A mere two days after accusing the company of fraud, Elon Musk has challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a public debate about the percentage of bots on its platform. “Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users,” Musk said in a tweet spotted by Reuters.

The Tesla and SpaceX executive issued the challenge after responding to a thread in support of his legal case against the company. “If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” he said.

Musk then began polling his followers, asking them whether they believe fake accounts make up less than five percent of Twitter’s daily user base. The two options are “Yes” and “Lmaooo no.” With 66.6 percent of vote as of the writing of this article, the latter is ahead at the moment. Voting ends on Sunday.

The stunt is unlikely to prompt a response from Twitter. The company’s trial against Musk will start on October 17th and could finish in a matter of days. In the complaint it filed this week, Musk’s legal team said a Botometer analysis found a much higher number of fake accounts than the less than five percent claimed by Twitter. The company quickly shot back, calling Musk’s statements "factually inaccurate, legally insufficient and commercially irrelevant.”

Fitbit is discontinuing support for PC and Mac syncing. On a support page spotted by 9to5Google, the company said it would remove the option for users to sync their trackers over its Connect app on October 13th, 2022. After that date, the only way to transfer your data off your Fitbit wearable will be through the Fitbit mobile app. While the shutdown is unlikely to affect many people, it does mean there will be one less way to transfer your favorite songs to your wearable for offline playback.

“On October 13, 2022, we're removing the option to transfer playlists to your Fitbit watch through your computer,” the company says on a separate support page. “You can continue to play personal music stored on your watch and transfer music to your watch with the Deezer app and Pandora app.” 

In other words, if you use your Fitbit tracker or smartwatch for listening to music, you’ll need to depend on two music services that aren’t the most popular options out there. With the Pixel Watch set to offer deep Fitbit integration, that probably won’t be much of an issue with new Fitbit wearables, but it is something current users will have to consider.

Five years after the Nintendo Switch’s release, Valve is finally adding Steam support for the console’s controllers. In an announcement spotted by PC Gamer, the company said the latest Steam beta adds Joy-Cons support. With the new software, it’s possible to use Joy-Cons either individually or as part of a matched pair for playing games.

If you want to try the feature out, you need to opt into the Steam beta. You can do that by navigating to Steam’s Settings menu and clicking “Change” under the “Beta participation” heading. Keep in mind you’ll either need a Bluetooth adapter or a motherboard with Bluetooth connectivity to use your Joy-Cons with Steam since it’s not possible to connect the controller to your PC through a cable like you would most gamepads.

Instagram will soon allow users to post 9:16 photos to their feed as part of a test the company plans to undertake “in a week or two.” The tidbit of news came out of Adam Mosseri’s weekly Q&A. “You can have tall videos, but you cannot have tall photos on Instagram,” the executive said. “So we thought maybe we should make sure that we treat both equally.”

While it’s already possible to share 9:16 photos through Instagram, you have to do so through the app’s Stories feature, meaning those images will disappear unless you save them as a Highlight. Currently, vertical photos you post to your feed will top out at 8:10 as long as you crop them correctly.

The timing of the test comes after Mosseri recently announced Instagram would walk back its unpopular full-screen interface. The company had been testing the redesign since mid-June, only to find that most people didn’t like it. “For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great,” Mosseri told Platformer last week. Among the most vocal detractors of the redesign were photographers who found the new interface would overlay captions on top of their images, obscuring part of their work in the process. Instagram’s latest test would suggest the company still intends to move towards a more TikTok-like experience.

For the second time this year, Robinhood is cutting its headcount. On Tuesday, the company announced it would lay off 23 percent of its workforce. According to CEO Vlad Tenev, the cuts will affect every part of Robinhood’s business but will primarily target the company’s “operations, marketing and program management functions.”

Tenev blamed a deteriorating macro environment for the decision, pointing to record inflation and the cryptocurrency crash as the primary drivers of the company’s recent woes. Additionally, he acknowledged the company overhired last year on the assumption retail investors would continue trading stocks and crypto assets at the rate they had during the early stages of the pandemic. Prior to April when Robinhood laid off nine percent of its workforce, the company had a headcount of approximately 3,800. “As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory – this is on me,” he said.

On Tuesday, Robinhood also announced its Q2 results one day ahead of schedule. The company reported a net loss of $295 million after revenue fell by 44 percent year-on-year to $318 million. 

In his letter to employees, Tenev said Robinhood would transition to an organizational model where general managers would oversee broad parts of the company’s business. “This change will flatten hierarchies, reduce cross-functional dependencies, and remove redundant roles and positions,” he claimed. Tenev added that Robinhood would notify affected employees via Slack and email. They can stay with the company until October 1st, 2022.

NASA’s Artemis 1 test flight dummy will have company on its flight to the Moon. On Tuesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that Shaun the Sheep will join the unmanned mission when it hopefully takes off later this year. With the announcement, Aardman’s beloved character will technically become the first ESA astronaut to participate in the Artemis program.

“This is an exciting time for Shaun and for us at ESA,” ESA Director for Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker said. “We’re woolly very happy that he’s been selected for the mission and we understand that, although it might be a small step for a human, it’s a giant leap for lambkind.”

Following a successful fueling test of its next-generation SLS rocket, NASA said Artemis 1 could launch as early as August 23rd. The mission will send the agency’s Orion spacecraft – as well as Shaun and Commander Moonikin Campos – on a trip beyond the moon. If all goes according to plan, the capsule should return to Earth after spending 39 to 42 days in space. “The spacecraft will perform a flyby of the Moon, using lunar gravity to gain speed and propel itself 70 000 km beyond the Moon, almost half a million km from Earth – farther than any human, or sheep, has ever traveled,” the ESA said.

