Google Meet has started rolling out live translated captions widely after testing the feature last year. It works on web or mobile but is still fairly limited, translating only English meetings to four languages: French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.

"Translated captions help make Google Meet video calls more inclusive and collaborative by removing language proficiency barriers," Google wrote in a Workspace blog. "When meeting participants consume content in their preferred language, this helps equalize information sharing, learning, and collaboration and ensures your meetings are as effective as possible for everyone." 

Google

The feature is designed to be helpful for all-hands or training meetings with teams located around the world. It can also be helpful in education settings, according to Google, "allowing educators to connect and interact with students, parents and community stakeholders with diverse backgrounds." 

To use the feature, users need to switch on captions in settings and set it to English before toggling on translated captions underneath. They can then choose one of the translated language options. For more detailed information, check Google Meet's translated captions help page. 

Google first announced the feature at its I/O developer's conference last year, and Otter offers a similar service for Google Meet and Zoom. Live translated captions are available for Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade and Google Workspace for Education Plus customers. It's rolling out gradually as of yesterday, so it could take up to 15 days before you see it. 

Sony doesn't sell many smartphones in the US, so it's always big news when a new one arrives — particularly a high-end model. After launching in other regions last year, the Xperia 5 III is now available stateside for $1,000, Ars Technica has reported. 

The Xperia 5 III is slightly smaller than the company's consumer flagship Xperia 1 III but has pretty similar specs. It comes with a Snapdragon 888 SoC, 6.1-inch 2,520 x 1,080 (21:9) 120Hz display, 8GB of RAM (compared to 12GB for the 1 III) and 128GB of storage, along with a triple camera setup with a 12-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel ultrawide and 12-megapixel 3x telephoto. It offers a Gorilla Glass 6 display and IP65/68 water resistance and if you don't mind Sony's typically squarish design cues, looks very premium.

The display delivers 10-bit color depth and is "powered by CineAlta" (the name of its high-end cinema cameras) so it should show accurate colors and skin tones. The cameras aren't particularly high-resolution, but they do have Zeiss lenses "calibrated specifically for Xperia," Sony said. The main camera has a stacked backside illuminated Exmor RS image sensor, delivering 20fps burst speeds with AF and AE tracking. On the video side, it offers Cinematography Pro also powered by CineAlta, with 4K HDR at up to 120 fps.

In other words, this is a camera-first smartphone designed for folks who are really into photography or video. It's not for everyone considering it costs $1,000 at Best Buy and elsewhere, but it's nice to have another premium smartphone option for the US market. 

Samsung's Galaxy S21 FE smartphone is still only available as a pre-order, but it's already available with a discount of sorts. If you pre-order the S21 FE from Amazon, with shipping set to start around January 14th, you'll get a $100 Amazon.com gift card — effectively a 12 percent discount off the $700 price. 

In our CES 2022 hands-on, we called the S21 FE ("Fan Edition") "last year's flagship without the frills." That's because it offers the same 5-nanometer processors, 120Hz refresh rate in a slightly bigger screen and a similar triple camera system. However, the S21 FE actually has a larger battery and comes with Android 12.

Because of the larger screen, it is slightly heavier than the original and features a less shiny finish. Unfortunately it doesn't support the stylus available with the S21+ and S21 Ultra, but that shouldn't be an issue for many folks. The telephoto camera also comes with an 8-megapixel sensor, rather than a 64-megapixel sensor like the S21 Ultra. However, the front camera is actually sharper at 32 megapixels rather than just 10 megapixels on the original. 

If you're okay with last year's phone at a discount, this looks like a solid deal with four colors available (graphite, olive, lavender and white). If you'd rather be on the bleeding edge, however, you might want to wait until the Galaxy S22 arrives. It's reportedly set to launch on February 8th, according to the latest rumor, with pre-orders going live the next day and shipping start on February 24th. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Coal should be going obsolete because renewable energy is becoming cheaper, but the US government is keeping it afloat with the promise of capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground. Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said that federal agencies spent $684 billion on coal plant carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that have mostly failed, Gizmodo has reported. It also spent $438 million on other three CCS industrial projects, two of which were cancelled.

"DOE [Department of Energy] provided nearly $684 million to eight coal projects, resulting in one operational facility," according to the GAO report. "DOE’s process for selecting coal projects and negotiating funding agreements increased the risks that DOE would fund projects unlikely to succeed."

DOE’s process for selecting coal projects and negotiating funding agreements increased the risks that DOE would fund projects unlikely to succeed.

