Sony has revealed a cheaper model of its speaker that looks like a lamp. Style-conscious audiophiles will be able to order the LSPX-S3 glass sound speaker starting in August.

The Bluetooth-enabled device features an organic glass tweeter with three actuators that enable it to emit sound in all directions, according to Sony. The company claims the tweeter "produces clear and powerful high tones" and spreads sound evenly throughout a space. The LSPX-S3 has a 46mm speaker unit and you can adjust the levels via the Sony Music Center app. It also has LDAC support for high-resolution audio.

Sony

The speaker won't light up an entire room, but the flickering candlelight-style illumination should provide a cozy ambiance for nighttime reading. The LED can pulse in sync with music and there are several lighting modes and brightness levels.

You can take the LSPX-S3 outdoors, too. It weighs around 1.1kg and has a battery that Sony says can power the device for up to eight hours on a single charge. You can recharge it via the USB-C charging port.

There's also an option to link two units for stereo playback and it can form part of a multi-room audio system. In addition, the speaker has a built-in microphone for calls, a metal base and a fabric bottom.

Almost six years ago, Sony first showed off a prototype for the stylish product. The company released the LSPX-S2 in Japan in 2019 and brought it to the US the following year. The LSPX-S3 will cost $350/£315/€350, which is around $100 cheaper than the previous model. It's not yet clear when Sony will start shipping the speaker.

Google is streamlining how Drive users backup and sync their files. The company is rolling out the new Drive for desktop app on Mac and Windows.

Drive for desktop will replace the Backup and Sync app (which supplanted the Google Drive desktop app in 2018) as well as Drive File Stream, which is for business users. Given that Google Workspace is now available to everyone, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have separate sync methods.

The new app combines the best parts of Backup and Sync and Drive File Stream, according to Google. You will be able to upload and sync your photos and videos across Google Photos as well as Drive. There's the option to sync external storage devices with the cloud as well. In addition, you'll be able to mirror Drive files on your computer, with locally stored versions of files for faster access.

On top of that, you can sync local folders such as your desktop and documents. There's also integration with Microsoft Outlook and Meet scheduling, and you'll be able to see who's editing Microsoft Office files in real time.

Drive File Stream users won't have to do much. Google renamed the app to Drive for desktop, and it will gain features from Backup and Sync in the coming months. Google will prompt Backup and Sync users to switch over to Drive for desktop. From October 1st, Backup and Sync will stop working, so you'll need to make the transition to keep backing up your files with Drive.

Apple has signed a deal with producer Alexander Rodnyansky's company AR Content to make Russian-language and multilingual shows for Apple TV+. Rodnyansky told Variety that the agreement makes Apple "the very first of all the global streaming platforms to sign a strategic partnership with a company with Russian roots."

Rodnyansky's credits include Cloud Atlas, Sin City: A Dame to Kill for and Machete Kills, but he says it's his experience and production expertise in Russia that primarily led Apple to work with him. He produced Russian films Leviathan and Beanpole, which both won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and were Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees.

The deal with Apple is for several shows, some of which will be set inside Russia. The shows will be overseen by Russian writers and directors as well as international creatives.

Rodnyansky notes streaming has helped shows made in a variety of languages and countries to become international hits. “This is an amazing time when you have Fauda in Hebrew and Arabic doing really well across multiple territories, when you have French-speaking shows like La Mante or Marianne, or German shows like Dark or Babylon Berlin crossing borders,” Rodnyansky said. “This is a time for Russian-speaking shows to do the same, or multilingual shows."

Apple has similar first-look deals in place with Ridley Scott and Ron Howard's production companies, but the AR Content pact hints at its international ambitions. Netflix, which has expanded to all but a few countries and territories, has found success in acquiring and making international content. Spanish crime drama Money Heist has been a massive hit, while French thriller Lupin is Netflix's most successful original series so far this year. Anime and Korean dramas are also growing in popularity among subscribers. Earlier this year, Netflix picked up a modern-day adaptation of Anna Karenina as its first original drama series in Russian.

