Twitter news whiplash continues. Elon Musk has said he’ll step down as CEO of Twitter once he’s found a suitable replacement. You might remember Musk ran a poll at the weekend asking if he should leave the role, and the Twitter-using public overwhelmingly told him, well, yes. There was no immediate response to the results of the poll, but by late Tuesday, after suggesting he might change it so only paying users could vote, he seems to be acting on the result. According to his tweet, Musk plans to stay on and run the software and server teams.

The job as Twitter CEO will be viewed by many as a poisoned chalice. Roughly 70 percent of the staff have either been laid off or quit, hate speech and trolls have thrived and many advertisers have dropped or reduced their advertising spending. On top of all that, the company is also now facing increasing pressure from the US government.

– Mat Smith

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The biggest stories you might have missed

• Delta may offer free WiFi on flights starting next year

• The best Xbox games for 2023

• FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried agrees to extradition to the US

• Engadget's favorite books of 2022

• TikTok will explain why it recommends videos on its 'For You' page

Lenovo's Swiss Army lamp kicks off the weird gadgets of CES 2023

A 4K webcam, wireless Qi charging pad and multiple USB-C ports for $329.

Lenovo

Lenovo’s Go Desk Station with Webcam is for those of us with limited desk space. It’s a webcam, adjustable desk light, Qi wireless charger and expansion hub all in one, and it doesn't compromise on any of those things. But it is priced accordingly. The primary feature is the Lenovo Go 4K Pro Webcam, which is also available as a standalone camera. It can stream 4K at up to 30 fps and includes autofocus and auto-framing with an adjustable field of view, along with auto ambient light adjustment, via the built-in desk light. That desk light rides on a height-adjustable and rotating arm.

The hub has a full-function 65-watt USB-C port for laptop power, to start with. It also has a 15-watt Qi compliant charging pad for mobile devices, a 20W USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A 3.1 ports and an HDMI 2.0 output for external displays. This beastly peripheral arrives in March 2023, starting at $329.

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‘Sifu’ is getting an arena mode

And heading to Xbox and Steam in March 2023.

Sifu’s long-awaited Arenas challenge mode will arrive next March. Developer Sloclap made the announcement through IGN, which shared a trailer for the upcoming DLC. The studio first teased the mode last April when it published a free content roadmap for Sifu. Sloclap told IGN: “Completing the new Arenas challenges will also unlock new cheats and exclusive new outfits.” The Arenas mode update will coincide with the game’s release on Xbox and Steam.

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NASA's InSight lander says goodbye from Mars

"This may be the last image I can send," the InSight Twitter account said.

NASA

This is likely the final photo NASA's Mars InSight lander will ever send back to Earth. Since landing on the planet in November 2018, the robot has been snapping pics and gathering data about the Martian environment, accumulating dust on its solar panels that entire time. As NASA predicted earlier this year, the layer of debris has finally become too thick for the solar panels to operate. The InSight Twitter account officially said goodbye on December 19th with a final image from the surface of Mars.

"My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send," the tweet reads. "Don’t worry about me though: My time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me."

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How Meta flunked its first year as a metaverse company

Meta finishes in a much worse place than it started.

This time last year, the company once known as Facebook had finished rebranding as Meta, with Mark Zuckerberg explaining: “From now on, we're going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook first.”

The company has lost billions of dollars on Reality Labs, the division overseeing its metaverse work. Its stock has cratered. The company has, for the first time, shed thousands of employees in mass layoffs. Perhaps most crucially, given its new goals, Meta hasn’t articulated what the metaverse is or effectively made the case for why we should care. Karissa Bell breaks down Meta’s first year.

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Lionel Messi's World Cup celebration is now the most-liked post on Instagram

The legendary footballer took the record away from a photo of an egg.