Not only did the Department of Energy use a "high-risk selection" method to choose projects, it negotiated and funded them too expeditiously, according to the report. Coal negotiations lasted just three months instead of the usual year "based on DOE's desire to begin spending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds quickly." On top of that, it bypassed the usual cost controls and supported projects "even though they were not meeting required key milestones." 

The DOE recently said that it wants to dramatically reduce the cost of carbon capture technology via a program called Carbon Negative Shot. The aim is to remove CO2 directly from the air and sequester it underground at a cost of less than $100 per ton, deploying it at the gigaton scale. 

However, the easiest and cheapest way to cut gigatons of emissions would be to retire costly coal plants completely, according to a report last year the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). That's because the costs of renewable energy have plunged in the last decade, making them effectively cheaper than coal. And of course, adding CCS tech to coal would increase costs considerably. All that said, coal and fossil fuels are a charged political subject in the US, despite the global risks of climate change. 

In the end, the GAO recommended more congressional oversight for DOE expenditures on CCS. "Absent such a mechanism, DOE is at risk of expending significant funds on CCS demonstration projects that have little likelihood of success."

With the COVID-19 Omicron variant surging in the US and elsewhere, testing is key to allowing work, school and entertainment activities to continue. With rapid test kits in short supply, though, some retailers are making them unaffordable by gouging customers. Now, the Biden administration has announced that testing kits must be covered by private insurance, The Wall Street Journal has reported. 

People covered by private health insurance can be reimbursed for up to eight tests a month per individual. To make things simpler, the White House is encouraging insurers to partner with retailers and pharmacies so people can pick up tests without paying up front or submitting a claim. The tests are available without deductibles, coinsurance or co-payment, so a family of four on the same health plan could be reimbursed for 32 tests a month, for instance. For such programs, reimbursement would be limited to $12 per test. 

Today’s action further removes financial barriers and expands access to Covid-19 tests for millions of people.

The new policy doesn't apply to Medicare, which counts more than 60 million seniors at higher risk for COVID-19 complications. However, Medicaid for low income folks already covers at-home COVID-19 tests authorized by the FDA. The administration also plans to make tens of millions of free tests available to uninsured Americans at health clinics and other sites, according to The New York Times. 

Some insurers said that the administration is acting too late and that it didn't address the shortage of at-home tests. However, one national association of coverage providers said that the new plan "takes steps to mitigate the real risks of price gouging, fraud and abuse."

Having enough diagnostic tests will be key to slowing down the Omicron wave that is starting to overwhelm health systems in the US and elsewhere. It can help get infected people isolated or into treatment more quickly, reducing potential transmission and hospital workloads. 

That will become even more important given authorization for antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck that can help high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID symptoms — provided they're diagnosed in time. "This policy will help millions of families afford COVID tests that allow them to be in school, visit family members and live their lives," Georgetown University's Sabrina Corlette told the WSJ. 

Did you know that you could hail an Uber using your Apple Watch? No? Well it doesn't really matter anyway, because the Uber Watch app has effectively been discontinued, according to Apple Insider. If you try to use it, a message pops up asking you to switch the mobile app instead. It further states "we no longer [sic] supporting the Apple Watch app. Sorry for the inconvenience," with a crying emoji to drive the point home. 

The app has yet to be pulled from the Watch App Store, but all you'll get is the error message if you try to use it. When it did work, it let you hail a ride, see the status of your request, and show the location of the vehicle. More advanced functions like fare-splitting were reserved for the smartphone app. 

The grammatically challenged message suggests that the app may have been pulled with some haste, though neither Uber or Apple have commented. The App Store listing (above) touts the app as a way you can leave home without your smartphone and still hail a ride, provided you had a cellular-enabled Watch. To be fair, Uber also pulled its WearOS app back in 2019, likely due to a lack of usage. 

GM has reversed course on its emissions policy, saying it now recognizes California's authority to set its own vehicle pollution standards, TechCrunch as reported. Previously, the automaker backed efforts by the former Trump administration to force the state to abandon its own standards in favor of federal emissions policies. However, it began to reverse course shortly after Biden was elected president, pulling out of the Trump administration's lawsuit against the state. 

As the most populous state with the strictest rules, California generally sets the emissions agenda for automakers and other states. Back in 2018, however, the Trump administration challenged California's ability to set its own rules independently from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and Honda agreed to work with California on voluntary targets, but GM, along with Fiat Chrysler and Toyota, sided with the Trump administration. 

"[GM] is committed to emissions reductions that are aligned with the California Air Resources Board's targets and... complying with California's regulations," GM VP Omar Vargas wrote in a letter to California governor Gavin Newsom. 

