Mozilla's latest Firefox browser release has a new feature that prevents sites like Facebook from tracking you across websites, Bleeping Computer has reported. Called Query Parameter Stripping, it automatically removes strings of characters added to the end of an URL that allow Facebook, Hubspot, Olytics and other companies to track your clicks and serve targeted ads.

You've likely noticed these queries when you click on a link that comes from Facebook, for example. Rather than showing "https://www.engadget.com/example.html," it might show something like "https://www.engadget.com/example.html?fbclid=aa7-V4yb6Yfit_9_Pd" (not a real example). 

That jumble of characters after the question mark is a query parameter that can tell a company you've clicked on a link, helping them profile you for ad targeting. If you enable the stripping feature in the latest version of Firefox, it'll remove those characters before loading the URL, so Facebook will be none the wiser. It works via a blocklist and covers Olytics, Drip, Vero, HubSpot, Marketo and Facebook. 

To enable the feature, you simply select "Strict" for "Enhanced Tracking Protection" in the Privacy & Security settings. That doesn't work in Private Mode, but you can turn it on there too by typing "about:config" in the address bar, searching for strip and setting the 'privacy.query_stripping.enabled.pbmode' option to true, as Bleeping Computer points out. 

Nikon has unveiled the 20.9-megapixel APS-C Z30, its smallest and lightest Z-series camera yet. Designed for vloggers and creators, it offers a flip-out display, 4K 30p video and a long 125-minute video record time when plugged in — but lacks an electronic viewfinder. 

The Z30 is Nikon's third APS-C (DX) mirrorless camera so far, after the Z50 and Z fc models. It uses the same giant Z-mount as the company's full-frame models, which effectively dominates the relatively small body. It has a simple but effective control setup with a mode dial on top, front and rear dials to set exposure, a photo/video selector switch, and buttons for ISO, exposure compensation, AF-lock and shooting mode. A new feature over the other DX models is a tally light on front so vloggers can see when they're recording.

Nikon

The hand grip is deep for such a small camera, but due to the large mount, there's not a ton of room between the lens for your fingers. As mentioned, it has a fully-articulating 3.0-inch screen that activates self-portrait mode when flipped out, letting you set key controls like exposure compensation with the camera at at arm's length. Other key features include built-in stereo mics, a microphone input and a single UHS-I SD memory card slot. Unfortunately, it lacks a headphone jack which is a negative for video creators. 

The Z30 competes with Sony's ZV-E10 vlogging camera and has one advantage over its rival. It can shoot 4K at up to 30fps using the full width of the sensor, where Sony's model has a 1.23x crop at 30fps. That's fairly important for vlogging, as a crop makes it harder to get yourself into the shot. It can also shoot 1080p at up to 120 fps for slow-mo, but unlike the ZV-E10, doesn't support log capture — only a "flat" profile. Like its Sony rival, the Z30 has no built-in IBS — only electronic stabilization.

Nikon promises reliably fast and sharp hybrid phase-detect autofocus with face, eye and animal AI detection. It's likely similar to the AF on the Z50 and Z fc models, which are decent but lag behind Sony's APS-C cameras in terms of AF speed and accuracy. It offers a picture control auto function depending on the scene, along with 20 creative profiles. However, there's no one-click "product showcase" or bokeh options like Sony offers on the ZV-E10. 

It has a relatively small battery (the same on the other two DX models) giving it a 330 shot CIPA rating. Unlike the Z50 and Z fc which were limited to 30 minutes, the Z30 can record up to 125 minutes of 1080p video and about 35 minutes of 4K. To get those figures, though, you'll have to plug the camera's USB-C port to power. 

Nikon

Nikon promises good photography performance as well, but it's already behind the 8-ball in that area without an electronic viewfinder. Still, you get shooting speeds up to 11 fps (mechanical shutter, JPEG/RAW), hybrid phase-detect AF and even the ability to shoot a photo while recording video. 

The Z30 arrives in mid-July at $710 for the body only, $850 with a kit Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, or $1,200 with the Nikkor Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 lens. Another option coming in November is the 14-140mm f/3.5-6.3 lens for $1,150. Nikon will also offer a Creators Accessory Kit for $150 with a SmallRig tripod grip, Nikon ML-L7 Bluetooth remote and a Rode VideoMicro microphone.

Along with the camera, Nikon also unveiled a new full-frame Z-mount lens, the Z400mm f/4.5 VR S. Nikon says it's the lightest lens in its class at 2.55 pounds, offers dust- and drip-resistant performance and a focus-breathing compensation function for video recording. It arrives in July 2022 for $3,250. 

Airbnb is permanently banning all parties and events at host properties around the world, it announced. That follows a temporary 2020 ban it had instituted on house parties to comply with COVID-related social distancing restrictions. "Over time, the party ban became much more than a public health measure," Airbnb said in a blog post. "It developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors."

Airbnb had already banned "chronic party houses" in 2019 following a California Halloween shooting that resulted in five deaths. It later barred all "open-invite" house parties, but still allowed invitation-only parties in single family dwellings. However, those too are now prohibited, under penalty of account suspension or full removal from the platform. 

