Less than two weeks into its soft launch, GameStop’s NFT marketplace is already courting controversy. Among the NFTs listed on the platform is an artwork called “Falling Man” that was spotted by Web3 is Going Great. There’s no mistaking it, the NFT references one of the most iconic photos of the early 21st century. “The Falling Man” is part of a series of images captured by Associated Press photojournalist Richard Drew on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Of the 2,753 people who died inside the World Trade Center and surrounding area that day, it’s estimated that at least 100 individuals fell to their death while the towers were still standing.

“This one probably fell from the MIR station,” says the NFT’s description, referencing Russia’s decommissioned space station. The artwork’s creator is selling two different versions of “Falling Man,” with the cheapest listed at 0.65 Ethereum or about $990. As Web3 is Going Great points out, GameStop operates a curated NFT marketplace. Artists must apply and pass a vetting process before they can list their tokens for sale. The company takes a 2.25 percent cut of sales. GameStop did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

Artistic theft is a major issue in the NFT space. On platforms like OpenSea where people can mint tokens for free, fake and plagiarized content abounds. While you could make the argument that “Falling Man” doesn’t fall into those categories and that artists should be free to reference past works and tragedies, it’s also true that this NFT trivializes the falling man’s fate, reducing his final moments into something to be sold for a profit.

For today only, Woot has discounted the Nintendo Switch Lite. With a 20 percent reduction, the $200 handheld is currently $160. That’s one of the best deals we’ve seen on the entry-level Switch. Note that the promotion is only available while supplies last. As of the writing of this story, the blue model is out of stock, leaving only the turquoise, yellow and coral ones available to purchase.

The Switch Lite is ideal for those who plan to use the console exclusively for handheld gaming since it doesn’t feature a TV output. Engadget awarded the system a score of 90 in 2019. It’s lighter and more comfortable to hold than the standard and OLED models thanks to a design that’s more compact and does away with detachable Joy-Cons. A proper d-pad also makes the Switch Lite better for playing 2D games. The display isn’t as vivid as the one on the OLED model, but it’s about as bright as the LCD screen on the standard variant. Even with the Switch Lite’s shortcomings, it’s a great system and one of the most affordable ways you can access Nintendo’s compelling library of first-party games.

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Discord voice chats are coming to Xbox. Starting today, those enrolled in Microsoft's Xbox Insider beta program can test the functionality before a wider rollout later this year. The feature allows Discord users on Xbox, PC and mobile to join the same voice channel, thereby making it easier to communicate when playing cross-platform games like Halo Infinite. That said, the integration isn’t as seamless as simply downloading Discord on your Xbox.

You first need to connect your Xbox Account to Discord. If you previously did that so that your Discord contacts could see your Gamertag, you’ll need to do so again to grant the app voice permissions on your Xbox console. You’ll find the option to connect your accounts within Discord’s User Settings. Click or tap the cog icon, navigate to the “Connections” menu, select the Xbox icon and then follow the on-screen instructions.

Discord

Because the entire process works through a series of hand-offs, you’ll then need to download the Xbox mobile app. To talk with your friends, join a voice channel through Discord, where you'll see a new “Join on Xbox” button. Tap that and the Xbox app will automatically open on your phone, solely to ask what console it should forward the call audio to. Now imagine doing that every time single time you want to use Discord on your Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S.

It’s not the most elegant process, but it’s still something Discord users have been waiting for the company to add since it first announced Xbox integration in 2018. The integration may also offer a glimpse at how Sony plans to add Discord voice chat to its PlayStation consoles. Discord did not say exactly when voice chat would be available to all Xbox users, though the feature is expected to arrive sometime later this year.

Workers at the studio formerly known as Vicarious Visions are attempting to unionize. On Tuesday, quality assurance staff at Blizzard Albany went public with the news that they had filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In a Twitter thread, the group said it was seeking representation with the Communications Workers of America.

The approximately 20 workers involved in the effort call themselves the Game Workers Alliance Albany, a nod to the first-ever union to form at Activision Blizzard. Like their colleagues at Raven Software, the QA staff at Blizzard Albany are seeking fairer compensation, more pay transparency and better benefits. They also want to work with Activision Blizzard to create a process for addressing workplace issues, including cases involving employee misconduct.

“QA is currently an undervalued discipline in the games and software industries,” the group said. “We strive to foster work environments where we are respected and compensated for our essential role in the development process.” The QA workers at Blizzard Albany say they asked Activision last week to recognize their union voluntarily. The publisher acknowledged the request but has yet to share a decision.

“Our top priority remains our employees. We deeply respect the rights of all employees under the law to make their own decisions about whether or not to join a union,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Engadget. “We believe that a direct relationship between the company and its employees is the most productive relationship. The company will be publicly and formally providing a response to the petition to the NLRB.”

