Apple technicians will decline to fix iPhones that had been reported as stolen or lost, according to MacRumors. The tech giant has reportedly sent out a memo to Apple Stores and authorized providers not to accept a device for repair if they get a notice on their internal MobileGenius or GSX systems that the phone had been marked as missing. Presumably, that means technicians will check a device's IMEI against the GSMA Device Registry when a customer brings it in for repair. 

The GSMA registry is a global database where owners can register their devices' IMEI and designate a status for them, such as whether they'd been lost, stolen or were fraudulently obtained. This move expands Apple's existing policy to decline repairs for devices whose owners cannot disable the Find My iPhone feature. It could discourage more people from buying second-hand devices outside of official and authorized sources in case they unknowingly end up with a stolen unit. That said, users could just as easily go to a third-party repair shop that doesn't care where they got their devices from. 

Apple's iPhones have become increasingly cost-prohibitive over the years, giving rise to a market for second-hand units. According to a recent Bloomberg report, though, the tech giant is working on a subscription service for the iPhone and other hardware to make regular upgrades more accessible with monthly fees and no huge upfront costs. 

While bats have been closely associated with vampires for centuries, there are actually only three species of bats that drink blood. Most of them eat fruits, insects, nectar and small animals, like frogs and fish, instead. Blood is low in calories, while being rich in iron, protein and little else, making it a terrible, terrible food source. Now, a team of scientists has figured out how and why those vampire bat species are the only mammals that can live solely on a diet of blood.

Upon comparing the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other species, the scientists found 13 genes in the blood-sucking mammals that either no longer work or are missing. Three of those losses had been reported in another study published in 2014, with all of them indicating a reduced sense of taste reception in vampire bats. The remaining 10 gene losses are new discoveries, according to the team.

The loss of a gene called REP15 indicates enhanced iron uptake in the animals' gastrointestinal cells, which they also shed and excrete quickly. This prevents iron overload that can have severe detrimental effects. The absence of two other genes allow glucose to remain longer in the bats' bodies and prevent hypoglycemia, since blood contains minimal carbohydrates. Another absent gene might also be the consequence of the "extensive morphological and physiological modifications" in the stomach of common vampire bats. Instead of being a muscular organ, their stomachs are expandable structures used to store large amounts of liquid and serve as a major site of fluid absorption. 

The loss of one gene even contributed "to the evolution of vampire bats’ exceptional social behaviors." Since they can't survive too long without feeding, seeing as blood is very low in calories, vampire bats can regurgitate their meals and share with others. They can also keep track of who shared with them in the past and will extend extend help to them in the future if needed. Hannah Kim Frank, a bat researcher at Tulane University, told AP: "It's totally bizarre and amazing that vampire bats can survive on blood — they are really weird, even among bats."

The study revealing the loss of genes that allow them to live off blood doesn't make vampire bats any less weird, or intriguing. You can read the whole study in the Science Advances journal.

SpaceX has to wait even longer to find out if it can launch Starship flights out of its Boca Chica facility in Texas. The US Federal Aviation Administration has delayed its decision on the environmental review of the launch site yet again, pushing back its target date of completion to April 29th. SpaceX must secure the FAA's approval, along with a vehicle operator license, to be able to launch Starship missions out of Boca Chica as planned. 

To be exact, the agency is looking into whether launching the massive reusable vehicle out of the facility will have a significant environmental impact on the area and will be a threat to the safety of the public. Its original target date for completion was December 21st, 2021, but it pushed the date back to February 28th, 2022 and then again to March 28th. On the official page for the environmental assessment, the FAA said it's updating its target date to April 29th "to account for further comment review and ongoing interagency consultations." The FAA received 19,000 comments for the draft version of the review published last year.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk recently revealed that the company is hoping to send Starship into orbit for the first time in May. If the FAA finishes its review on time, and with a favorable result for the company, then there's a chance the launch could happen in a couple of months. It's worth noting, though, that Musk's timelines could be a bit too optimistic.