Hannah Mckay / reuters

Soccer legend Lionel Messi posted a slideshow of him and his Argentinian teammates celebrating after winning the World Cup and, at the time of writing, the post has more than 68.7 million likes, breaking the record for the most-liked post on Instagram. The previous record-holder, a stock photo of an egg, claimed the top spot in early 2019 and currently has north of 57.3 million likes.

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Virgin Orbit is set to make the first ever space flight from UK soil, after the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approved a "historic" first launch license from Spaceport Cornwell. With that in hand, the company plans to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket aboard its "Cosmic Girl" Boeing 747 aircraft in January next year. 

Virgin Orbit first announced plans to launch from a site at Cornwall Airport Newquay four years ago, so the launch has been many years in the making. The first flight was originally scheduled in for mid-December, but was postponed due to technical issues and the lack of a license.

Despite those concerns, the CAA said the license was issued within 15 months, "putting the UK framework on a competitive footing with international space regulators." The regulator added it took "all reasonable steps" to mitigate safety risks. Spaceport Cornwall, meanwhile, received its launch certification last month.  

In addition to the launch license, Virgin Orbit received a range control license that allows it to issue warning notices and monitor the progress of missions. "Receiving range and launch licenses takes us one step closer to the first satellite launch take-off from UK soil," said Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart. "We are progressing towards the first launch from Cornwall – keeping a strong focus on a safe and successful mission for all."

Virgin Orbit flies LauncherOne under the wing of a 747 to reduce the rocket size and fuel needed while eliminating the need for a vertical launch pad. For its maiden "Start Me up" mission, Cosmic Girl will take off from the spaceport and fly to a height of 35,000 feet, then release the LauncherOne rocket that will take the satellites into orbit. Permits for the nine satellites have yet to be issued, but are reportedly "imminent." 

Despite being the widest release of all time in Japan, Avatar: The Way of the Waterfailed to claim the top ranking last weekend as it was topped by an anime basketball picture called The First Slam Dunk. On top of that, multiple theaters in the nation reported technical problems, with one in central Japan forced to reduce the 48 fps frame rate down to the traditional 24 fps, Bloomberg reported. 

Fans were reportedly turned away from other screenings and issued refunds. Some of the theater chains cited by fans as having issues, including United Cinemas Co., Toho Col, and Tokyu Corp., declined to comment on the problem.

Not many movie theaters support high frame rate (HFR) 48 fps playback, as it requires the latest projectors or upgrades to existing ones. Normally, movie theaters would be aware of which formats they can play and plan accordingly. But HFR has been used so little that it would be understandable if errors cropped up. 

Avatar: The Way of the Water is available in multiple formats, including 2D 48 fps, 3D 48 fps and regular 24 fps. If you see the 48 fps version, it only uses the HFR tech for action sequences, while dialog and slower scenes are dialed down to 24 fps (by duplicating frames). Engadget's Devindra Hardawar saw the film at 48 fps and liked it, but added that the technology remains divisive.

Other notable films using HFR were Ang Lee's Gemini Man and The Hobbit trilogy. When the latter came out in 2012, I argued that high frame rates work best with the 3D format as it helps eliminate potential eye strain and even nausea. That's not an issue in 2D, so 24 fps gives the most natural look with none of the video game/soap opera effect that many people dislike.

Elon Musk has said that he will step down as CEO of Twitter once a suitable replacement can be found. On Sunday he ran a poll asking if he should step down, and the Twitter using public overwhelmingly told him to go. He didn't immediately respond to the results of the poll, but by Tuesday he seemed to have accepted the will of the people, after originally suggesting that he might instead change it so that only paying users could vote in Twitter polls.

Developing...

When the Bahamas Attorney General's office announced that it had arrested former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, it noted that the former FTX CEO was likely to be extradited at the request of the United States. Just over a week later, that prediction has come true: Bankman-Fried signed extradition papers on Tuesday afternoon.

