Podcast listeners, no matter the app they use, were unable to access shows hosted on Spotify's Megaphone platform Monday night and early Tuesday. Those include The Joe Rogan Experience and podcasts from The Ringer and Gimlet Media. Worst of all, it seems the problem was entirely avoidable — it was due to a lapsed security certificate. 

“Megaphone experienced a platform outage due to an issue related to our SSL certificate,” Spotify spokesperson Erin Styles told The Verge. “During the outage, clients were unable to access the Megaphone CMS and podcast listeners were unable to download podcast episodes from Megaphone-hosted publishers."

A valid SSL certificate is required to create a secure connection between a server and a browser or app. It seems Megaphone's certificate expired at around 8PM ET on Monday and the service didn't come back online until just before 6AM this morning. It took a few more hours before the problems were fully resolved.

Megaphone, which dynamically inserts ads into podcasts, is a key component of Spotify's podcast ambitions. It bought the company for $235 million in 2020. Spotify bolstered the service when it bought Whooshkaa, which can turn radio shows into podcasts, last December. It also acquired two other ad tech companies, Chartable and Podsights, earlier this year.

Neglecting to renew the certificate is a bad look for Spotify, which as a technology company, ought to know better. While listeners might not have been able to download episodes of their favorite shows overnight, they should have access again now. 

Spotify is not the only major tech company to have dealt with such a snafu, though. In 2020, Microsoft Teams was down for a few hours after someone seemingly forgot to renew the SSL certificate.

Earlier this year, New York City started testing a gun detection system from Evolv Technologies at City Hall and Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Mayor Eric Adams, who has said he came across the system on the internet, has been talking up the tech for months as a way to help combat gun violence. Now, it has emerged that two people who donated $1 million to support Adams' mayoral run work at companies with investments in Evolv, as the New York Daily News first reported.

The CEO of the investment firm Citadel, Kenneth Griffin, last year donated $750,000 to Strong Leadership NYC, a political action committee (PAC) that supported Adams. Jane Street Financial Services founder Robert Granieri gave $250,000, according to records.

As of May 16th, Citadel held 12,975 shares in Evolv, a publicly traded company. It holds another 89,900 for other investors as call options. Jane Street held 76,570 shares as of May 17th. The stock held by all shareholders totals 143.4 million, so both firms own a relatively small chunk of Evolv.

A spokesperson for Adams told the Daily News that the mayor didn't recognize the names of Griffin and Granieri and wasn't sure whether he'd met with them. The spokesperson said that before a pilot of Evolv's system started at Jacobi Medical Center in February, the tech was being used at other city hospitals.

NYC has considered using the AI weapon detection technology in transit systems, particularly following a mass shooting on a subway train in Brooklyn last month. As Fast Company notes, Evolv charges between $2,000 and $3,000 per scanner per month for a subscription. Installing one at every subway entrance and paying staff to operate them would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Given the costs, it's unlikely that the scanners would be ubiquitous. 

The effectiveness of Evolv's system has been brought into question too. While the company has not publicly disclosed its false positive rates, it has acknowledged the issue in promotional materials. 

Screenshots in brochures obtained by New York Focus indicated that in one three-month stretch, the system scanned 2.2 million people and there were more than 190,000 alerts. The vast majority of those were for harmless objects like umbrellas, strollers, eyeglass cases and laptops. In that scenario, only 0.8 percent of the alerts were for actual weapons and just 0.1 percent were for non-law enforcement guns. However, Evolv has claimed that the data in the screenshots is "fictitious" and is “from a demonstration account.”

A report by surveillance tech trade publication IPVM earlier this year noted that Evolv's full-body scanners were misidentifying other objects as potential weapons, such as Chromebooks. IPVM director of operations Donald Maye told the Daily News that Evolv's system has a false alert rate of between five and ten percent at settings such as sports stadiums (which lines up with data shown in the disputed screenshot). Maye suggested that the false positive rate would actually be higher at subway system scanners and lead to "secondary screenings" with cops searching commuters.

Engadget has contacted Evolv for comment.

It appears Microsoft will soon reveal its next-gen Surface Laptop Go. The successor to the would-be Chromebook competitor popped up in a Korean retailer listing that appears to have gone live a little too early. It seems the page has since been taken down.

