The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into how Twitter (now X) handled a security issue in 2018 that led to users' personal information being exposed. The bug allowed people to view email addresses when passwords were reset, potentially exposing user identities, according to Bloomberg. The report notes that the SEC has been investigating whether those in charge of the company at the time properly disclosed the flaws to shareholders and put proper controls in place.

Attention was drawn to the flaw last year while Elon Musk was trying to wriggle out of his commitment to buy Twitter. Musk asserted that Twitter had long been contending with operational issues (it has had to deal with multiple security incidents over the last five years) and that it hadn't properly protected user data. 

Just as Musk was attempting to wash his hands of his takeover bid, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, Twitter's former head of security, flagged a number of concerns about the company to the SEC, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission last August in a whistleblower complaint. He claimed Twitter had "extreme, egregious deficiencies" when it came to protecting the platform against attacks. 

Zatko accused Twitter of violating the agreement it made with the FTC in 2011 to settle a previous privacy case. Of note, Twitter last year agreed to pay $150 million to settle FTC charges that it violated said consent decree by misusing user phone numbers and email addresses for ad targeting.

Jack Dorsey was CEO of Twitter at the time of the incident that the SEC is said to be looking into. His successor, Parag Agrawal, was then chief technology officer. None of Twitter's executives at the time have been accused of wrongdoing, according to Bloomberg. The outlet notes that it's not clear when the SEC will wrap up its probe or if any enforcement action is expected as a result.

Meanwhile, the SEC has sued Musk for refusing to testify in a separate case. That one concerns Musk's delay in disclosing his purchase of over five percent of Twitter stock in early 2022.

Editor's note: This article contains mild spoilers for Assassin's Creed Mirage.

The deeper I got into Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the more a sense of warm nostalgia washed over me. It felt like a cozy hug from an old friend. A comforting, bloody embrace.

The latest entry in Ubisoft's long-running open-world adventure franchise takes the series back to its roots. Mirage mostly forgoes the RPG approach Ubisoft adopted in the last three main games: Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. I'd only played the latter of those and it didn't click for me, largely because of Ubisoft's propensity to ovestuff its games and partially because it strayed so far away from the earlier titles.

Some of Valhalla's DNA carries over to Mirage, which shouldn't be surprising as the latest game was originally envisioned as an expansion to the last 100-plus-hour epic. There is some loot to hunt for in the form of swords, daggers and outfits that give protagonist Basim some small upgrades, such as reducing the level of notoriety he gains while carrying out illegal actions or passively regenerating some health. These items are upgradable, as are your tools. One neat, if unrealistic perk, makes an enemy disintegrate after Basim eliminates them with a throwing knife. So, you can tweak your build to fit your playstyle to a certain degree.

Ubisoft

There are skill trees too, but rather than unlocking things like a slight increase to the damage Basim deals, the abilities here are genuinely impactful. Pinpointing opponents and important items from further away, reducing fall damage and a chain assassination ability are all super useful tools for Basim to have in his belt.

Ubisoft has pulled back quite a bit on the RPG elements of the previous few games. You won’t be using bows, shields or two-handed weapons as you might in Valhalla, for instance. Still, there's just enough customization for folks who want to optimize (or min/max) Basim for the way they like to play.

"Just enough" is a thought I kept coming back to in the 17 hours it took me to beat the main story. Mirage is just the right length. There are just enough collectibles and side-quests to make the world feel rich but not overwhelming. There's just enough to the story, which is fairly by-the-numbers though gets more intriguing in the last couple of hours. There's just enough variety to the enemies.

There are only a few enemy types, and I love that Mirage doesn't go down the well-worn and nonsensical path of arbitrarily making them stronger based on their geographical location — an aspect of Dead Island 2 I greatly disliked. Although Basim largely has to make do with his sword and dagger (and, of course, the Hidden Blade), enemies have a variety of weapons. A trio of goons will pose a different threat when they have spears instead of swords. You'll have to navigate that melange of weaponry carefully, especially so when enemies surround you. Putting an onus on that and the level design for encounters helps make Mirage feel like more of a refreshing throwback.