According to an unsealed indictment, Bankman-Fried is facing 8 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and more. Specifically, the SEC accuses the cryptocurrency founder of "orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud" for "his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire." The Department of Justice has accused him of attempting commodities and securities fraud, conspiring to defraud investors and breaking federal election laws for donating more to political groups than is legally allowed.

Now, Bankman-Fried will be coming home to face those charges — which might actually be easier on him in the short term. When the former CEO was first arrested in the Bahamas, he was denied bail and deemed a flight risk. In the United States, it's possible he could be released on bail.

Bankman-Fried has previously said that he "didn't ever try to commit fraud," and doesn't believe he's criminally liable for the fall of FTX. The New York Times reports that a defense lawyer representing Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas says that he's returning to the US because he "wishes to put the customers right, and that is what has driven his decision."

When the Bahamas Attorney General's office announced that it had arrested former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, it noted that the former FTX CEO was likely to be extradited at the request of the United States. Just over a week later, that prediction has come true: Bankman-Fried signed extradition papers on Tuesday afternoon.

According to an unsealed indictment, Bankman-Fried is facing 8 counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and more. Specifically, the SEC accuses the cryptocurrency founder of "orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud" for "his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire." The Department of Justice has accused him of attempting commodities and securities fraud, conspiring to defraud investors and breaking federal election laws for donating more to political groups than is legally allowed.

Bankman-Fried originally planned to fight extradition, but indicated on Monday that he would reverse course. Now, he will be returning to the US to face those charges, a decision that might be easier on him in the short term. When the former CEO was first arrested in the Bahamas, he was denied bail and deemed a flight risk. In the United States, it's possible he could be released on bail.

Bankman-Fried has previously said that he "didn't ever try to commit fraud," and doesn't believe he's criminally liable for the fall of FTX. The New York Times reports that a defense lawyer representing Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas says that he's returning to the US because he "wishes to put the customers right, and that is what has driven his decision."

The European Union plans to carry out a full-scale investigation of Broadcom's $61 billion bid to buy VMware. Following a preliminary probe, the European Commission, the bloc's executive branch, announced on Tuesday it believes the proposed acquisition may allow Broadcom to "restrict competition" in the markets for network interface cards, fiber channel host-bus adapters and storage adapters.

Specifically, the EU is concerned Broadcom may harm competition in those markets by limiting interoperability between rival hardware and VMware's server virtualization software. It also worries the company could either prevent or degrade access to VMware's software. The European Commission warns those actions "could lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for business customers, and ultimately consumers."

The Commission will also investigate whether Broadcom could hinder rivals like NVIDIA and Intel from developing their own smart network interface cards. Here it points to VMWare's involvement in Project Monterey, an industry-wide effort the company announced in 2020. "Broadcom may decrease VMware's involvement in Project Monterey to protect its own NICs revenues," the Commission notes. "This could hamper innovation to the detriment of customers." Another concern is that Broadcom could start bundling VMware's virtualization software with its own mainframe and security tools, a move that would reduce choice in the market.

As one of the larger tech acquisitions of 2022, Broadcom's bid to buy VMware was certain to draw scrutiny. The European Commission won't necessarily block the deal, but the investigation could significantly delay the transaction and force concessions out of Broadcom. With today's announcement, the Commission has 90 working days or until May 11th, 2023, to make a decision. If the deal were to fall through, it would be a bitter repeat of Broadcom's 2018 attempt to buy chipmaker Qualcomm. While the circumstances and concerns were different, the company was forced to abandon the takeover after the Trump administration blocked the transaction.

Delta Air Lines reportedly plans to offer free WiFi to all its passengers as soon as next year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The airline is already testing free wireless internet for members of its frequent-flier program, and it's expected to expand significantly through 2023.

According to the report, Delta will start rolling out free WiFi “on a significant portion of its airplanes” before expanding the service to more of its fleet later next year. Once the program is available for all passengers, it will likely require a SkyMiles loyalty number to get online.