Aardman didn’t say as much, but Shaun will likely serve as the mission’s zero-g indicator. Ever since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took a small doll with him on the first-ever human spaceflight, it’s become a tradition for space crews to bring a plush toy on missions. Even some unmanned flights have taken part in the practice. In May, for instance, Boeing’s Starliner capsule brought Jebediah Kerman from Kerbal Space Program to the International Space Station.

As more than 300,000 people anxiously watched the flight path of SPAR19, the US Air Force plane carrying Nancy Pelosi on her tour of Asia, Taiwan’s presidential website went down to an apparent cyberattack, reports Reuters. In a Facebook post spotted by Gizmodo, Taiwanese presidential spokesperson Chang Tun-Han said a distributed denial-of-service attack took down the website early Tuesday evening.

According to Tun-Han, the attack originated outside of Taiwan and saw the website bombarded with more than 200 times the amount of traffic it normally sees. They claim the website was back to normal operation “within 20 minutes.” However, when Engadget went to visit, there was only a single line to be seen stating, “OK.”

Pelosi’s plane landed in Taiwan late Tuesday evening Taipei Standard Time, reports The Associated Press. According to local news outlets, she is expected to stay the night. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. Ahead of Tuesday’s visit, China warned there would be “resolute and strong measures” if Pelosi went ahead with the trip.

“There is but one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. “The one-China principle is a universal consensus of the international community and a basic norm in international relations.”

The US maintains a so-called policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to Taiwan. In 1972, former President Richard Nixon visited mainland China. During Nixon’s visit, the US agreed “that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China.” China views visits by foreign government officials to Taiwan as recognition of its sovereignty – though members of Congress have routinely traveled to the self-governing island over the years.

“America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy,” Pelosi said on Twitter. “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, US-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances.”

BMW already offers two different versions of its i4 all-electric sedan in the US, but the automaker will add a third, more affordable variant to the mix starting next year. On Monday, BMW announced the 2023 i4 eDrive35. The EV will start at $52,395 – with a $995 destination fee included – when it arrives in the US in the first quarter of 2023.

As the entry-level model in BMW’s i4 line, the eDrive35 features a smaller battery and less powerful motor than its eDrive40 and M50 stablemates. With a usable capacity of 66 kWh, BMW estimates the eDrive35 will be good for an EPA range of about 260 miles. By contrast, you can expect to get about 271 miles from the M50 and 301 miles from the eDrive40. DC fast charging allows the eDrive35’s battery to go from 10 percent to 80 percent in about half an hour.

With a single rear axle motor, the eDrive35 also outputs less power than its two counterparts. It has an estimated horsepower of 281 and 295 lb-ft of torque. That’s 55 less horsepower than the eDrive 40. However, it doesn’t seem the eDrive35 will be much slower than its more expensive sibling. BMW says the car can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. The eDrive40 can achieve the same feat in 5.5 seconds. All things considered, those are reasonable tradeoffs when you consider the eDrive40 and M50 start at $56,395 and $66,895, respectively.

Inside, the eDrive35 features the same dashboard unit found in the eDrive40. Expect a 12.3-inch infotainment display and a 14.9-inch instrument panel behind a single curved glass surface. It should come with all the same safety features as well, including adaptive cruise control and automatic emergency braking. BMW expects to start production on the 2023 i4 eDrive35 before the end of the year.

Discord has begun rolling out an overhauled Android app that addresses one of the most consistent complaints with the software. If you follow the company, you’ve probably seen it often announce new features only to note they will launch on iOS and desktop first before arriving on Google’s operating system. We saw that recently with the release of Server Profiles. According to Discord, that’s about to become a thing of the past.

In a blog post published on Monday, the company said it recently rebuilt its Android app using React Native. Discord has employed the framework for iOS development ever since Meta first open sourced React in 2015. Now that both of Discord's mobile apps are on the same underlying codebase, the company notes Android users can expect feature consistency.

Discord

Additionally, the company says Discord users will see a more consistent user experience across platforms. As one example, the Android app will feature a larger default font that is more in line with the iOS version of the software. Discord also anticipates it will release future updates faster.

“As Discord continues to grow across platforms, we want to find ways to support you and your communities as quickly and efficiently as possible, regardless of which device or platform you happen to be using,” the company said. “Utilizing React Native across every mobile platform Discord is on is just one of the tools that helps us support what you do, and we can’t wait to show you how.”

If you already have Discord installed on your Android phone, the company says you can expect the overhauled app to arrive on your device in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, new Android users can download the software from the Google Play Store.

Sega fans who plan to buy the Genesis Mini 2 will need to import the retro console from Japan. What’s more, the company estimates it will have approximately one-tenth of the stock that it had during the Genesis Mini launch in 2019 to sell to US and European consumers. Sega blamed the situation on the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.

A Sega spokesperson told Polygon the company had initially planned to release the Genesis Mini 2 only in Japan, but that by “using Amazon’s ‘Japan Store’ system, we found that at least a small number of units could be sold via Amazon.com, so a portion was allocated to make the North American version.” With $22 shipping from the country, US consumers can expect to pay about $125 to import the retro console once it's available on October 27th.

That’s a hefty price hike considering the original Genesis Mini launched at a more affordable $80. The new console will feature over 50 titles, including Sonic CD, Virtua Racing, OutRun, Shining Force CD and Fantasy Zone. Judging by the packaging, it will also come with a six-button controller. One of the few complaints we had with the original was that it came with a cramped three-button gamepad.