Ubisoft

In the main missions, I only encountered one traditional boss fight toward the end of the story. Practically every other enemy was susceptible to a single-button slaying. I absolutely made the most of that by sneaking up on assassination targets or distracting them with noise-making devices. The game actually discourages open combat, anyway. You won't gain experience points by killing tons of enemies. Staying stealthy is usually the way to go — unless you're a completionist, since there's a trophy/achievement that requires you to stay in open combat for 10 minutes. Thankfully, the game makes it fairly easy for you to slink around.

Contrary to my first impressions, the guards of Baghdad aren't all that smart. They'll often be briefly puzzled when they encounter the dead body of a colleague they were chatting with seconds earlier before walking away. They'll quickly give up on a hunt for Basim. They'll see a cohort being yanked around a corner and think nothing of it. That breaks the immersion a bit, but it does make it easier to mess with these idiots.

I took some delight in tormenting my opponents, even if that may not match up to the code of conduct the assassins live by. One larger grunt was trapped in a room alone to guard a chest. I entered, used a smoke bomb to distract him, opened the chest and left, blocking the path behind me. I then made my way around to a gate that kept the guard locked in from the other side and spent a few minutes whistling at him, for no reason other than to annoy him and amuse myself.

The real star of the show is the version of ninth-century Baghdad Ubisoft has built. It feels rich and lived-in, with bystanders simply going about their day as a hooded figure darts by them to climb up the side of a building. Unfortunately, that level of detail wasn't reflected in the character models. Main characters and NPCs alike looked far less refined than their surroundings.

Ubisoft

Some Arab critics and reviewers appreciated how Ubisoft represented Baghdad and Muslim culture in the game, and that's a positive sign. In that sense, Mirage seems like a prime candidate for the historical educational modes that Ubisoft has added to recent Assassin's Creed games.

I can't personally speak to the authenticity of the environment Ubisoft has created. The same goes for the Arabic used in the game, but the developers at least strove to avoid anachronisms. I spent an hour or so playing in Arabic with English subtitles and found it a compelling way to experience the game, though I missed hearing the velvet-voiced Shohreh Aghdashloo's portrayal of Basim's mentor Roshan too much.

Aghdashloo's performance is one of several highlights of a solid game. Developer Ubisoft Bordeaux has achieved what it set out to do in bringing back the format of early Assassin's Creed titles while adding some modern bells and whistles (such as a gameplay option to avoid the turgid pickpocketing minigame) and avoiding some of the old trappings.

No part of the game that I've encountered is set in the modern day. That's a wise move, since those parts of previous games pulled me out of the main experience and into some tedious sections that sought to serve a larger story. I didn't hear the word "animus" once this time around. Mirage does tie back into the broader Assassin's Creed narrative — Basim makes an appearance in Valhalla, after all — but you won't get sidetracked by Desmond Miles or Layla Hassan. That meant I could spend more of my time roaming the streets and rooftops of this well-crafted city, scouting enemy camps from above and figuring out the best way to approach an assassination mission.

Mirage probably won't be for everyone, including those who appreciated the format of the last three big Assassin's Creed games, but it struck a chord with me. Even though I've wrapped up the main story and have a bunch of other games to play (I'm looking at you, Cocoon and Spider-Man 2), I'll probably spend a little while longer nuzzled up in the comfort of Mirage.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is out now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It's coming to iPhone 15 Pro devices next year.

Few tech companies have embraced generative AI as wholeheartedly as Adobe. At Adobe Max, its annual creativity conference, it unveiled a new version of the Firefly GAI model. Not only that, the company announced more GAI features for Adobe Express, just weeks after making Firefly more broadly available in the app.

Adobe Express now includes features such as Generative Fill. This enables users to add, remove or replace items, people and other aspects of images using text prompts. On a similar note, the Text to Template function can help users generate editable templates for things like graphics and social media posts based on text descriptions. Text to Template is powered by the new Firefly Design Model, which Adobe says will generate content that's safe for commercial use.

On top of that, Express now offers a GAI-powered translation tool. Translate can localize content between 45 languages, Adobe says. Meanwhile, new Drawing and Painting functions enable more than 50 multicolor paint and decorative brushes. These can mimic things like charcoal, pencil and watercolor textures. The company also noted student-friendly drawing templates that are available in Express for Education can make it easy to create effects like flowers and hearts.

