Twitter has laid out plans for a bug bounty competition with a difference. This time around, instead of paying researchers who uncover security issues, Twitter will reward those who find as-yet undiscovered examples of bias in its image-cropping algorithm.

Back in April, Twitter said it would study potential “unintentional harms” created by its algorithms, beginning with its image-cropping one. It started using the algorithm in 2018 in an attempt to focus on the most interesting parts of images in previews. Some users criticized how Twitter handled automated cropping, claiming that the algorithm tends to focus on lighter-skinned people in photos.

"In May, we shared our approach to identifying bias in our saliency algorithm (also known as our image cropping algorithm), and we made our code available for others to reproduce our work," Twitter wrote in a blog post. "We want to take this work a step further by inviting and incentivizing the community to help identify potential harms of this algorithm beyond what we identified ourselves."

Twitter says this is the "industry’s first algorithmic bias bounty competition" and it's offering cash prizes of up to $3,500. Rumman Chowdhury, director of Twitter's Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team, wrote in a tweet that the company is running the contest "because we believe people should be rewarded for identifying these issues, and we can’t solve these challenges alone." The winners will be announced at a Twitter-hosted DEF CON AI Village workshop on August 8th.

Samsung wants to teach you about the history of electronics, as long as you can stay awake long enough to sit through the dull lessons. Through its Innovation Museum, the company is releasing five animated videos about inventions that shaped society. If the first episode is anything to go by, they might as well be classified as sleep aids.

The series premiere delves into the history of telecommunications, starting with Morse code and how it paved the way for more recent innovations such as smartphones, 3G, 4G and (would you believe it?) 5G. The tone and narration is Atacama Desert dry, though. Even the name of the series is melatonin-inducing: "The History of the Electronics Industry That Changed the World."

There's no denying the importance of Morse code, including how it's helped save the lives of many who were able to send an SOS message when they were in peril. But Samsung could have presented the story in a much more interesting way. For what it's worth, the episode is educational. But, if you're going to create a video in which "some aspects have been fictionalized," at least make it fun. 

Upcoming installments will cover John Logie Baird's TV, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, James Harrison's refrigerator and William Shockley and the semiconductor. Perhaps those will be more compelling, but it's hard to imagine anyone excitedly dashing off a telegram to a friend about it.

Along with showing off a bunch of upcoming games during its showcase on Thursday, Annapurna Interactive announced some developer partnerships. One of them is with a new studio called Ivy Road from powerhouse indie developers Davey Wreden and Karla Zimonja.

Wreden is best known as the writer and designer of The Stanley Parable. Zimonja previously worked at Fullbright and is the co-creator of indie hits Gone Home and Tacoma. They're now combining their talents at Ivy Road, which is based in Vancouver.

The duo didn't reveal any details about the first game they're working on for AI. However, they did note that composer Daniel Rosenfeld (aka C418), of Minecraft fame, is part of the team, along with severalotherdevelopers.

Annapurna Interactive is making lots of announcements today about its future, but the publisher hasn't forgotten its roots either. What Remains Of Edith Finch, the very first game AI released, is coming to iOS on August 16th.

The first-person mystery, which was developed by Giant Sparrow, debuted on PC and PS4 in April 2017. AI brought it to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch later. It's a well-reviewed game that encapsulates much of AI's ethos of releasing "personal, emotional and original" games. Perhaps the iOS release will help it find a whole new audience.

Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over the company's decision to release the movie in theaters and on Disney+ simultaneously. Johansson claims that the move constituted a breach of contract, as The Wall Street Journal reports.

In the suit, Johansson says Black Widow was supposed to be released exclusively in theaters, per her deal with Marvel. As is often the case for movie stars, a large portion of Johansson's salary was tied to its box office success.

To watch Black Widow on Disney+, viewers need to fork over $30 for a Premier Access pass. Disney initially estimated that the film generated $60 million in revenue on Disney+ from its opening weekend earlier this month, along with $80 million in domestic and $78 million international theatrical revenue.

The move may have impacted Black Widow's performance in theaters (though it's worth bearing in mind that many cinemas around the globe are still closed amid the pandemic). The total worldwide box office tally is currently $319 million. As Variety points out, that puts it on track to become one of the lowest-grossing Marvel movies to date. Only one of the six other Marvel movies released since early 2018 has made less than $1 billion in theaters.