It's not too surprising that Apple is looking at a similar approach to content. Apple TV+ only has a few non-English-language projects available to stream, including Tehran and Losing Alice, so there's a lot of scope for Apple to expand its library with Russian and multilingual shows.

The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have charged a man they claim sold insider trading tips on the dark web. Apostolos Trovias allegedly used anonymizing software, pseudonyms (he is said to have gone by the nickname "The Bull") and bitcoin to mask his identity.

According to the complaint, Trovias sold stock information individually and on a subscription basis on defunct black market AlphaBay and other sites on the dark web. He's said to have styled himself as a “hedge fund insider” who worked in a trading branch as an office clerk.

In 2017, not long before authorities seized and shut down AlphaBay, Trovias allegedly sold an undercover Internal Revenue Service agent pre-release earnings report information for at least one publicly traded company. He is facing one count of money laundering (which has a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison) and one count of securities fraud, which could lead to a prison sentence of 25 years if Trovias is convicted.

The complaint was filed in February but kept sealed until after Trovias was apprehended. He was arrested in Peru in May, according to a filing spotted by PCMag, which notes the US Government was working on extraditing him.

Others have been charged or convicted in connection with AlphaBay activity. In February 2020, feds charged Larry Harmon for allegedly running a $300 million bitcoin money laundering scheme. Last September, Bryan Connor Herrell was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Herrell was a moderator for AlphaBay and resolved disputes between vendors and customers. He pled guilty to conspiring to engage in a racketeer influenced corrupt organization.

The Witcher will return to Netflix almost exactly two years after the fantasy series debuted. You can stream all eight episodes of the show's second season starting on December 17th. Season one premiered on December 20th, 2019.

Season two of The Witcher will pick up where the first batch of episodes left off. Following some COVID-related delays, filming for season two wrapped in April. The release date was revealed during WitcherCon. Netflix teamed up with CD Projekt Red for an event that celebrates both the show and CDPR's games.

Netflix also revealed the titles for the season two episodes. However, the finale's title remains top secret for now. There's no sign of a proper trailer just yet, but WitcherCon (which is still running at the time of writing) will close out with an interview with star Henry Cavill and the tease of a surprise or two.

TikTok will use automation to detect and remove many of the videos that violate its policies. For the past year, the service has been testing and tweaking systems to find and take down such content. It will roll out those systems in the US and Canada over the next few weeks.

To start with, the algorithms will be on the lookout for posts that violate policies related to the safety of minors, violence, graphic content, nudity, sex, illegal activity and regulated goods. If the systems detect a violation, they'll yank the video immediately and the user who posted it can appeal. Users can still flag videos for manual review as well.

Automated reviews will be "reserved for content categories where our technology has the highest degree of accuracy," TikTok said. Only one in 20 of the videos that have been automatically removed were false positives and should have remained on the platform, according to the company. TikTok hopes to improve the algorithms' accuracy levels and notes that "requests to appeal a video's removal have remained consistent."

TikTok says automation should free up its safety staff to focus on content that requires a more nuanced approach, including videos containing bullying, harassment, misinformation and hate speech. Crucially, the systems could reduce the number of potentially distressing videos that the safety team have to watch, such as those containing extreme violence or child exploitation. Facebook, for one, has been accused of not doing enough to protect the wellbeing and mental health of content moderators who are tasked with reviewing often-disturbing content.

Elsewhere, TikTok is changing how it notifies users after they're caught breaking rules. The platform now tracks the number, severity and frequency of violations. Users will see details about those in the account updates section of their inbox. They can also view information about the consequences of their actions, such as how long they're suspended from posting or engaging with anyone else's content.

Alto's Odyssey is joining Apple Arcade on July 16th amid an expansion from the game subscription service into classic mobile titles. Developer Snowman recently revealed Apple Arcade members will get access to additional content and it teased some of that in a trailer for Alto's Odyssey: The Lost City.