In case the Boca Chica site fails the FAA's environmental review or if the agency issues an environmental impact statement (EIS) to dig deeper into the company's plans over the next few years, then SpaceX could shift to its backup plan. During a Starship presentation earlier this year, Musk said SpaceX already has approval to launch the Starship from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The move would delay the vehicle's first flight by six to eight months, since the company has to build a launch tower on the launch site, but at least the wait wouldn't last for years. 

A new technology called Neural Radiance Field or NeRF involves training AI algorithms to enable the creation of 3D objects from two-dimensional photos. NeRF has the capability to fill in the blanks, so to speak, by interpolating what the 2D photos didn't capture. It's a neat trick that could lead to advances in various fields, such as video games and autonomous driving. Now, NVIDIA has developed a new NeRF technique — the fastest one to date, the company claims — that only needs seconds to train and to generate a 3D scene. 

It only takes seconds to train the model, called Instant NeRF, using dozens of still photos and the camera angles they were taken from. After that, it's capable of generating a 3D scene within just "tens of milliseconds." Like other NeRF techniques, it requires images taken from multiple positions. And for photos with multiple subjects, pictures taken without too much motion is preferred, otherwise the result would be blurry. 

Check out Instant NeRF in action below:

NVIDIA explains that early NeRF models don't take too long to produce results either. It only takes them a few minutes to render a 3D scene, even if the subject in some of the images is obstructed by things, such as pillars and furniture. However, training them took hours. NVIDIA's version only takes seconds to train, because it relies on a technique the company developed called multi-resolution hash grid encoding that's optimized to run efficiently on its GPUs. It can even run on a single GPU, though it's fastest on cards with tensor cores that provide a performance boost for artificial intelligence. 

The company believes that Instant NeRF could be used to train robots and to help autonomous driving systems understand the sizes and shapes of real-world objects. NVIDIA also sees a future for the technique in entertainment and architecture, where it can be used a way to generate 3D models of real environments that creators can modify during the planning process.

A recent Gran Turismo 7 update sparked outrage, not just because it raised the prices of in-game cars, but also because it led to a server outage than lasted for over a day. Now Polyphony Digital President Kazunori Yamauchi has issued an apology "for the frustration and confusion" caused by the patch, along with the announcement of a big update rolling out in early April to "improve player experience." 

Players complained that the presence of microtransactions and higher car prices made it harder to obtain new vehicles and upgrades without paying real money and spending a lot of time grinding for in-game currency. Yamauchi said back then that he believes it's important for the cars' prices to be linked with their real-world counterparts to convey their "value and rarity." 

That obviously didn't go over well with fans, who also had to deal with downtime because the update came with an issue that prevented the game from starting properly on the PS4 and the PS5. The game ended up being review bombed on Metacritic, where it currently has a score of 1.5 that translates to "overwhelming dislike."

The updates coming in early April include higher rewards for events, as well as more events and opportunities to earn in-game currency. Polyphony is also working on more additional features that don't have a release date yet, such as the ability to sell cars. At the moment, there's no way to do so in GT7, even though its predecessors had the feature. 

Unfortunately, Yamauchi didn't mention whether the company is exploring the possibility of making the game available to play offline, so it will likely continue requiring an internet connection for the foreseeable future. He did say, however, that Polyphony is giving players who may have been affected by the server outage a credit pack of 1 million Cr. Only those who already own the game before his post had been published and who log in between March 25th and April 25th will get the free credit pack. 

Reddit is looking into the possibility of introducing some video features reminiscent of TikTok's, according to TechCrunch. While the project is still in its very early stages and hasn't even entered the testing phase yet, TechCrunch says it could include TikTok-like video editing tools that make it easy for you to "react" to another person's post or to incorporate it into your content.

