Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite Kids tablet offers a more eye-friendly reading experience than the regular Kindle Kids, but that features comes at a premium price. Right now, though, they're on sale with the biggest discounts we've seen yet, letting you grab one for just $105 or $55 (34 percent) off the regular price. You'll also find big savings on the bundle sold with a cover, power adapter and screen protector, now discounted to $118, for a total savings of $75. 

The fifth-gen Paperwhite has a larger and brighter, 6.8-inch display, compared with the previous model's six-inch screen. The 300 ppi screen is glare-free and looks like real paper, which allows for "easy reading in all conditions, even direct sunlight," Amazon says. It's also more responsive than before, and offers an IPX8 water resistant rating. 

The Kids edition offers some extra perks designed for the younger set, as well. It includes a one-year subscription of Amazon Kids+, which offers thousands of ad-free books, games, videos, apps and Alexa skills from Marvel, National Geographic and others. The adjustable warm light allows for safe night reading, and there's no worry about going to the beach or pool with the waterproof rating. 

As mentioned, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids (8GB) is on sale for $105 in the "emerald forest" color, matching the lowest price we've seen. The best deal, though, may be on the $118 bundle (black or emerald forest) which adds a power adapter and screen protector for just $13 more and saving you $75 over the regular price. 

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Fake news can travel fast on Twitter when amplified by likes and retweets, but now you'll be alerted if you've been an accessory to one of those lies. Starting today, you'll be notified if a tweet you've liked, replied to or retweeted receives a Community Note showing possible misinformation, the company said in a tweet spotted by TechCrunch. 

"Starting today, you’ll get a heads up if a Community Note starts showing on a Tweet you’ve replied to, Liked or Retweeted. This helps give people extra context that they might otherwise miss," Twitter's Community Notes account tweeted. CEO Elon Musk lauded the effort in a quote tweet, calling Community Notes a "game changer for combating wrong information." 

Community Notes launched in 2021 as Birdwatch, a "community-driven approach" that crowdsources fact checks directly from other Twitter users. Twitter now relies on it more than ever, though, as it has laid off a large number of content moderators. Notes are viewable by all users across the globe, but only people from the US, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand can contribute them at the moment. 

Since they're crowdsourced, Community Notes are far from reliable. In a recent example, a researcher investigating Twitter Blue noted that a number of high-profile accounts including Tesla had halted their subscriptions to the service. A Community Note insisted that was wrong, because Tesla was already a verified business, so it couldn't also be subscribed to Twitter Blue. However, Twitter's own data via its official API showed that Tesla did indeed unsubscribe from Twitter Blue, and the Community Note was subsequently removed. 

Late last year, Microsoft announced that it was "committed" to bringing Call of Duty (CoD) to Nintendo for 10 years if its Activision Blizzard acquisition was approved. Now, president Brad Smith has tweeted that the "binding" 10-year contract has been signed, and confirmed that Nintendo would get the same access to CoD as Xbox.

"Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players — the same days as Xbox, with full feature and content parity," Microsoft wrote in a statement. "We are committed to providing long term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms." 

Microsoft previously said that it offered Sony a similar deal for PlayStation consoles, and committed to offer the game on Steam at the same time as Xbox — provided the merger goes through, of course.

The deals are all part of Microsoft's efforts to convince regulators allow its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard to proceed. The deal is strongly in limbo right now, as the US Federal Trade Commission has sued to block the takeover, and the UK may require Activision to divest parts of its business for the merger to proceed. 

On top of that, the European Union is reportedly set to join the UK in declaring that the proposed acquisition could reduce competition. To that end, Microsoft reportedly requested a hearing with EU regulators to defend the deal — and that meeting is set for today, according to Reuters. 

The acquisition ran afoul of regulators from the start over concerns that it would cut off Sony's PS5 and other consoles from key games, particularly CoD. Sony vehemently opposes the deal, having called it a "game-changer that poses a threat to our industry." Microsoft has said that Sony's comments were "self-serving" and promised to support Call of Duty on PlayStation "forever."

The OnePlus 11 is a powerful phone, but the design isn't what you'd call thrilling. Now, the company has teased a version called the OnePlus 11 Concept designed to counteract that narrative with... lots of LED lights. The "flowing back" has meandering stream-type LED lighting pattern with a ring around the camera module, along with a unibody glass design. It will be revealed on February 27th at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona, OnePlus announced.

With the design, OnePlus is adopting a gaming PC-type approach with the use of LED lighting. That's reasonable considering the OnePlus 11 is one of the better gaming phones out there, with features like a 120Hz display, extremely fast 100W charging and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. 

OnePlus

OnePlus has done special edition phones before, including Star Wars and Pac-Man themed devices. However, this looks like its first with external LED lighting that takes a page from the Nothing Phone 1's transparent, light-up back. It also borrows a bit from the OnePlus 8T concept that used a color-changing back.

In case you need a reason for the lighting, the company says it's to "show the engineering breakthroughs of the OnePlus 11 Concept by highlighting the icy blue pipelines which run through the entire back of the phone, almost like OnePlus 11 Concept has its own series of blood vessels." 