The latest version of the stylish endless runner adds an urban biome to go along with the desert, canyon and temple areas. In its App Store preview, Snowman said the new area includes "special hidden challenges," but it didn't show any of those in the teaser. It only offered a brief look at the city, which adopts the game's gorgeous art style and features floating lanterns. You'll get to experience The Lost City for yourself next week — assuming you can stay on your snowboard long enough.

WhatsApp is working on a setting that will let users more easily bypass its iffy image compression and send photos and videos in the highest available fidelity. The "best quality" option will likely join "auto" and "data saver" choices in a future version of the app.

It appears users will eventually have the choice of whether to compress photos and videos to perhaps save on their data allowance, send them in the best available quality or let WhatsApp automatically select the optimal level of compression for files.

The settings are present in an update WhatsApp submitted to the Google Play Beta Program, as spotted by WABetaInfo. The options will probably arrive in the public Android build of the app, though it's not clear when — they're currently in development. It's likely the additional image quality options will come to iOS as well, since WhatsApp generally maintains the same features across both platforms.

This could come as welcome news for those who don't use the stock messaging apps on iOS or Android and often share photos and videos of their loved ones (Apple Messages retains the original image quality most of the time). Meanwhile, multi-device support is also on the way to WhatsApp.

Amazon has struck a multi-year deal for exclusive Prime Video streaming rights for Universal's live-action theatrical releases. As Deadline reports, it's the first time Amazon has struck such a deal with a major US studio. The deal kicks in with Universal's 2022 slate of movies.

Here's where things might get a little confusing. The deal is for a chunk of the pay-one window, which is the 18-month period after a movie's theatrical run. Earlier this week, Universal and its NBCUniversal sibling Peacock reached a similar agreement for the first four and last four months of the window.

Within four months of their theatrical release date, Universal's live-action movies will start streaming on Peacock. Four months after that, they'll move over to Prime Video for 10 months, then the films will go back to Peacock for at least another four months. Streaming rights can get pretty complicated!

The deal covers blockbusters such as Jurassic World: Dominion, Get Out director Jordan Peele's next horror film and Halloween Ends. Movies from Focus Features and Blumhouse are also part of the pact.

As for Universal's animated movies from Illumination and DreamWorks, those currently stream on Netflix. For the 2022 and later release slate, according to Deadline, Netflix might hang onto the streaming rights for Universal's animated flicks for the 10 months of the pay-one window that they're not on Peacock. In any case, the movies will later hit Prime Video. 

Meanwhile, Amazon's free streaming service IMDb TV will have exclusive streaming rights for 2020 and 2021 theatrical movies from Universal. The deal covers current box office champ F9 and The Invisible Man, along with some older animated movies like Despicable Me 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Shrek 2.

The Prime Video deal follows a major agreement between Netflix and Sony Pictures. Starting in 2022, Netflix will have exclusive rights to Sony's theatrical releases for the 18-month pay-one window. So, movies like Uncharted, the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel and Morbius are all Netflix-bound.

Instacart has hired a top Facebook executive as its next CEO. Fidji Simo will take over the delivery service's top job on August 2nd, replacing founder Apoorva Mehta, who is moving into the executive chairman role. Simo joined Instacart's board in January.

Simo has worked at Facebook for a decade. She moved up through the ranks to become head of the Facebook app in 2019. She helped video to become a key part of Facebook through her work on Facebook Live and Watch, as well as News Feed videos that autoplay. Simo previously worked on local commerce and classified ads at eBay.

Although many businesses struggled amid the impact of COVID-19, it was a boom time for Instacart as people turned to delivery apps in droves to order groceries. The company hired hundreds of thousands of shoppers to fill orders in the early days of the pandemic, though workers went on strike over a lack of safety equipment. Reports suggest Instacart is looking to go public, perhaps later this year.