Because of its past decision to side with the Trump administration, GM was banned by California in 2019 for government fleet purchases. "Carmakers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of California’s buying power," Newsom said at the time. Now, the state will allow GM to become a supplier, with Newsom welcoming the company to its "clean vehicle revolution." 

After defeating Trump, President Joe Biden announced a plan to accelerate a transition to EVs in order to combat global warming. GM followed those political winds, renouncing the earlier lawsuit and accelerating its own EV plans. The company now says it will stop selling ICE vehicles by 2040 and will spend $35 billion to develop EVs and self-driving cars by 2025. The company recently unveiled an electric version of its Silverado pickup designed to fight Ford's F-150 Lightning that's proved to be a hit with buyers.

PC gaming Giant Take-Two has announced that it's making a big move into mobile gaming with the acquisition of Zynga for a total price of approximately $12.7 billion. Take-Two already owns Rockstar Games, Codemasters and 2K, producing games like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock and others. Zynga, meanwhile, produces well-known mobile titles like CSR Racing, FarmVille, and Words with Friends. 

Take-Two said that the deal will result in $6.1 billion worth of 12-month pro-forma net bookings, meaning it will become one of the largest gaming companies in the world. "This strategic combination brings together our best-in-class console and PC franchises, with a market-leading, diversified mobile publishing platform that has a rich history of innovation and creativity," said Take-Two Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick. The deal will also help Take-Two save about $100 million annually after two years. 

Zynga itself was on an acquisition streak of late, having acquired the studio behind Torchlight 3early last year. Zynga has sometimes relied on acquisitions to find the hottest games in the notoriously fickle mobile gaming market. Still, Take-Two said that the mobile industry booked $136 billion 2021 and is currently growing at over 8 percent, so the money is there to be had. Mobile will now account for half of its net bookings (net amount of products and services sold digitally or sold-in physically), the company said. 

Samsung may unveil its much anticipated (and leaked) Galaxy S22 at an Unpacked event on February 8th, according to South Korea's Digital Daily. "We have confirmed that the event will be held on February 8 and we are discussing the timing of invitations to be sent out at the end of January," a Samsung Electronics official told the site. Pre-orders are reportedly set to go live the next day, on February 9th, with shipping starting on February 24th.

Samsung will likely debut three phones, the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra models. According to some of the many rumors out there, all three devices will have very bright displays. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S22 Ultra's camera will offer what Samsung calls a "Super Clear Lens." 

The primary chip could be Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, reportedly manufactured by Samsung. Devices outside the US may come with Samsung's Exynos 2200 chip that uses a GPU based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture and could support ray tracing. Numerous images of the device have already surfaced, including a shot of the Galaxy S22 Ultra posted by Evan Blass (above).

The event schedule and release date have yet to be confirmed, but Samsung typically schedules its flagship smartphone events around the same time each year. It'll supposedly be shown at MWC 2022 in Barcelona, by which time it should already be in buyers' hands, if the leak proves accurate. Engadget has reached out to Samsung for confirmation. 

Despite the massive number of stars in the sky, spotting one in the throes of a supernova is still an incredibly rare event. Now, astronomers have captured a red supergiant before, during and after a supernova explosion for the first time, gathering crucial new information about these dramatic events.

"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," said lead author Wynn Jacobson-Galán (UC Berkeley). "Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary Type II supernova. For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode!"

Using the Pan-STARRS telescope in Maui, Hawai'i, scientists detected the doomed red supergiant star in the summer of 2020 thanks to the huge amount of light it was emitting. Later in the fall when it went supernova, the team captured the powerful flash using the Hawai'i-based Keck Observatory's Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS). They also captured the very first spectrum of the supernova, known as SN 2020tlf.

The observations showed that the star likely ejected massive amounts of dense circumstellar material just ahead of the explosion. Previous observations showed that red giants were relatively calm before going supernova, so the new data suggests that some may change their internal structure significantly before exploding. That could then result in tumultuous gas ejections moments before collapse. 

SN 2020tlf is located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years from Earth and was about 10 times more massive than the Sun. Stars go supernova when they run out of fuel and collapse on their own gravity, fueling a massive carbon fusion explosion. For that to happen, they must be large enough (8 to 15 solar masses) or they'll simply collapse into white dwarf star like our Sun eventually will. Any larger than that and they could collapse into a black hole. 

The discovery will now allow scientists to survey red supergiant stars looking for similar types of luminous radiation that could signal another supernova. "Detecting more events like SN 2020tlf will dramatically impact how we define the final months of stellar evolution... in the quest to solve the mystery on how massive stars spend the final moments of their lives," said Jacobson-Galán.