Before Activision folded Vicarious Visions into Blizzard at the start of 2021, the 200-person developer was one of the publisher’s most dependable support studios. It worked on the excellent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remaster and Destiny 2’s PC port. More recently, as a part of Blizzard, the studio remastered Diablo II.

In June, Microsoft announced it would respect all unionization efforts at Activision Blizzard following the close of its $68.7 billion deal to buy the publisher. In doing so, the company signed a landmark neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America. According to The Washington Post, Activision Blizzard employees, including some at Blizzard Albany, plan to stage a walkout on Thursday to demand better workplace protections following the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Millions of vehicles worldwide could be susceptible to remote tracking and sabotage due to security flaws in a popular GPS module sold on Amazon and other online marketplaces. On Tuesday, cybersecurity firm BitSight disclosed it found six “severe” vulnerabilities in the MV720, a hardwired GPS tracker produced by Chinese electronics manufacturer Micodus. According to BitSight, the vulnerabilities are “not difficult to exploit” and may not be limited to one device.

Micodus did not respond to communication attempts by BitSight and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), meaning the company has made no effort to fix the vulnerabilities, and there are no known workarounds. Two of the six flaws are “critical” in nature. The most pressing involves a hardcoded password that a bad actor could use to send SMS commands to the MV720. Someone could use that capability to track the real-time location of a vehicle and remotely cut off its fuel supply.

The number of MV720 trackers out in the wild is hard to say. According to BitSight, approximately 1.5 million Micodus devices are in use across 169 countries. Notably, the firm found Ukraine had the most Micodus trackers of any European country. It also found evidence of use among at least five Fortune 50 companies, a US state government and a military in South America. A BitSight spokesperson told TechCrunch there are likely “thousands” of Micodus devices in use across the United States. CISA says affected vehicle owners should remove the tracker from their cars as soon as possible.

New Alienware laptops with optional 480Hz displays aren’t the only computers Dell announced today. The company also has a new option for those looking for something more affordable. The G16 represents the first 16-inch laptop for the company’s Dell Gaming brand. Dell went with a 16:10 panel that features a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, G-Sync compatibility and a modest 300 nits of peak brightness. 

No word on response rate or panel type, but the company notes the decision to go with a 16:10 aspect ratio allowed it to fit the G16’s display into a 15-inch chassis. As a result, the laptop has 11 percent more screen space than the G15.

Internally, the G16 comes with Intel’s 12th-generation Core i7 12700H processor. The 14-core, 20-thread chip features a maximum boost clock of 4.70GHz. Straight from the factory, Dell will let you configure the G16 with up to 16GB of 4,800MHz DDR5 RAM. You can add 16GB of RAM on your own to max out the laptop’s memory. Storage starts at 512GB via a Class 35 M.2 NVMe. You can configure the G16 with up to 2TB of total storage.

As for your video card options, you have three. The base model has an RTX 3050 Ti with 4GB of GDDR6 memory that can draw 90 watts of power. Alternatively, you can buy the G16 with either an RTX 3060 or 3070 Ti. The latter can pull up to 140W of power and features 8GB of GDDR6 memory, making it the most sensible option for a gaming laptop with a QHD display. Your GPU will also decide whether the G16 comes with a Thunderbolt 4 port. The connection is only available on models with an RTX 3060 or 3070 Ti. Otherwise, both variants come with HDMI 2.1, three USB-A connections, a headphone jack and an Ethernet port. WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity are also standard across all variants. Powering everything is either a 56WHr or 86WHr battery.

You also have three options when it comes to G16’s typing experience. By default, the laptop comes with a one-zone RGB keyboard. You can upgrade to a model with per-key lighting, with the option to add CherryMX switches as well. The Dell 16 will start at $1,400 when it goes on sale on July 20th.

Amazon is introducing a new Prime Video interface that will be familiar to anyone who has used Netflix – or, for that matter, any other modern streaming service. To make the Prime Video experience “less busy and overwhelming,” the company has relocated the platform’s main navigation bar to the left side of the screen and arranged the icons into a vertical column. From top to bottom, the six menus are Search, Home, Store, Live TV, Free and My Stuff.

Most of the menus include subcategories to simplify navigation further. For instance, the Home section has subcategories for movies, TV shows and sports. Other Netflix-inspired features include a top 10 list of popular content and poster-style thumbnails that expand to play a preview when you navigate over them.

Amazon

However, the most helpful change Amazon has introduced is a new set of icons that make it easier to know if something is part of Prime Video. A blue checkmark means the TV show or movie you want to watch is included with your subscription. By contrast, a gold shopping bag means you need to either buy or rent the content to view it. 