CEO Ed Bastian first announced the airline’s goal of free wireless access in 2018, and it recently stepped up testing. It currently uses Viasat and Intelsat (formerly Gogo) for internet access, and it reportedly plans to equip most of its US domestic fleet with Viasat service by the end of this year. JetBlue is the only major US airline currently offering free WiFi for all passengers.

The airline industry has tried for years to improve WiFi, testing with various providers and business models. However, the result is still a mess for customers: You might end up with different online requirements and pricing on two legs of the same flight, even with the same airline. Hopefully, Delta’s move will force other airlines to compete with free WiFi of their own — while cleaning up the process of accessing it.

Soccer megastar Lionel Messi finally secured the one prize that had eluded him during his illustrious career this weekend when Argentina won the World Cup. Afterward, the best player of the 21st century (yeah, I said it) added another record to his resume, as he now has the most-liked post on Instagram.

Messi posted a slideshow of him and his teammates celebrating after winning the World Cup. At the time of writing, the post has more than 65.8 million likes. The previous record-holder, a stock photo of an egg, claimed the top spot in early 2019 and currently has north of 57.3 million likes.

It's not super surprising that Messi broke the Instagram record. As The Verge points out, the majority of the most-liked posts on the platform are from footballers, with the Paris Saint-Germain forward holding eight of the top 20 spots. 

Messi is also the second most-followed person on the platform with 404 million followers. Instagram's own official account has the most followers overall. In second place, one spot ahead of Messi, is his old rival Cristiano Ronaldo with 520 million followers. Bet he'd rather have a World Cup, though.

OpenAI, the Elon Musk-founded artificial intelligence startup behind popular DALL-E text-to-image generator, announced on Tuesday the release of its newest picture-making machine POINT-E, which can produce 3D point clouds directly from text prompts. Whereas existing systems like Google's DreamFusion typically require multiple hours — and GPUs — to generate their images, Point-E only needs one GPU and a minute or two.

OpenAI

3D modeling is used across a variety industries and applications. The CGI effects of modern movie blockbusters, video games, VR and AR, NASA's moon crater mapping missions, Google's heritage site preservation projects, and Meta's vision for the Metaverse all hinge on 3D modeling capabilities. However, creating photorealistic 3D images is still a resource and time consuming process, despite NVIDIA's work to automate object generation and Epic Game's RealityCapture mobile app, which allows anyone with an iOS phone to scan real-world objects as 3D images. 

Text-to-Image systems like OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and Craiyon, DeepAI, Prisma Lab's Lensa, or HuggingFace's Stable Diffusion, have rapidly gained popularity, notoriety and infamy in recent years. Text-to-3D is an offshoot of that research. Point-E, unlike similar systems, "leverages a large corpus of (text, image) pairs, allowing it to follow diverse and complex prompts, while our image-to-3D model is trained on a smaller dataset of (image, 3D) pairs," the OpenAI research team led by Alex Nichol wrote in Point·E: A System for Generating 3D Point Clouds from Complex Prompts, published last week. "To produce a 3D object from a text prompt, we first sample an image using the text-to-image model, and then sample a 3D object conditioned on the sampled image. Both of these steps can be performed in a number of seconds, and do not require expensive optimization procedures."

OpenAI

If you were to input a text prompt, say, "A cat eating a burrito," Point-E will first generate a synthetic view 3D rendering of said burrito-eating cat. It will then run that generated image through a series of diffusion models to create the 3D, RGB point cloud of the initial image — first producing a coarse 1,024-point cloud model, then a finer 4,096-point. "In practice, we assume that the image contains the relevant information from the text, and do not explicitly condition the point clouds on the text," the research team points out. 

These diffusion models were each trained on "millions" of 3d models, all converted into a standardized format. "While our method performs worse on this evaluation than state-of-the-art techniques," the team concedes, "it produces samples in a small fraction of the time." If you'd like to try it out for yourself, OpenAI has posted the projects open-source code on Github.