Johansson's representatives tried to re-negotiate her deal after news emerged about the new Black Widow release strategy, the suit says, but Disney and Marvel were allegedly unresponsive. Releasing Black Widow on Disney+ simultaneously could cost Johansson over $50 million, according to a WSJ source.

In 2019, before COVID-19 changed everything and with Disney+ on the horizon, Johansson and her team contacted Marvel for confirmation that Black Widow would still be a theatrical-only release. According to an email from March 2019 that's cited in the filing, Marvel's chief counsel Dave Galluzzi confirmed that. “We understand that should the plan change, we would need to discuss this with you and come to an understanding as the deal is based on a series of (very large) box office bonuses,” the email states.

Movie theaters around the world were forced to close their doors following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Distributors scrambled to revamp their release strategies. Warner Bros. has adopted a hybrid format this year, with its movies coming to both theaters and HBO Max on the same day (aka day-and-date releases). It will return to theater-first releases next year.

However, that approach was criticized by prominent directors, including Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. owner WarnerMedia reworked some deals and reportedly paid creative talent who were due a cut of box office revenue north of $200 million. NBCUniversal also released The Boss Baby: Family Business in theaters and on Peacock on the same day.

Disney adopted different tactics. Several of the movies it has released day-and-date (including Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon and Cruella) were initially locked behind that $30 pass on Disney+. Artemis Fowl, and Pixar movies Soul and Luca skipped theaters entirely in many countries and went straight to Disney+ as part of the regular library.

GarageBand creators have a bunch more tools at their disposal as of today, including sound packs from Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga. You can learn how to remix Dua Lipa's "Break My Heart" and Lady Gaga's "Free Woman" in the app.

Along with videos of the artists telling the stories behind those songs, the Remix Sessions include step-by-step tutorials, which you can play picture-in-picture. An Apple Retail Creative Pro will give some pointers on how to remix the tunes using a GarageBand Live Loops version of each song. You can play around with isolated vocals, instrumental tracks and beats to create completely different versions of the hits.

Apple says these Remix Sessions build on the Today at Apple workshops that take place at its stores (and online over the past year or so). Big names like Alicia Keys, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift have previously been featured at in-store Music Labs.

There are also seven new GarageBand producer packs created by Boys Noize, Mark Lettieri, Oak Felder, Soulection, Take A Daytrip, Tom Misch and Trakgirl. Each contains royalty-free loops, samples, instruments, drum kits and more that aim to encapsulate the feel of each producer's work. The packs also include videos from the producers, in which they provide words of encouragement and info about their creative process.

Oak Felder said he hopes his pack can help even the playing field and make it easier for newcomers to start producing music. "There is a possibility that you, picking around and making beats on your iPad, can actually turn it into a side hustle," he said.

There's another producer pack which acts as a companion piece to Apple TV+ docuseries Watch the Sound With Mark Ronson. You'll be able to play around with GarageBand versions of samples, drum machines, vocal effects and other elements featured in the show, which premieres on Friday. All of these free downloads are now available from the Sound Library.

Trevor Milton, the founder and former executive chairman of electric vehicle company Nikola, has been charged with two counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud by a federal grand jury. Milton has been accused of lying about “nearly all aspects of the business” to boost Nikola's stock.

The indictment claims Milton made it seem Nikola was much further along than it actually was in terms of having fully functional EVs. It asserts he had a hand in creating a video that made it seem a Nikola One prototype was able to move by itself when it was actually rolling down a slope.

Milton falsely claimed the company had “billions and billions and billions and billions” of dollars worth of preorder reservations and that the company was producing its own hydrogen at four times less than market rates, according to the indictment. He's also accused of falsely claiming that Nikola had developed "game-changing" battery technology, that it was developing and making several key components for its EVs in-house and that "the total cost of ownership of Nikola's trucks was 20-30 percent below that of diesel vehicles."

Prosecutors claim Milton, who resigned in September in the face of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe, targeted and misled amateur investors (or "retail investors"). According to the indictment, some of those investors lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At Nikola's peak valuation, Milton held around $8.5 billion worth of stock, as CNBC notes. The grand jury argues that Milton should surrender property “traceable to the commission of said offenses.” That could include the over $1 billion Milton made when the company went public in June 2020.