The listing, which was spotted by The Verge, indicates the Surface Laptop Go 2 will shift from a 10th-gen Intel Core CPU to an 11th-gen Intel processor. This specific configuration boasts the i5-1135G7 and Intel Iris Xe graphics.

As with the original Surface Laptop Go from 2020, this laptop will support up to 8GB of RAM and as much as 256GB of storage, according to the listing. The base model specs are unclear, however. Previous reports indicated the laptop will have a baseline of 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The base Surface Laptop Go has 64GB of storage.

As you might expect, the laptop is slated to ship with Windows 11. The listing promises a battery life of up to 13.5 hours as well. In addition, it suggests the system will have "improved HD camera performance," even though, like its predecessor, it's said to have a 720p webcam.

The Surface Laptop Go 2 seems to have a lot of other details in common with the original system. The listing suggests it still has a 12.4-inch display and 3:2 aspect ratio, the same ports (including a 3.5mm headphone jack and the proprietary Surface charging port) and a fingerprint sensor. There's no sign of it having a backlit keyboard as yet, unfortunately.

It seems we may not have to wait much longer for Microsoft to formally announce the latest entry-level Surface laptop. The listing suggests preorders will open on June 2nd.

Classic mobile games Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 are getting a new lease of life. They're coming to PC on July 12th, meaning they'll be playable outside of the iOS, Android and Windows Phone (remember that?) ecosystems for the first time.

A vertical phone-style format wouldn't quite cut the mustard for PC players, though. As such, Ustwo Games has upgraded the already-gorgeous visuals with an ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio. The expanded view could help you solve the mind-bending puzzles and find the right paths. With that in mind, the developer is calling these the "panoramic editions."

The games are coming to Steam and they'll each cost $8. Scoop up a bundle of both titles (which includes all of the expansions) and you'll get a 15 percent discount.

As part of the announcement, Ustwo Games released a behind-the-scenes video in which developers talk about porting the games to PC:

It seems Google just can’t stop its upcoming hardware from showing up in the wild. Weeks after a Pixel Watch prototype was left at a restaurant (and before Google confirmed the device's existence), it appears someone tried to sell a Pixel 7 on eBay.

The eBay listing for what certainly looks like a prototype Pixel 7 popped up on the Pixel subreddit, but it has since been taken down. The images that the seller posted didn't shed a ton more light on the device. The front looks similar to the Pixel 6, hole-punch camera and all. The camera bar on the rear has two lenses as well.

Take a closer look at one of the images, though, and you'll see something that might raise your eyebrows. In the reflection of the purported Pixel 7's rear is what looks like a Pixel 7 Pro — the device that the seller was using to take the pictures. This suggests that, whoever the seller is, they had access to both models of the upcoming Pixel lineup. 

meetveeru/eBay

In the description, the seller claimed that Pixel 7 was running Android 13, with apps that are at the developmental stage. They said the phone has 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM and that they were selling it as is with "no guarantees of any sort." The phone would have shipped from McKinney, Texas.

Although Google announced the Pixel 7 and its Pro sibling at I/O, it'll be months before the devices, which will run on a second-gen Tensor chip, go on sale. Google will surely provide a more in-depth look at them at a hardware event. But, given the leaks to date, we might already know every detail by the time Google formally shows them off.

Now might be the right time to snap up a pair of Apple's second-gen AirPods if you've been waiting for a good deal. The earphones are on sale on Amazon, where they have dropped from $159 to $100 for Memorial Day. That's 37 percent below the regular price and one of the best deals we've seen for this model. The current price is about $10 more than the record low, however.

We gave the second-gen AirPods a score of 84 in our review after finding that the fit won't be suitable for all ears, while sound quality is similar to the first model. There's no active noise cancellation either. However, the earbuds do have a lot going for them. They'll be especially useful for folks who are deep into the Apple ecosystem, as the H1 chip allows them to swiftly pair the earphones with an iPhone, iPad or Mac and switch between devices in a snap. You'll be able to listen for around five hours before needing to recharge, while the charging case provides approximately 24 hours of listening time overall.

Meanwhile, the most recent third-gen AirPods are also on sale. They're currently $150, which is $29 off the standard price. We felt that Apple had improved nearly every aspect this time around and gave this model a score of 88. While there's still no ANC, the third-gen AirPods have significantly better sound quality, a more comfortable fit and a longer battery life (around seven hours in our testing).