According to The Verge, Amazon spent 18 months working on the redesign. Ben Smith, vice-president of product for Prime Video and Prime studios, led the project. Notably, he previously worked on Hulu’s 2017 redesign. That effort saw the service try something radically different only for it to return to a more familiar design a few years later.

Amazon

Amazon will begin rolling out the new Prime Video experience starting this week. The redesign will first arrive on Android and compatible streaming devices — including Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV — before landing on iOS and the web later this year. 

The new experience won’t roll out to every device where Prime Video is available, and among the more notable omissions are the third-generation Apple TV and Sony’s PlayStation 3. If either of those are how you watch Prime Video, you won’t lose access to the service as a result — you'll just have to get by without the redesigned interface for the time being.

The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has ordered the country’s antitrust watchdog to review its decision to force Meta to sell Giphy, reports Bloomberg. “We have agreed to reconsider our decision in light of this finding,” a spokesperson for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) told the outlet, adding the agency hopes to complete the process within three months.

As The Verge notes, the ruling comes after Meta largely lost its appeal against the CMA. The tribunal sided with the watchdog on five of the agency's six claims against the company. However, on the one ruling that went in Meta’s favor, the tribunal said the CMA had failed to properly inform the company of Snapchat’s acquisition of Gfycat, thereby undermining its defense. Now, not only must the CMA reconsider its decision, but it must also allow Meta to comment on an unredacted version of its report.

Meta’s $315 million acquisition of Giphy drew the attention of the CMA shortly after the company announced the deal in May 2020. One month after the announcement, the watchdog began investigating the purchase. By August 2021, it ruled Meta’s ownership of Giphy could allow the company to prevent rivals like TikTok and Snapchat from accessing Giphy’s GIF library. Meta declined to comment on the ruling. The company previously argued that the CMA was acting outside of its jurisdiction because Giphy had no operations in the UK. 

“Today’s ruling found that the CMA’s approach to its investigation was ‘difficult to defend’ and ‘undermines the entirety of the Decision,’" the company said after the Competition Appeal Tribunal's initial ruling. "We look forward to understanding how these serious process flaws will be addressed. We firmly believe our investment would enhance GIPHY’s product for the millions of people, businesses, and partners who use it.”

Congressional Democrats are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to address the recent proliferation of cryptocurrency mining within the US. In a letter sent Friday (via The Guardian), Senator Elizabeth Warren and five other lawmakers said the two agencies should work together to require crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions.

The request comes after the group recently completed an investigation that began at the start of the year. According to the letter, data collected from seven of the largest mining companies in the US, including Stronghold, Bitfury and Riot, indicates they can collectively use more than 1 gigawatt of electricity. Put another way, that’s almost enough to power all the residential buildings in Houston.

Warren and the other lawmakers say they’re concerned about what all that power use will mean for the environment and consumers. Regarding the former, they state that emissions data from three of the surveyed companies indicate they emit approximately 1.6 million tons of CO2 annually or the equivalent of the tailpipe emissions of almost 360,000 cars. “Bitcoin miners are using huge quantities of electricity that could be used for other priority end uses that contribute to our electrification and climate goals, such as replacing home furnaces with heat pumps,” the letter states.

On the latter point, the lawmakers cite a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electricity bills by approximately $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers. What's more, they say their investigation doesn’t even scratch the surface of the full impact of crypto mining on power use and emissions in the US. “None of the companies provided full and complete information in response to our questions,” they note.

“The results of our investigation, which gathered data from just seven companies, are disturbing, with this limited data alone revealing that crypto miners are large energy users that account for a significant – and rapidly growing – amount of carbon emissions,” the letter states. By requiring crypto mining firms to disclose their energy use and emissions, the group says the EPA and Department of Energy could provide lawmakers with better data to inform future policy decisions. The agencies have until August 15th to respond to the request.

Polestar won’t officially debut its next EV until this fall, but the company has shared initial pricing information. Earlier this week, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said the Polestar 3 would start at €75,000 and top out at around €110,000, reports Automotive News Europe (via Autoblog). With the current parity between the euro and dollar, the automaker’s first electric SUV could cost between $75,700 and $111,000 when it arrives in the US.

Of course, with Polestar 3 production not slated to start until early 2023, the exchange rate could tip back in favor of the euro, but Ingenlath’s comments give us an idea of where the automaker plans to position the EV. A $75,000 price tag would put the base model Polestar 3 in about the same category as the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R1S, which before incentives cost $69,990 and $72,500 in their respective Performance and Explore trims. Meanwhile, you’re looking at a car in Model X territory with the top-end model.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Polestar 3’s specs, but the company has said the SUV would feature the same dual-motor powertrain as the Polestar 2 and a 372-mile range. Polestar also shared that it plans to produce the vehicle in the US partially. We’ll likely learn more about the SUV before its October debut.