The SEC also filed civil securities fraud charges against Milton on Thursday. The agency asked a district court to force Milton to forfeit "ill-gotten gains" and to pay a fine. It also called for a lifetime ban on Milton serving as an officer at a company that issues securities.

Huawei has revealed the P50 and P50 Pro, its first flagship phones that use HarmonyOS 2 from the outset. The company started rolling out the operating system to its existing devices in early June.

The switch to HarmonyOS was made in part due to US sanctions that have hit Huawei. Along with slowing down manufacturing and hobbling the company’s ability to source components with American technology, the restrictions led to Google shutting off Huawei from official Android updates. Huawei switched to an open-source version. It was also prevented from using Google apps and services on its most recent phones. There have been suggestions that HarmonyOS is actually a fork of open-source Android.

The sanctions also seem to have impacted Huawei's choice of processor in the latest handsets, too. The P50 and one of the P50 Pro variants boast Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888 4G chipset with Adreno 660 graphics. Qualcomm received permission in November to sell some chips to Huawei. The other models use Huawei's own Kirin 9000 processor, but there's no mention of 5G support for any of the devices.

The P50 and P50 Pro, which are aimed at the Chinese market, boast 6.5-inch and 6.6-inch displays, with 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates respectively. Both devices use the same hole-punch front-facing 13MP camera.

The P50 Pro's rear camera array includes 50MP color and 40MP mono True-Chroma lenses, a 13MP ultra-wide and a 64MP telephoto camera. The P50 has a 50MP True-Chroma camera, a 13MP ultra-wide and a 12MP telephoto lens. The devices are IP68-rated for their splash, water and dust resistance.

The phones both support 66W super-fast wired charging, and the P50 Pro offers 50W wireless charging. The P50 has a 4100mAh battery, while the P50 Pro has a 4360mAh capacity.

The P50 starts at 4,488 yuan (approximately $695) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It'll be available in September. The P50 Pro, meanwhile, will be available broadly on August 12th, starting at 5,988 yuan (about $927) for the same memory and storage capacity as the base P50. Huawei hasn't clarified if or when it'll sell the devices outside of China.

A company that makes an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) has been given the go-ahead by the Food and Drug Administration to run a clinical trial with human patients. Synchron plans to start an early feasibility study of its Stentrode implant later this year at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York with six subjects. The company said it will assess the device's "safety and efficacy in patients with severe paralysis."

Synchron received the FDA's green light ahead of competitors like Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Before such companies can sell BCIs commercially in the US, they need to prove that the devices work and are safe. The FDA will provide guidance for trials of BCI devices for patients with paralysis or amputation during a webinar on Thursday.

Another clinical trial of Stentrode is underway in Australia. Four patients have received the implant, which is being used "for data transfer from motor cortex to control digital devices," Synchron said. According to data published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, two of the patients were able to control their computer with their thoughts. They completed work-related tasks, sent text messages and emails and did online banking and shopping.

It takes around two hours to implant a Stentrode device with a minimally invasive procedure, according to Synchron. The device is implanted through a blood vessel at the bottom of the neck and maneuvered into the brain. Synchron CEO Thomas Oxley told Bloomberg the device could be available to buy within three to five years.

The antitrust lawsuit brought by 48 attorneys general against Facebook isn't dead yet. A federal judge dismissed the suit last month, but the AGs have filed a notice of plan to appeal.

“We filed this notice of appeal because we disagree with the court’s decision and must hold Facebook accountable for stifling competition, reducing innovation, and cutting privacy protections,” New York’s attorney general Letitia James said, according to The New York Times. “We can no longer allow Facebook to profit off of exploiting consumer data.”

The suit, which was filed in December, alleged that Facebook created a monopoly and illegally stifled competition through its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Judge James E. Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that too much time had gone by since the mergers were approved for the case to proceed.

On the same day he dismissed the AGs' suit, Boasberg tossed a similar case from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency is expected to file an amended suit next month.

The FTC lawsuit was initially filed in December while Trump administration appointee Joseph Simons led the agency. Big Tech critic Lina Khan was appointed FTC chair last month. Facebook has asked the agency to recuse her from antitrust decisions involving the company.

Facebook has argued against both suits, claiming much of the evidence in the cases was submitted to the FTC before the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp were rubberstamped. It also claims it doesn't have a monopoly, partly due to competition from the likes of Snap and Twitter, as well as messaging apps.