A handy resize tool will make it a cinch for folks to automatically get multiple versions of a design to fit all social channels, Adobe said. Meanwhile, you'll be able to use the app to directly schedule and share videos to the likes of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and X.

Adobe isn't exactly stopping with Express. At Max, it announced more than 100 new features across its main Adobe Creative Cloud applications. These include additional Firefly-powered tools for Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as new editing capabilities in Lightroom.

X (formerly Twitter) has made changes to its policy on newsworthy posts to allow more content that would ordinarily violate its rules to remain on the platform. The company made the modifications amid the conflict in and around the West Bank.

Until now, the company would only grant a newsworthiness exception to accounts that had at least 100,000 followers. X has removed that threshold, as TechCrunch reports. The latest version of the policy stipulates that “high profile” accounts are eligible for a newsworthiness exception. The account in question also needs to represent "a current or potential member of a local, state, national or supra-national governmental or legislative body." Only elected officials and government figures have historically been eligible for the exemption.

X’s Safety account noted there’s been an upswing in daily active users in the region in recent days and that users have posted more than 50 million times about the conflict. The platform said that it was focused on “protecting the conversation on X” as the situation unfolds.

“Over the weekend, we updated our Public Interest Policy,” the company said. “We know that it's sometimes incredibly difficult to see certain content, especially in moments like the one unfolding. In these situations, X believes that, while difficult, it's in the public's interest to understand what's happening in real time.”

X also said it had removed “newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts” and is working with partners to reduce the spread of “terrorist content.” However, the change to the newsworthiness policy could enable more misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict (and other issues) to remain on X when it previously would have been yanked.

The company appears to be taking a more hands-off approach to misinformation in general under owner Elon Musk. It’s relying more on Community Notes to crowdsource contextual information about posts that may be false or misleading.

According to The Information, X killed off a tool in recent months that helped to tackle coordinated misinformation campaigns by detecting when multiple accounts shared the same piece of potentially doctored or mislabelled media. The company is said to have made that move to cut costs.

X flagged several false and misleading posts regarding the conflict, including ones with a video that claimed to show Israeli airstrikes against Hamas. However, a review by CNBC found that the platform’s systems did not detect many other posts with the same video and caption. The tool X recently shut down may have helped in that regard.

Amazon's October Prime Day event (aka Prime Big Deal Days) is upon us, bringing forth discounts aplenty on a wide range of products. Among the deals that may be of interest to you are hefty savings on Samsung's Galaxy S23 devices, which are some of the best smartphones around. In fact, several models have dipped to record-low prices. For one thing, the Galaxy S23 Ultra has dropped to $950 for a version with 256GB of storage. That's $250 off the regular price.

We gave the Galaxy S23 Ultra, Samsung's high-end smartphone, a score of 89 in our review back in February. The excellent display, strong performance, better cameras and long battery life were all major plus points. Having a built-in S Pen is great too. However, Samsung didn't quite innovate enough on the design front this time around, as the phone looks much the same as last year's model. The lack of S Pen upgrades was a disappointment as well. We dinged Samsung for the price too, but given the current sale, that's less of an issue.

Elsewhere, you can save on the Galaxy S23+ with 256GB of storage. That has dropped from $1,000 to $800, so you'll save $200. It's probably worth the upgrade if you've been clinging onto an older model for a few years or you're outside the US, where Samsung has finally started using Snapdragon processors in the Galaxy lineup (switching away from arguably less-efficient Exynos chips). 

This is a solid handset that checks most of the basic boxes in terms of the screen, performance and battery life. It's just more of an iterative update than anything that will blow an S22 user away.

Last but not least, the base S23 has dropped by $150 from $800 to $650. It obviously doesn't have as many bells and whistles as the S23+ or S23 Ultra, but if you're in the market for a newish phone that handles all the basics, this is a decent option.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that Samsung is set to release the Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) later this month. It has a larger display and battery than the standard S23, and it's also cheaper at $600.