It's not clear if it's called "Concept" because it's a one-off concept product, or if that's the name for a special edition phone that will go on sale. If it's the latter, it would certainly stand out from other smartphones. In any case, we should learn more when it's unveiled on February 27th at 3PM ET.

A strong amateur Go player has beat a highly-ranked AI system after exploiting a weakness discovered by a second computer, The Financial Times has reported. By exploiting the flaw, American player Kellin Pelrine defeated the KataGo system decisively, winning 14 of 15 games without further computer help. It's a rare Go win for humans since AlphaGo's milestone 2016 victory that helped pave the way for the current AI craze. It also shows that even the most advanced AI systems can have glaring blind spots. 

Pelrine's victory was made possible by a research firm called FAR AI, which developed a program to probe KataGo for weaknesses. After playing over a million games, it was able to find a weakness that could be exploited by a decent amateur player. It's "not completely trivial but it's not super-difficult" to learn, said Pelrine. He used the same method was to beat Leela Zero, another top Go AI. 

Here's how it works: the goal is to create a large "loop" of stones to encircle an opponent's group, then distract the computer by making moves in other areas of the board. Even when its group was nearly surrounded, the computer failed to notice the strategy. "As a human, it would be quite easy to spot," Pelrine said, since the encircling stones stand out clearly on the board.

The flaw demonstrates that AI systems can't really "think" beyond their training, so they often do things that look incredibly stupid to humans. We've seen similar things with chat bots like the one employed by Microsoft's Bing search engine. While it was good at repetitive tasks like coming up with a travel itinerary, it also gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited "unhinged" behavior — likely due to the models it was trained on. 

Lightvector (the developer of KataGo) is certainly aware of the problem, which players have been exploiting for several months now. In a GitHub post, it said it's been working on a fix for a variety of attack types that use the exploit.

Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat product for the Edge browser last week, and it's been in the news ever since — but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered up workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. 

However, users started noticing that Bing's bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited "unhinged" behavior. In one bizarre conversation, it refused to give listings for Avatar: The Way of the Water, insisting the movie hadn't come out yet because it was still 2022. It then called the user "unreasonable and stubborn" when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong.

Now, Microsoft has released a blog post explaining what's been happening and how it's addressing the issues. To start with, the company admitted that it didn't envision Bing's AI being used for "general discovery of the world and for social entertainment."

Those "long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions" can send things off the rails. "Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone," the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to "forget" what it was trying to answer in the first place. To fix that, Microsoft may add a tool that lets you reset the search context or start from scratch. 

The other issue is more complex and interesting: "The model at times tries to respond or reflect in the tone in which it is being asked to provide responses that can lead to a style we didn’t intend," Microsoft wrote. It takes a lot of prompting to get that to happen, but the engineers think they might be able to fix it by giving users more control. 

Despite those issues, testers have generally given Bing's AI good marks on citations and references for search, Microsoft said, though it needs to improve with "very timely data like live sports scores." It's also looking to improve factual answers for things like financial reports by boosting grounding data by four times. It's also "adding a toggle that gives you more control on the precision vs. creativity of the answer to tailor to your query."

The Bing team thanked users for the testing to date, saying it "helps us improve the product for everyone." At the same time, it expressed surprise that folks would spend up to two hours in chat sessions. They'll no doubt be just as diligent trying to break any new updates, too, so we could be in for an interesting ride until it's perfected. 

Earlier this week, it was reported that Tesla workers in the company's Buffalo, New York Autopilot facility had sent a letter to CEO Elon Musk stating their attention to unionize. Now, organizers at the same location are accusing the company of illegally terminating employees "in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity," Bloomberg has reported. 

In a filing with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Workers United union accused Tesla of attempting to discourage its organizing activities. It has asked for a federal court injunction to "prevent irreparable destruction of employee rights resulting from Tesla’s unlawful conduct." Several of the employees let go had been involved in labor discussion, and one was the member of an organizing committee. 

"This is a form of collective retaliation... designed to terrify everyone about potential consequences of them organizing, as well as to attempt to cull the herd," Workers United organizer Jaz Brisack told Bloomberg. (Engadget has contacted Tesla for comment, but doesn't anticipate a reply given the company no longer has a dedicated press office.)

Employees involved in the campaign are in charge of labeling data for Tesla's Autopilot technology. The group is asking for better pay, job security and a work environment that reduces production pressures. The group previously said that Tesla engages in keystroke monitoring to see how long they spend on tasks, and shut down an internal chatroom used for airing grievances. 

Following the earlier report, Tesla issued a directive to "protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of all Tesla business information." However, one employee said the terminations are galvanizing, rather than intimidating workers. "It's pretty clear the message they're sending," said Sara Constatino. "And it's really I think backfiring on them." The NLRB will now investigate the claims and could prosecute them before a judge if it finds merit. 

The Biden administration has unveiled new initiatives in its $7.5 billion plan to install 500,000 EV chargers on US roads by 2030. As part of that, it announced that Tesla has committed to to open up 7,500 of its charging stations to non-Tesla vehicles by the end of 2024. 

