South Korean president President Yoon Suk Yeol has pardoned Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee and has cleared him of bribery charges in hopes of revitalizing the country's economy. Lee was originally sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 after being found guilty of bribing public officials to back the merger of two Samsung affiliates, which would have solidified his control over the tech giant. He walked free after a year in detention, but the South Korean Supreme Court overturned that decision and ordered the case to be retried. 

While Lee was sentenced with two-and-a-half years of prison time in early 2021 in that retrial, he was paroled half a year later in a development that civic groups had described as another example of the justice system being lenient towards the country's elite. Now, Lee doesn't have to worry about being sent to prison on bribery charges again — the presidential pardon even allows him to rejoin Samsung's board and to travel overseas to close deals. He was previously not allowed to take on an official role at Samsung under the conditions of his parole, even though the company's executives had been keeping him apprised of the latest developments. 

According to Bloomberg, Lee is now expected to make major strategic decisions for the tech giant, including deals related to chipmaking. The Korean government said in a statement:

"In a bid to overcome the economic crisis by vitalizing the economy, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, whose suspended prison term was ended recently, will be reinstated."

Similarly, Justice Minister Han Dong Hoon said at a briefing:

"With urgent needs to overcome the national economic crisis, we carefully selected economic leaders who lead the national growth engine through active technology investment and job creation to be pardoned."

In its latest earnings report, Samsung posted a 12 percent profit increase due to weak mobile and PC demand, which it blamed on "geopolitical issues and concerns over inflation on top of continued weak seasonality." The company also expects demand for consumer devices to stay weak over the coming months. 

As Bloomberg said, it's unclear if Lee intends to take over as Samsung's chairman, which has been a vacant position since his father Lee Kun-hee passed away in 2020. It's worth noting that Lee still isn't completely free of legal problems, though, and could still face jail time if he's found guilty in a separate case of fraud and stock manipulation. He will continue attending hearings related to that case.

Amazon's Echo Show 15 comes with a digital photo frame picture that enables it to display only photos or artwork, uninterrupted by random Alexa skill suggestions, recipes or your schedule. Only the 15.6-inch had that feature, though — until now. According to The Verge, the e-commerce giant has recently added its dedicated photo frame feature to all Echo Show Models in the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia.

The Verge says you can activate the slideshow by saying the voice command: "Alexa, start Photo Frame." Your smart display will then start a slideshow using the contents of your Amazon Photos and your Facebook account. It can also display a random selection of stock images if you've yet to upload your personal photos or have yet to link your accounts with the device. Don't worry: You can choose which album the feature uses for the slideshow under device settings if there are certain images you'd rather not show everyone else in your home.

The photo frame mode hides all the other elements you usually see on an Echo Show display, including the weather. All you'll see are the images themselves and a small note on when they were taken and which album they're from. The said, the slideshow only lasts uninterrupted for three hours, after which you'll have to activate it again to turn your device into a digital photo frame.

Meta has long been working on end-to-end encryption for its messaging products, but so far, only WhatsApp has switched on the privacy feature by default. In its latest update about its efforts, Meta said it will start testing default end-to-end encrypted chats for select users on Messenger. Those chosen to be part of the test will find that some of their most frequent chats have been automatically end-to-end encrypted. That means there's no reason to start "Secret Conversations" with those friends anymore. 

The company is also testing secure storage for encrypted chats, which gives users access to their conversation history in case they lose their phone or want to restore it on a new device. To be able to access their backups through security storage, users will have to create a PIN or generate codes that they'll then have to save. Those two are end-to-end encrypted options and provide another layer of protection. That said, users can also opt to use cloud services to restore conversations — those with iOS devices, for instance, can use iCloud to store the secret key needed to access their backups. Meta will also begin testing secure storage this week, but only on Android and iOS. It's still not available for Messenger on the web or for unencrypted chats. 

Meta

The other tests Meta is rolling out in the coming weeks include bringing regular Messenger features to end-to-end encrypted chats. It will test the ability to unsend messages and to send replies to Facebook Stories as encrypted chats, and it's also planning to bring end-to-end encrypted calls to the Calls Tab on Messenger. Ray-Ban Stories users will be able to send encrypted hands-free messages through Messenger, as well.

In addition, Meta is launching a new security feature called Code Verify, which is an open-source browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge. As its name implies, it can verify the authenticity of the Messenger website's web code and ensure that it hasn't been tampered with. As for Instagram, the company is retiring the app's vanish mode chats, which aren't encrypted, while also expanding ongoing tests for opt-in end-to-end encrypted messages and calls on the service. 

All of these are part of Meta's preparations as it works its way towards the global rollout of default end-to-end encryption for messages and calls on its services. It plans to launch even more tests and updates before its target rollout sometime in 2023.