On a more positive note, Airbnb lifted a 16-person occupancy cap also instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's because certain properties "from castles in Europe to vineyards in the US to large beachfront villas in the Caribbean" can easily accommodate more than 16 people, it said, adding that "properties like these thrive on hosting multi-generational family trips and larger groups." 

The company runs a tip line that allows neighbors or others to report parties. Airbnb noted that it saw a 44 percent drop in the rate of party reports after the ban was implemented in 2020 and it suspended the accounts of around 6,600 guests for breaking the policy last year. 

Airbnb is permanently banning all parties and events at host properties around the world, it announced. That follows a temporary 2020 ban it had instituted on house parties to comply with COVID-related social distancing restrictions. "Over time, the party ban became much more than a public health measure," Airbnb said in a blog post. "It developed into a bedrock community policy to support our Hosts and their neighbors."

Airbnb had already banned "chronic party houses" in 2019 following a California Halloween shooting that resulted in five deaths. It later barred all "open-invite" house parties, but still allowed invitation-only parties in single family dwellings. However, those too are now prohibited, under penalty of account suspension or full removal from the platform.

On a more positive note, Airbnb lifted a 16-person occupancy cap also instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That's because certain properties "from castles in Europe to vineyards in the US to large beachfront villas in the Caribbean" can easily accommodate more than 16 people, it said, adding that "properties like these thrive on hosting multi-generational family trips and larger groups."

The company runs a tip line that allows neighbors or others to report parties. Airbnb noted that it saw a 44 percent drop in the rate of party reports after the ban was implemented in 2020 and it suspended the accounts of around 6,600 guests for breaking the policy last year.

Rocket Lab has successfully launched NASA's 55-pound CAPSTONE cubesat that will eventually orbit the moon if all goes to plan. It's a small but important step in NASA's Artemis mission that aims to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. 

The launch proceeded nominally according to NASA's broadcast, reaching low-Earth orbit at about 'T' plus 10 minutes. An Electron launch is much like any other, except that it's the first rocket to be electrically powered by batteries rather than a gas turbine. As such, there's a phase called "battery ejection" which happens near the end of the launch cycle. 

Rocket Lab used an Electron rocket with a special addition called the Lunar Photon upper stage with enough power to send it into deep space. It's one of the smallest rockets to attempt to launch a payload to lunar orbit, the company said. It launched from Rocket Lab's site on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula, and is "the highest mass and the highest performance Electron has ever had to fly by quite some margin," the company told TechCrunch earlier. 

CAPSTONE will orbit Earth for nine days to build up enough speed for a trans lunar injection (TLI) that will allow it to eventually orbit the moon. The primary objective is to verify a type of highly elliptical lunar orbit called "near rectilinear halo" that's planned for the Gateway space station. Gateway will eventually be delivered to lunar orbit by SpaceX with a science lab and living quarters for astronauts, along with ports for future spacecraft. 

Rocket Lab was supposed to launch CAPSTONE yesterday but delayed it until today "to perform final system checks," NASA tweeted. Regardless of the launch date, it's scheduled to arrive at the moon on November 13th. To see a replay of the livecast, check here. 

LG is jumping into the EV charging business with the acquisition of a South Korean EV battery charger developer called AppleMango, it announced. The move will allow it to create "fully-featured" charging stations with a user-friendly interface and real-time control and management, it said. In particular, it will be able to leverage its "sturdy, dust- and water-proof" outdoor digital display tech. 

LG is well-established in electric mobility, developing batteries, screens and sensors for electric cars. It recently joined forces with Magna International to develop e-motors, inverters and onboard chargers for automakers. The acquisition will expand that, allowing it to marry the new charger capabilities with its current in-house EV charging management systems. It'll also allow LG to "create synergy" with its current EV battery business and products like energy storage and energy management systems. 

AppleMango was established three years ago in 2019 and has developed proprietary tech like a slim and fast EV charger. LG will also work with partners GS Energy, which operates EV charging stations and IT provider GS Neotek to develop the necessary infrastructure. LG took a 60 percent stake in AppleMango, GS Energy a 34 percent stake and GS Neotek a 6 percent share, according to TechCrunch. 

LG plans to install an EV charger production line at LG Digital Park in South Korea by the end of 2022. The goal is to supply a variety of customers with custom EV charging solutions, including private residences, shopping malls, hotels and public buildings. 

Apple's 13-inch 256GB MacBook Pro M2 may have worse SSD performance than the equivalent M1 model, according to testing by YouTube sites Max Tech and Created Tech seen by MacRumors. The $1,300 base model showed around 50 percent slower read speeds (1,446 MB/s compared to 2,900 MB/s) with write speeds 30 percent lower. 

Max Tech opened up the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 and found that it only had a single 256GB NAND flash storage chip instead of two 128GB chips like the previous M1 model. That would mean the drive can only use two lanes in parallel, so performance is restricted to the speed of a single lane. 