On TikTok, you can use a feature called Duet to put your video side by side with another user's to create remixes, parodies and the like. In 2020, the service also introduced Stitch, which lets you integrate scenes from another video into your own. It enabled the quick creation of funny responses to viral videos and even responses that fact check wrong information going around on the platform. Reddit does allow you to post videos on its website, but it doesn't have features like Duet and Stitch yet.

You probably wouldn't think of Reddit if you're made to list social networks with a focus on video. And the goal of this project isn't to create a TikTok competitor, but rather to provide its users another way to engage in discussions, especially if the original post is also a video. Reddit did purchase TikTok rival Dubsmash back in 2020, but it shut down the service in February this year and incorporated video features from the defunct video-sharing platform. This particular project will also use video technology from Dubsmash. 

A spokesperson told TechCrunch that Reddit is now reaching out to individual communities to see if they're interested in the new video features. It will only take steps to begin initial testing after they receive (most likely positive) feedback from the communities:

"In line with our work to help people engage in the topics that matter to them through social audio, video, text, memes, and more, we're in the process of reaching out to a few Reddit communities to see if a new video feature we’re working on is something they find useful and fun. After getting feedback from Redditors, we’ll explore an initial test for this new capability."

Back in April 2021, NASA chose SpaceX to develop a lunar lander that will take astronauts to the moon for its future Artemis missions. SpaceX's vehicle won't be the only one flying astronauts to the surface of the Moon, though: NASA has announced that it's welcoming proposals from American companies for landers that can take human spacefarers from the Gateway station in the lunar orbit to the Moon itself. By having that capability, the lander design can be used for missions beyond Artemis III, which will be the first crewed landing on the Moon since Apollo 17.

In its announcement, the agency said it's also exercising an option under its existing contract with SpaceX and is asking the company to change the landing system it proposed to meet the new requirement. "Pursuing more development work under the original contract maximizes NASA’s investment and partnership with SpaceX," the agency said. Having a second lunar lander "provides redundancy in services" and can help ensure reliable transportation for astronauts that will be part of future lunar missions.

While the call for a second lunar lander is new, the plan to have more than one company working on the project isn't. NASA was originally supposed to choose more than one lunar lander provider for Artemis, but the agency didn't receive enough funding from Congress, prompting it to go with SpaceX alone. 

Blue Origin, one of the finalists for the contract, filed a complaint with the US Court of Federal Claims, calling the decision "fundamentally unfair." The Jeff Bezos-owned space corporation argued that NASA allowed SpaceX to modify its bid and wasn't given the same chance to do so. To note, the contract SpaceX won was worth $2.9 billion, while Blue Origin's bid was almost twice that at $5.9 billion. NASA believed Blue Origin bid high on purpose on the assumption that NASA would haggle and that it would receive more funding than it did. While the court dismissed Blue Origin's lawsuit in November, SpaceX had to pause work on the lander twice, losing months in the process. When NASA pushed back the Artemis III mission to 2025, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Blue Origin's lawsuit was partly to blame.

NASA will issue a draft solicitation for the second lunar lander in the coming weeks before issuing a formal request for proposals this summer.

Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA's Human Landing System Program manager, said:

"This strategy expedites progress toward a long-term, sustaining lander capability as early as the 2026 or 2027 timeframe. We expect to have two companies safely carry astronauts in their landers to the surface of the Moon under NASA’s guidance before we ask for services, which could result in multiple experienced providers in the market."

You may want to update your copy of Elden Ring on PC to make sure that you don't end up losing hours of gameplay to the endless death loop exploit. Bandai Namco has rolled out a patch for the game, which fixes a bug in multiplayer that "allowed players to teleport others to incorrect map coordinates." A few days ago, reports surfaced about bad actors exploiting a bug that gives them a way to crash your game and teleport your character off the map. Upon reloading, you'll just find yourself falling to your death and seeing the reviving/loading screen again and again. 