Google Fiber's expansion activities have always been deliberately slow, but there was a time when it was announcing new coverage areas on a more regular basis. Now, Dinni Jain, the Alphabet subsidiary's CEO, has announced Fiber's first expansion plans in years. The company has been working on connecting West Des Moines to its network, making Iowa its first new state in five years, and will soon start building infrastructure in Des Moines. In July, it announced that it's building a network in Mesa, Arizona, and now it has revealed that the service is also making its way to Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada and Idaho.

According to Reuters, the company decided on its new locations based on its findings on where internet speeds lag the most. These new locations will be Fiber's main focus over the next several years, though it will continue expanding availability in cities where it already has a network, as well. Jain told the news organization in his first interview since he took on the role of Fiber's CEO: "There was an impression 10 years ago that Google Fiber was trying to build the entire country. What we are gesturing here is, 'No, we are not trying to build the entire country.'"

Since some Alphabet subsidiaries have had to raise funding outside of its parent company, Jain was asked where Fiber would get the money for its planned expansion. He declined to talk about the company's financial results or funding sources, though he said: Alphabet's "intent is to build businesses that will be successful in and of their own right and that is what we are trying to do at Google Fiber for sure." As Reuters notes, Fiber had to pare down activities to lower its usual hundreds of millions of dollars in annual losses due to construction, experimentation and subsidizing home service over the past few years. It even minimized its West Des Moines expansion and stuck to making its service more available in metropolitan areas where it already has a network. 

Jain's blog post about Fiber's upcoming locations, however, sounds optimistic. He says the company is "thrilled to be expanding [its] geographic reach once again." Also, while Fiber's focus is on the states it has already announced, he said the company would still love to talk to and support communities that want to build their own fiber networks. 

You know that highlighted piece of text at the very top of a Google search results page when you look up a piece of information? That's called a "featured snippet," and it's meant to provide you with a quick answer to your query. Now, Google is making sure that the information it highlights is reliable and accurate by using its latest AI model, the Multitask Unified Model, so that Search can now look for consensus when deciding on a snippet to feature.

Google's Search AI can now check snippet callouts — those are the information with larger fonts that serve as heading for featured snippets — against other high-quality sources online. It can figure out if there's a general consensus for that callout, even if sources use different words or concepts to describe the same fact or idea. Google says this "consensus-based technique has meaningfully improved the quality and helpfulness of featured snippet callouts."

Google featured snippet

But for some queries, such as those with false premises, displaying features snippets isn't the best way to deliver information. To address that issue, Google tweaked its Search AI so that this particular update reduces the triggering of snippets for those types of queries by 40 percent.  

Google is now also making its "About this result" tool more accessible. That's the panel that pops up when you click on the three dots next to a result, showing you details about the source website before you even visit. Starting later this year, it will be available in eight more languages, including Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and Indonesian. It's adding more information to the tool starting this week, as well, including how widely a publication is circulated, online reviews about a company, or whether a company is owned by another entity. They're all pieces of information that could help you decide whether a particular source is trustworthy. 

Finally, in case Google's AI has determined that the overall results for a search query may have questionable quality, the results page will now display a content advisory. "It looks like there aren't many great results for this search," the advisory will say, telling you to check the source you're looking at or to try other search terms. It could help you stay alert and be on the lookout for potential fake information while checking the results the website had presented.

Spotify has quietly debuted a new website where fans can purchase tickets to their favorite artists' concerts directly from the streaming platform. There's no fanfare surrounding Spotify Tickets' launch, because it's strictly a test product at the moment, and it's only selling pre-sale tickets to a limited number of artists' upcoming events. The portal's debut artists include Limbeck, Annie DiRusso, Dirty Honey, Crows, TOKiMONSTA, Four Year Strong and Osees. According to MusicAlly, the tickets Spotify will start selling today will come from the artists' pre-sale allocations for upcoming concerts.

The music streaming service already has an in-app Live Events Feed where it links to ticketing partners, including Ticketmaster, AXS, DICE, Eventbrite and See Tickets. As TechCrunch notes, the events listed on the new website aren't available on the Live Events Feed yet, though that could change in the future. Spotify Tickets' official support page says that the company sells tickets on behalf of event partners, such as venues, event promoters, fan clubs and artists themselves. That means those partners set the tickets' prices, but Spotify will charge a booking fee that it promises to make clear to buyers before they hit the purchase button.

The service could become an important revenue stream from artists who'd rather sell their own tickets. It could also help ensure that tickets are purchased by real fans and not by scalpers. The service's support page says buyers may not "resell, assign or transfer" tickets except in select states. And since buyers will need to present a government-issued ID to enter an event, they'll have to transfer ownership of a ticket if they do decide to sell it. The process is quite involved and requires sellers to contact Spotify to change the name associated with a ticket.

Spotify told us it doesn't have much to share at the moment, since the service is just a test. There's no official launch date — or even assurances that it will make its way out of the testing phase — for the product right now. The spokesperson said: "At Spotify, we routinely test new products and ideas to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings. Tickets.spotify.com is our latest test. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time."