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Despite what Jules Verne may have you believe, it's not exactly possible to journey to the center of the Earth. As such, it's pretty difficult to gain a full understanding of what the core of our planet looks like. NASA is trying the next best thing. 

It's set to launch a mission to an asteroid that's understood to be largely made up of iron and nickel. In fact, this metal-rich asteroid, which is called 16 Psyche, is believed to once have been part of a planetary core. This is the first NASA mission to study an asteroid that has more metal than rock or ice.

Launch for the Psyche mission is targeted for 10:16AM ET on Thursday. The spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida (this will be the first of several NASA science missions in which the primary payload will launch on one of those rockets). You can watch a live stream of the launch below.

The Psyche spacecraft is around the size of a small van. As soon as it reaches the asteroid, it will start sending images of 16 Psyche back to Earth. It's equipped with a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer and a multispectral imager to study the asteroid. It will spend around two years snapping photos, mapping the asteroid's surface and collecting data to gain a better understanding of 16 Psyche’s composition.

The spacecraft, which is powered by solar electric propulsion, is expected to reach 16 Psyche (which is in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) in July 2029. If NASA had been ready to launch the mission last year, as was previously the plan, it might have been able to reach 16 Psyche as early as 2026.

NASA understands that the 173-mile wide 16 Psyche asteroid may, in fact, not be an exposed core of a planetesimal, an early planetary building block. The agency says that it might instead be the "leftover piece of a completely different kind of iron-rich body that formed from metal-rich material somewhere in the solar system."

The spacecraft will have a second job to do. It will also test new laser communications tech from NASA JPL called Deep Space Optical Communications. This is said to be able to transfer data and images at least 10 times faster than conventional systems. The experiment will test how capable the system is of transmitting data at faster rates beyond the Moon. However, it won't be used to send back any Psyche mission data.

Amazon's first satellite launch was a success, according to United Launch Alliance. The aerospace manufacturer's Atlas V rocket took the first two Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit on Friday. The mission, which is named Protoflight, lifted off at 2:06PM ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 

Amazon has been working on Project Kuiper, its Starlink-esque internet satellite initiative, for quite some time. It previously planned to launch the prototypes by the end of last year.

The company sees Protoflight as a key learning opportunity, giving it the chance to record real-world (or, more accurately, offworld) data from space and add that to findings from lab and field testing. Amazon expects to gain more insight into how the network will perform across ground and space. This is also a test of satellite processing, launch and mission operations. Once the mission is over, Amazon will actively deorbit both satellites before they burn up in the atmosphere.

“We’ve done extensive testing here in our lab and have a high degree of confidence in our satellite design, but there’s no substitute for on-orbit testing,” Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s vice president of technology, said. “This is Amazon’s first time putting satellites into space, and we’re going to learn an incredible amount regardless of how the mission unfolds.”

Amazon says the aim of Project Kuiper is to offer fast and affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities across the world. It plans to deploy more than 3,200 satellites over the next six years after it obtained FCC approval, and the KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 prototypes are the first iterations. It expects to launch production satellites in the first half of 2024 and start beta tests with some customers by the end of next year.

If you missed the launch, you can watch a replay of the livestream below. The rocket launches at around 26:05 into the video.

A UK regulator has raised concerns that Snap’s AI chatbot may be putting the privacy of kids at risk. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the country’s privacy watchdog, issued a preliminary enforcement notice against the company over a “potential failure to properly assess the privacy risks posed by its generative AI chatbot ‘My AI’.”

Information Commissioner John Edwards said the ICO’s provisional findings from its investigation indicated a “worrying failure by Snap to adequately identify and assess the privacy risks to children and other users” before rolling out My AI. The ICO noted that if Snap fails to sufficiently address its concerns, it may block the ChatGPT-powered chatbot in the UK.

However, the preliminary notice doesn’t necessarily mean that the ICO will take action against Snap or that the company has violated data protection laws. It will consider submissions from Snap before it makes a final decision.

"My AI went through a robust legal and privacy review process before being made publicly available," a Snap spokesperson told Reuters. "We will continue to work constructively with the ICO to ensure they're comfortable with our risk assessment procedures."

