macOS releases. Now those versions are about to become even more restrictive.

Starting on January 30th, Epic won’t allow you to spend Fortnite’s V-Bucks currency within the game’s iOS, Mac and Google Play versions. You’ll also need to be over the age of 18 to play. “We want all versions of our games to use the current suite of Epic Online Services including parental controls, purchasing defaults, and parental verification features,” Epic said on Twitter. “We are not able to update the app on these platforms given Apple and Google’s restrictions on Fortnite.”

In December, the company introduced new accounts designed specifically for younger players. They prevent kids from spending money in Fortnite’s in-game store and using voice chat without a parent’s consent. That same month, the Federal Trade Commission announced Epic had agreed to pay $520 million to settle allegations it had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and “tricked millions of players into making unintentional purchases."

Most players won’t be affected by the restriction since there are ways to access Fortnite without going through the App Store or Google Play Store. On iOS and macOS, for instance, you can play the game through GeForce Now. On Android, meanwhile, it’s possible to download the native version of Fortnite directly from Epic’s website.

With this week’s return of the HomePod, you might think it would make sense for Apple to start working on a new HomePod mini. After all, the company hasn’t announced a hardware refresh for the device since its introduction in 2020, and the smart speaker market is one of the most competitive in tech. However, it appears no such update is in the works.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says he believes the company is not “actively working” on a new HomePod mini. Pointing to the second-generation HomePod, he notes it “doesn’t include any major new functions that aren’t already in the $99 mini, so there isn’t an obvious reason to update the model.” Gurman suggests Apple is more likely to improve the mini by releasing software updates that address shortcomings involving Siri and app integration because that’s where “real improvements probably need to be made.”

To that point, Apple recently updated the HomePod mini’s software to activate a temperature and humidity sensor that had been lying dormant in the device since release. As Gurman points out, the newly reintroduced HomePod adds features previously exclusive to the HomePod mini, including ultra-wideband support and Thread connectivity.

While a new HomePod mini could be years away, Apple likely has other smart home products on the horizon. In August, Gurman reported the company was working on a smart display, as well as a device that combines the functionality of an Apple TV, camera and HomePod into a single offering. At the time, he said those could arrive by early 2024.

In honor of this year’s Penguin Awareness day, the British Antarctic Survey announced the existence of a previously undiscovered emperor penguin colony in one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Antarctica. Scientists spotted the colony, the 66th to be found on the continent, by comparing satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and Maxar’s WorldView-3 satellite.

The photo you see below is the one that led the British Antarctic Survey to the colony. The brown stains that contrast against the stark white ice and snow of the Verleger Point in West Antarctica are the accumulated “guano” droppings seabirds like emperor penguins leave behind when they need to relieve themselves. For the last 15 years, the British Antarctic Survey has been searching for new penguin colonies by using satellite imagery to spot the tell-tale poo stains. Of the 66 colonies humans know about in Antarctica, exactly half have been found using satellites.

Maxar Technologies

“This is an exciting discovery,” said Dr Peter Fretwell, one of the researchers who led the study. “[But] like many of the recently discovered sites, this colony is small and in a region badly affected by recent sea ice loss.” As The Guardian points out, emperor penguins are the only known penguins to breed on ice. That makes them particularly vulnerable to climate change. The birds need the ice around their colonies to last between April and September to give their offspring enough time to grow. “If the ice breaks up before that, the chicks fall into the water and drown or freeze,” Fretwell told the outlet. One recent study predicted most emperor penguins could become extinct by the end of the century if the world’s nations don’t find a way to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.