In 2021 Tesla announced that its open-access Supercharger program (currently being piloted in 16 European nations) would be coming to the US. With a firm date now in hand, the White House has revealed details of the plan. Of 7,500 chargers available for all compatible EVs, 3,500 will be new and existing 250 kW Superchargers along highway corridors. The rest will be Level 2 Destination Charging stations (22 kW max) at hotels, restaurants and other urban and rural locations. Tesla will also boost its US Supercharger network by 300 percent, officials said. 

In order to tap into the $7.5 billion in funding, companies must adopt the Combined Charging System (CCS) that dominates in the US, while offering smartphone-friendly payment options. "No matter what EV you drive, we want to make sure that you will be able to plug in, know the price you're going to be paying and charge up in a predictable, user-friendly experience," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters. Tesla currently uses proprietary chargers, but has committed to adding the CCS standard as well.

Tesla's commitment is part of the White House's larger plan to have at least 500,000 EV chargers on US roads by 2030. To hit that goal, the administration has received commitments from EV manufacturers like GM and Ford, along with ChargePoint and other EV charger manufacturers. Those will add more than 100,000 public chargers available to all EVs. 

For example, GM has already committed to install up to 40,000 Level 2 stations across the US and Canada as part of its Ultium Charge 360 network. It will also install a coast-to-coast network of 2,000 350 kW fast chargers along US roads in partnership with Pilot Company and EVgo. Ford, meanwhile, plans to install DC fast chargers at 1,920 dealerships by January 2024. Hertz also plans to install thousands of BP's Pulse chargers in US cities for Hertz customers and the public. 

Early last year, the White House revealed its plan to ensure that 500,000 EV chargers are publicly available in the US as part of $7.5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. That's motivated by an overall plan to convert half of all new US vehicle sales to zero-emissions by 2030. There are now over 130,000 public chargers serving over three million EVs now on the road — still not nearly enough, critics have said. The first tranche of NEVI funds will be delivered to states in the coming weeks.

In a new update, Virgin Orbit has confirmed that the launch failure of its first UK mission was likely caused by a fuel filter that had been "dislodged from its normal position." That created a cascade of events that led to the shutdown of the second stage rocket, which ultimately fell back to Earth along with its payload, according to data gathered so far. The investigation is being led by United Launch Alliance's Jim Sponnick and Virgin Chief Engineer Chad Foerster, with oversight from the US FAA, UK Air Accidents Investigation branch and other authorities. 

The company's historic "Start Me Up" mission launched from Spaceport Cornwall on January 9th and Virgin confirmed things went well at the start. "The ignition, first stage flight, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing deployment of the LauncherOne rocket were nominal," it wrote. "Each of these milestones constituted a first-of-its-kind achievement for any orbital launch attempt from western Europe."

That pesky $100 filter highlights the challenges of spaceflight, though. After it dislodged from its proper place in the fuel feedline, a downstream pump was starved for fuel and began operating at a significantly higher-than-rated temperature, investigators found. Parts downstream of that and in the vicinity eventually malfunctioned, causing the engine to stop. "The early thrust termination ended the mission, and the second stage and its payloads fell back to Earth, landing in the approved safety corridor in the Atlantic Ocean."

Virgin Orbit is portraying the failure as a learning experience, but as the first UK orbital launch ever, the timing wasn't ideal. The company noted, however, that all four prior operational flights succeeded, sending 33 payloads to their required orbits. 

The company is now creating a plan to replicate flight conditions to determine the root cause or causes of the failure, it said. "Numerous tests are underway to support the investigation and help lead to definitive conclusions. Ultimately, all credible causes of the failure will be addressed prior to the next LauncherOne mission."

Amazon-owned Zoox has started offering driverless robotaxi rides in California after receiving a testing permit from the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), the company announced. Unlike the autonomous vehicles from Cruise and Waymo, Zoox's vehicles are purpose built for driverless taxi rides, so they have no steering wheel or pedals.

On February 11th, shortly after receiving the permit, Zoox conducted the "first run of its employee shuttle service in Foster City, California, marking the first time in history a purpose-built autonomous robotaxi without traditional driving controls carried passengers on open public roads," it wrote in a press release.

To get to that point, the company completed what it called "rigorous" testing with the vehicles on private roads. It also ran its L3 test fleet (hybrid Toyota Highlanders with safety drivers) over a million autonomous miles on data-gathering missions in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle. 

Zoox has been developing its unique vehicles since it launched nine years ago, and was acquired by Amazon in a $1.2 billion merger in the summer of 2020. Its robotaxis, introduced later that year, are relatively tiny at 3.63 meters (11.9 feet) long, have passenger bench seats that face each other, four-wheel steering and can drive in either direction. That makes them highly maneuverable, but they can also travel at speeds up to 75 MPH and run 16 hours on a charge thanks to the immense 133kWh battery packs. 

Zoox will now offer full-time employees robotaxi rides between its Foster City offices during business hours. "As the company continues to advance its progress and secure additional government clearances, it will expand its service to the general public," the company wrote.