The ICO says that, as of May, Snapchat had 21 million monthly active users in the UK, with many of those aged between 13 and 17. The regulator pointed out that My AI marked the first instance of a generative AI system being added to a major messaging platform in the country. The feature debuted for Snapchat+ subscribers in February, then Snap enabled it for all UK users in April.

Soon after Snap rolled out the chatbot, parents raised concerns about My AI, and not only over privacy considerations. “I don’t think I’m prepared to know how to teach my kid how to emotionally separate humans and machines when they essentially look the same from her point of view,” a mother of a 13-year-old told CNN in April. “I just think there is a really clear line [Snapchat] is crossing.”

The ICO has issued hefty fines against social media platforms in the past for mishandling kids' data. It slapped TikTok with a £12.7 million ($15.8 million) penalty earlier this year after determining the platform breached data protection laws, including over its handling of kids' personal information.

Lucid has unveiled its most affordable Air EV trim yet. A rear-wheel drive variant of the Lucid Air Pure is available now for a starting price of $77,400. Lucid says this version, which is $5,000 less than the dual-motor all-wheel drive model, completes its Air lineup.

The brand is well-known for offering a large range in its EVs and it hasn't skimped in that department here. When equipped with 19-inch wheels, the Air Pure RWD has a range of 410 miles, according to the automaker. The Environmental Protection Agency gave it an even more generous range estimate of 419 miles.

However you slice it, Lucid claims the Air Pure RWD has a larger range than any other electric car on the market save for its own models. The lineup tops out with the Lucid Air Grand Touring, which has an EPA-estimated range of 516 miles.

You won't have to hang around by a charger for too long to top up your battery either. Lucid says the Air Pure RWD can add 150 miles of range after being plugged into a DC fast charger for less than 12 minutes.

The EV has Lucid's most compact battery pack to date, which helps give those in the back seat more legroom, according to the automaker. Lucid also claims this model is the most aerodynamic car that's in production right now.

The Air Pure RWD comes with Apple CarPlay, a 34-inch curved Glass Cockpit display, heated front and rear seats and steering wheel, DreamDrive driver assistance systems and the Lucid UX digital environment all as standard. While it's still a pricey vehicle, the Air Pure RWD lowers the barrier to entry for those looking to hop into a Lucid EV.

Sony has released its own movie streaming app for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. You'll be able to buy and rent movies through the Sony Pictures Core app, but there's a decent perk for subscribers of PlayStation Plus Premium and Deluxe (a version of Premium that's available in select markets).

Members will get access to a library of up to 100 ad-free Sony Pictures films at no extra cost. Sony says the lineup includes movies such as Looper, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, Elysium and Resident Evil Damnation. The library will receive periodic updates. The company also plans to add some anime content from Crunchyroll to Sony Pictures Core, and it notes that benefits for all PS Plus subscribers are on the way.

Many observers have long suggested that Sony should grant PS Plus subscribers the ability to stream some movies as part of the subscription, so it's nice that's finally happening. Given Sony's big push to turn its gaming franchises into movies and TV shows, it makes more sense than ever to offer that perk. On the other hand, Sony announced this update only a few weeks after it increased the price of the annual PS Plus Premium plan from $120 to $160.

PS4 and PS5 users will be able to buy some Sony Pictures films during an early access window. Right now, folks in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can buy Gran Turismo through their console before it's available for digital purchase elsewhere. Snap up that film through Sony Pictures Core, and you'll get in-game credits for Gran Turismo 7 too.

The app has been available on Bravia TVs and some Xperia devices for a while. Until now, the app has been called Bravia Core, but Sony is rebranding it on those devices next year.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the PlayStation version of the app includes one of the key features that Bravia and Xperia users have been able to enjoy. On those devices, the Bravia Core app employs Sony's Pure Stream tech, which can stream video at up to 80 Mbps. For comparison, Netflix recommends speeds of up to 25 Mbps for 4K video. Sony says the higher bit rate enables it to offer “near lossless” video streaming at a quality akin to 4K Blu-ray discs. That claim more or less holds up: I found that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse looks astoundingly good with Pure Stream enabled.

However, as things stand, there are no video quality settings in the Sony Pictures Core app on PlayStation devices. Here's hoping Sony enables Pure Stream there in the future.