The higher-end 512GB and 1TB models don't appear to suffer from the issue, and many review units (like our own) shipped in a 1TB configuration. The slower disk speeds on the 256GB model could affect app loading times, file transfers and data fetching. Overall performance could also take a hit as the virtual memory (used when RAM is full) will be slower, and the base model only has 8GB of RAM. 

It's not clear why Apple changed the configuration on this model, though the global chip shortage may be a factor. In any case, it's something to consider if you're looking at buying the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2. 

Formula E recently showed off its latest Gen3 car that it says is faster, more agile and "the world's most efficient" racing vehicle to date. Now, we're getting a first look at one on a track at England's Goodwood in the form of the Mahinda M9 Electro with Nick Heidfeld at the wheel. 

On its Twitter account, Goodwood said that Heidfeld was "not holding back" and it looked like the car made a clean lap other than a few minor lockups. On track, the Gen3 design certainly looks more subdued and less dramatic than the Gen2, but it's lighter (840kg compared to 920kg including driver) and quicker in every way.

The Gen3 model is very specifically designed for street circuit racing with high maneuverability and speeds up to 200 MPH. That's not quite as fast as the 220-230 MPH top speeds for F1 cars, but the Formula E vehicles do that with less than half the power. They're also highly efficient, with over double the regenerative braking capabilities of the Gen2 cars. Overall, they convert 90 percent of battery energy to mechanical power, compared to 52 percent for F1 cars. 

There are now 11 Gen3 teams confirmed with 22 cars, including DS Automobiles, Dragon/Penske, Envision, Mercedes-EQ, Avalanche Andretti, Jaguar, Maserati, NIO 333, Nissan and Porsche, along with Mahindra. The first season of Gen3 will kick off this winter with pre-season testing. 

EA's Codemasters is making F1 2022 audio more realistic with an improved driver modes plus updates that make broadcast and car sounds more authentic, it revealed in its latest Developer Deep Dive video. It also unveiled its first licensed soundtrack with 33 songs from artists like Charli XCX, Hozier and Marshmellow. 

This year Formula 1 introduced all new cars that rely on floor tunnels to generate downforce and allow for tighter racing, along with all-new engines and more. F1 2022 is on top of those changes not just with the physics and visuals but also the sounds. To that end, the game has introduced all-new engine bundles based on the real vehicle sounds to give you the feeling of sitting in real Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and other Formula 1 vehicles. 

"In a game like F1 22 the cars are the star so we want them to sound as authentic as possible. We record the actual cars every season and it's important that we recreate the authenticity of the engines," said audio director Brad Porter. "Players use the sound of the engine to drive the car so it's important to get that across as accurately as possible." 

That also includes touches like recording audio using the real headsets from team race engineers and simulating how things would sound to a driver inside a helmet. The developers also used mics that are very close to what announcers use in order accurately simulate the broadcast audio. 

That allowed the team to enhance the different sound modes available, including both Driver mode and Broadcast mode. The latter mode is designed to sound as close as possible to what you'd here on TV, Porter explained. It also enhanced the Cinematic mode to make it "larger than life" with "bespoke" touches like enhanced engine sounds, crowd noise and more. They've also added new settings to let players play with the mix of sounds more than ever.

Other new touches include the addition of Natalie Pinkham as a co-commentator, new recordings of all the announcers and authentic sounds from pit lane, garage and paddocks. Another big change is the addition of licensed music like you'll find in other EA games, letting players choose between 33 songs from artists ranging from Charli XCX to Deadmaus to Diplo. "It is an accelerative soundtrack experience, designed to strap the player into the cockpit and driven by the unrivalled energy of the new era of Formula 1," the development team said. 

Dish's plan to use 12GHz radio spectrum for its 5G network could drastically affect the Starlink satellite internet network, SpaceX said in a letter to the FCC. "If Dish’s lobbying efforts succeed, our study shows that Starlink customers will experience harmful interference more than 77 percent of the time and total outage of service 74 percent of the time, rendering Starlink unusable for most Americans," wrote SpaceX senior director David Goldman. 

Dish has asked the FCC to allow it to use the 12Ghz band for a terrestrial 5G network, despite potential satellite interference with Starlink and other services, including its own Dish Network. Dish and its allies in the 5Gfor12GHz coalition recently published research saying that doing so would be "highly feasible" and that Starlink and similar services "will experience zero harmful interference with 5G."

However, SpaceX called the analysis "faulty" and told the FCC that "no reasonable engineer" would believe the studies. "SpaceX urges the Commission to investigate whether Dish and [Dell-owned] RS Access filed intentionally misleading reports," it said. The Elon Musk-owned company also pointed out that the studies don't align with Dish's own filings from December 2019 that "concurrent sharing of spectrum... is not viable in the 12 GHz band." 

Dish said that its "expert engineers are evaluating SpaceX's claims in the filing," in a statement to CNN Business, but there's no comment yet from the FCC. Previously, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel called the case "one of the most complex dockets we have... it's going to take a lot of technical work to make sure that the airwaves can accommodate all those different uses without harmful interference."

Spectrum battles have been waged frequently over the last several years, with one of the most recent being over potential 5G interference with aviation usage. Recent studies have found that countries exploiting spectrum have significantly expanded their economies compared to other nations.