Samsung's 1TB T7 Shield SSD is back to its all-time low price of $100, or $60 less than what it usually sells for on Amazon. The last time it was listed for $100 on the website was on Prime Day in July — if you missed the chance to get one at the time and now need a rugged SSD for whatever reason, you may want to head on over to its product page. The T7 Shield is a tougher version of its standard counterpart, one that's encased in a rubber casing to give it the durability needed to survive up to 9.8-foot drops. That rubber exterior with its Dynamic Thermal Guard also prevents overheating so it suffers no performance drops even while transferring massive files. In addition, the T7 Shield is resistant to water and dust.

When it comes to performance, the T7 Shield has sequential read speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,000 MB/s, which Samsung says are the fastest transfer speeds available today based on the USB 3.2 Gen2 standard. It employs the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard so it can keep your data secure in case you lose it. And while it only has one USB-C port, it comes with a USB Type C-to-C and a Type C-to-A cable.

Take note that the model on sale for $100 right now is the 1TB version, but you can also get the 2TB variant at a discount. The bigger capacity SSD is currently listed for $200, which is $90 less than its normal price. Both versions are available in blue, black and beige. 

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SpaceX has cleared an important hurdle that brings it closer to the Starship system's first orbital flight test. The company has successfully completed a static fire test of the Super Heavy's current prototype, the Booster 7, a month after its previous attempt ended up in in flames. SpaceX used the Booster 7 for this test again but fired only a single Raptor engine on the orbital launch pad, igniting it for a few seconds to give engineers a close look at how it's performing. 

The Booster 7 is equipped with 33 Raptor version 2 engines meant to give it lift it needs to launch both the first stage itself and its upper stage companion, the Starship spacecraft. During the company's previous static fire test attempt, the booster caught fire on the launch pad. Company chief Elon Musk revealed on Twitter back then that the issue had stemmed from the engine spin start test SpaceX had conducted and that going forward, the company "won't do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once" anymore.

In addition to testing Booster 7, SpaceX also did a static fire test on two of the six Raptor engines on Starship 24. That's the current prototype for the launch system's upper stage, and it's what will fly to space for the system's first orbital flight test. It's still unclear when SpaceX intends to send the Starship to orbit for the first time, but it likely has to conduct more testing before that happens, including static firing more of its Raptor engines. 

Google may soon be facing its second antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice. According to Bloomberg, the DOJ is gearing up to sue the tech giant as soon as September after a year of looking into whether it's been using its dominant position to illegally control the digital ad market. The Justice Department's lawyers have reportedly been conducting another round of interviews to glean additional information that could help make their case stronger. These new interviews are expected to build on previous ones conducted much earlier on in the investigation. 

The Justice Department first filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company back in 2020, accusing it of having an unfair monopoly over search and search-related advertising. For that particular case, the agency argued that forcing Android phone manufacturers to set Google as the default search engine prevents rivals from gaining traction and ensures that the company will earn an enormous amount of money from search-related advertising. 

In the same year, Texas filed a multi-state lawsuit against Google, with the state's Attorney General accusing the company of using its "monopolistic power to control" ad pricing. The company's ad practices are under scrutiny not just in the US but in other parts of the world: The European Commission also opened a probe to look into whether Google limits rival services' access to user data for ad purposes last year. As a concession to the EU's concerns, Reuters reported in June that Google may let rival ad platforms run ads on YouTube.

While the DOJ has yet to officially file its case, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels defended the company's ad business in a statement to Bloomberg, which says: "Our advertising technologies help websites and apps fund their content, and enable small businesses to reach customers around the world. The enormous competition in online advertising has made online ads more relevant, reduced ad tech fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers."

When Intel introduced the Arc branding last year for its high-performance consumer graphics products, it demonstrated what the line's GPUs can do using video games. The company's latest Arc GPUs, however, aren't for gaming at all: They were designed for desktop and mobile workstations running apps like Adobe Premiere Pro, Handbrake and DaVinci Resolve Studio. Intel has launched its Arc Pro lineup with three models, starting with the Arc Pro A40 that has a "tiny, single-slot form factor." The Arc Pro A50 is a step up and has a larger dual-slot form, while the A30M was made specifically for laptops. 

All three models offer built-in ray tracing and machine learning capabilities, but their key specs differ a bit from each other. The A40 and the A30M, for instance, have 3.50 teraflops of graphical power, while the A50 has 4.80 teraflops. Both desktop models come with 6GB of memory, wheres the one for laptops comes with 4GB. Plus, all models support AV1 hardware encoding acceleration in what Intel says is an industry first. The new GPUs also have four mini-display ports for multiple screen setups and can support two 8K displays with a refresh rate of 60Hz, one 5K 240Hz display, two 5K 120 Hz displays or four 60 Hz 4K displays.

Intel has yet to reveal how much these new discrete GPUs for workstations will cost, but it said they will be available starting later this year "from leading mobile and desktop ecosystem partners."