Here's the infinite death loop in action:

As The Verge notes, some players were able to save their game by quickly teleporting elsewhere, but others reported losing as much as 100 hours of gameplay to the death loop. In addition to fixing this particular bug, the update also patches other issues, including ones that will prevent you from advancing certain quests. 

Elden Ring has been out for less than a month, but it has become huge very, very quickly. It sold 12 million units worldwide merely 18 days after its release, smashing the records of other Souls-type titles — Dark Souls 3, the best-selling game in the franchise, only reached 10 million units sold four years after it became available. When Bandai Namco and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware announced the milestone, they also said that the IP could be expanded "beyond the realm of games." 

Almost a year after Netflix introduced its shuffle play button, HBO Max has also launched its own. Unlike Netflix's version that randomly plays shows and movies from the service's whole catalog based on your viewing history, though, HBO Max's has a pretty limited scope. When you tap on the shuffle button, the service will pull random episodes from one of the 45 shows included in the feature. Also, it's only available on the service's desktop interface at the moment. 

It's unclear if HBO Max plans to expand the number of shows included in the list it can randomly play. The WarnerMedia-owned service also didn't say whether the feature will eventually be available on its apps, though it's hard to believe that it'll stay a desktop exclusive. When Netflix first introduced its "play something" button, the company initially made it available on TV devices only. Six months later, though, Netflix released it for Android devices and told us testing for iOS devices would begin in the following months. 

Here are the 45 shows included in HBO Max's list, per Deadline:

• A World of Calm

• Adventure Time

• Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

• Apple & Onion

• Chappelle Show

• Courage the Cowardly Dog

• Craig of the Creek

• Curb Your Enthusiasm

• Ed, Ed and Eddy

• ER

• Flight of the Conchords

• Fresh Prince

• Friends

• Full House

• Great Pottery Throwdown

• Hot Ones

• How It Really Happened

• Impractical Jokers

• Key and Peele

• Looney Tunes

• Martin

• Mike & Molly

• Regular Show

• Reno 911!

• Rick & Morty

• Robot Chicken

• Scooby-Do, Where Are You!

• Selena + Chef

• Sesame Street

• South Park

• Teen Titans Go!

• The Amazing World of Gumball

• The Big Bang Theory

• The Boondocks

• The Mentalist

• The Middle

• The Nanny

• The Office

• The Shot: Uninterrupted

• Tom and Jerry

• Total Dramarama

• Two and a Half Men

• We Bare Bears

• Whose Line is it Anyway

• Young Sheldon

A hacking group calling itself Lapsus$ recently made waves by releasing sources codes it claimed to have stolen from Microsoft and Okta. Now, cybersecurity researchers investigating the attacks have traced them to a 16-year-old living with his mother near Oxford, England, according to Bloomberg. While the researchers have identified seven accounts associated with the hacking group — including one traced to another teenager in Brazil — they believe the teenager from England is the mastermind and is behind some of the major Lapsus$ hacks. However, they weren't able to connect the teen to all the attacks the group carried out.

The researchers looked at forensic evidence from the hacks, as well as public information to determine that the teen was indeed involved. Apparently, rival hackers posted the teenager's details online, including his address and information about his parents. Bloomberg didn't release the teen's personal information and only mentioned that he goes by the aliases "White" and "breachbase." White is reportedly so skilled at hacking and so fast at what he does that researchers previously thought the attacks were automated. 

Some cybersecurity researchers believe that the group is motivated by not just money, but also notoriety, seeing as the actor doesn't cover its tracks. As Microsoft detailed in its investigation of the Lapsus$ attacks, the group even announces its hacks on social media and publicly posts calls for employees willing to sell their company logins. The bad actor also joins targets' communications channels, such as their Zoom calls, to taunt the people responding to their attacks.

Microsoft said the group started by targeting organizations in United Kingdom and South America, but that it has since expanded to target entities around the world, including government agencies, telecoms, and companies in the health sector. Both Microsoft and Okta admitted that they suffered a security breach, but both claim limited impact from the attacks.