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Ford has begun deliveries of the F-150 Lightning. The first customer to get their hands on the electric pickup is Nicholas Schmidt, who lives in the automaker's home state of Michigan, around a two-hour drive from the F-150 Lightning plant in Dearborn. Ford started full production of the EV there last month.

The EV is replacing a gas-powered F-150, Schmidt told Bloomberg. Schmidt, who also owns a Tesla Model 3, said he had considered buying a Rivian R1T and also placed a reservation for a Tesla Cybertruck. He said whichever electric pickup he was able to order first would be the one he bought. After taking delivery of the F-150, Schmidt cancelled his Cybertruck reservation.

Ford said at the beginning of this month it would start delivering the F-150 Lightning "in the coming days." While it's not the first automaker to deliver an electric pickup in the US (Rivian started doing so last year), it beat Tesla to the punch.

It had a leg up on Tesla in this market anyway, as the F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the US for the last four decades. Case in point: it received nearly 45,000 pre-orders for the Lightning in just 48 hours. Given that the Cybertruck won't go on sale until next year, both Ford and Rivian have a shot at building up a significant share of the electric truck market long before Tesla gets the Cybertruck into the wild. 

On the heels of BTS dance workouts arriving on Fitness+, Apple is once again teaming up with the all-conquering K-pop group. A three-episode Apple Music series will delve into the history of BTS.

The first episode of BTS Radio: Past & Present will premiere on Apple Music 1 on May 28th at 9AM ET, the Associated Press notes. The other two episodes will arrive on a weekly basis. In the show, the members of BTS will take listeners through their journey to becoming superstars. "We wanted to share the BTS songs that help tell our story," RM, one of the septet, said.

The series will debut just ahead of the group's first anthology/best-of album Proof, which arrives on June 10th, as well as BTS' ninth anniversary three days later. Next week, BTS will visit the White House to discuss Asian inclusion and representation with President Biden, following a rise in reports of anti-Asian discrimination and hate crimes.

US college students who want to keep learning over the summer break might be interested in checking out the latest promotion from Masterclass. They can get a three-month individual membership for just $1.

Masterclass hosts video-centric classes from notable, successful figures including Lewis Hamilton, Gordon Ramsay, Anna Wintour, Spike Lee and Serena Williams. The company says it now has more than 2,500 lessons on topics including gardening, writing, filmmaking, business leadership, wilderness survival and interior design.

You'll need a .edu email address and to meet a few other criteria, such as being a current student enrolled in a college or university program in the US. Masterclass says your promotional plan won't auto-renew. Once it expires, you'll have the option of continuing your membership at the regular price. The plans start at $15 per month.

It's not quite as great a deal as the one year of access for $1 Masterclass offered students in 2020. Still, it's a low-cost way to try the service and learn a thing or two.

You'll need to act swiftly if you're interested. Masterclass says there's a limited supply of promotional memberships available and the offer expires at 11:59PM PT tonight. You can sign up for the so-called Summer of Learning via a dedicated page on the Masterclass website.

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Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Disney+ tomorrow, but Lucasfilm is already offering peeks at other Star Wars shows that are on the way to the streaming service. One of those is Andor, in which Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor. The series takes place five years before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Based on the trailer Lucasfilm released today, it looks like Andor leans into the grittier side of the Star Wars universe, given the tone and muted color palette. The show will debut on August 31st with two episodes.

Lucasfilm also released the first trailer for Andor, which takes place five years before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It looks like the series leans into the grittier side of the Star Wars universe, given the tone and muted color palette.

Andor is described as a "tense nail-biting spy thriller," which isn't a huge shock given the connection to Rogue One and the fact it was created by Tony Gilroy, the writer of the Bourne movies — he was a co-writer on Rogue One too. Forest Whitaker and Genevieve O’Reilly, who featured in the movie alongside Luna. will return as well.

The first season of Andorwill have 12 episodes — more than the previous live-action Star Wars Disney+ shows. A second season will start filming in November.

Lucasfilm also confirmed at Star Wars Celebration that The Mandalorian will return for its third season next February. Ahsoka, which features the return of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, will arrive in 2023 too.

There's yet another live-action Star Wars series coming to Disney+ next year, this time starring Jude Law. It's called Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and it's from Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts and writer Christopher Ford.

Skeleton Crew is set around the same time as The Mandalorian. It centers around “a group of kids who are about ten years old who get lost in the Star Wars universe,” according to Watts, who stressed that “it’s not a kids show."