Apple is making major changes to the App Store in Europe in response to new European Union laws. Beginning in March, Apple will allow users in the EU to download apps and make purchases from outside its App Store. These changes are already being stress-tested in the iOS 17.4 beta.

Developers will be able to take payments and distribute apps from outside the App Store for the first time. Apple will still enforce a review process for apps that don’t come through its store, but it will be “focused on platform integrity and protecting users” from things like malware. The company warns it has less chance of addressing other risks like scams, abuse and harmful content.

Apple is also changing its commission structure, so developers will pay 17 percent on subscriptions and in-app purchases, reducing the fee to 10 percent for “most developers” after the first year. The company is tacking on a new three percent “payment processing” fee for transactions through its store, and there’s a new €0.50 “core technology fee” for all app downloads after the first million installations.

That’s a lot of new money numbers to process, and it could shake out differently for different developers. Apple says the new fee structure will result in most developers paying the company less, since the core technology fee will have the greatest impact on larger developers.

This all means that yes, Fortnite is returning.

— Mat Smith

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The biggest stories you might have missed

The FTC is investigating Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet’s investments into AI startups

Budget retailer Newegg just started selling refurbished electronics

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the final time

MIT researchers have developed a rapid 3D-printing technique that uses liquid metal

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Microsoft launches its metaverse-styled virtual meeting platform

Mesh is a place for your avatars to float around.

Microsoft

Microsoft has announced the launch of Mesh, a feature for employees’ avatars to meet in the same place, even if the actual people are spread out. The virtual connection platform is powered through Microsoft Teams. Currently, Microsoft’s Mesh is only available on desktop PCs and Meta Quest VR devices (if employees want a more immersive experience). Microsoft is offering a six-month free trial to anyone with a business or enterprise plan. But no legs, it seems.

Continue reading.

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses’ new AI powers are impressive

And worrying.

When we first reviewed the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, multimodal AI wasn’t ready. The feature enables the glasses to respond to queries based on what you’re looking at. Meta has now made multimodal search available for “early access.” Multimodal search is impressive, if not entirely useful yet. But Meta AI’s grasp of real-time information is shaky at best.

We tried asking it to help pick out clothes, like Mark Zuckerberg did in a recent Instagram post, and were underwhelmed. Then again, it may work best for a guy who famously wore the exact same shirt every day for years.

Continue reading.

Elon Musk confirms new low-cost Tesla model

Coming in 2025.

Elon Musk has confirmed a “next-generation low-cost” Tesla EV is in the works and is “optimistic” it’ll arrive in the second half of 2025, he said in an earnings call yesterday. He also promised “a revolutionary manufacturing system” for the vehicle. Reuters reported that the new vehicle would be a small crossover called Redwood. Musk previously stated the automaker is working on two new EV models that could sell up to five million per year, combined.

Musk said the company’s new manufacturing technique will be “very hard to copy” because “you have to copy the machine that makes the machine that makes the machine... manufacturing inception.”

I just audibly groaned reading that.

Continue reading. 

Japan’s lunar spacecraft landed upside down on the moon

It collected some data before shutting down.

JAXA

This picture just makes me sad.

Continue reading.

If you weren't able to get the Microsoft Xbox Series S at a discount this past holiday season, you may want to check out Dell's website. The digital media-only console is currently on sale for $230, down $70 from its retail price of $300. While it can't play disc games, your $230 will get you 512GB in SSD storage and a wireless Xbox controller. The console supports variable refresh rates of up to 120 fps, and while it runs games at a max resolution of 1440p, you can use it to stream shows and movies in 4K. You only need to download the streaming apps you have access to, including Disney+, Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. 

While we called the Xbox Series S the least powerful console in its generation in our review, we found it to be capable of incredibly smooth gameplay. Even with boosted framerates, current and previous-gen games played like butter when we tested them out. Series S also starts up quickly, and a feature called Quick Resume lets you pick up from where you left off without having to suffer through loading screens that take forever to finish.

Storage could be an issue, seeing as this doesn't come with a disc drive, but you can expand it by getting the 1TB card Microsoft developed with Seagate. You can also mainly use it with the Game Pass subscription service that gives you access to a library with hundreds of titles. Bottom line is that the Xbox Series S is a great console if you're looking to go fully digital, and this is your chance to grab a unit without having to pay full price. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

GM's driverless Cruise division is under investigation by both the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), The Washington Post has reported. The probes follow an incident last year in which a jaywalking pedestrian was struck by a Cruise autonomous vehicle and then dragged 20 feet, worsening her injuries.

At the same time, yesterday Cruise released its own third-party findings regarding the accident, which took place on October 2 and involved another vehicle (a Nissan). The company said it "failed to live up to the justifiable expectations of regulators and the communities we serve... [and] also fell woefully short of our own expectations," adding that it's "fully cooperating" with investigators. According to its own findings, that's an understatement to say the least. 

According to the report, Cruise withheld crucial information from officials during a briefing the day after the accident. Specifically, the company failed to mention that its autonomous vehicle (AV) had dragged the victim 20 feet at around 7 MPH, causing serious injuries. According to the internal report, that occurred because the vehicle mistakenly detected a side (rather than a frontal) collision and attempted to pull over rather than stopping. 

At least 100 Cruise employees, including members of senior leadership, legal and others, were aware of the dragging incident — but failed to disclose it during October 3 meetings with the San Francisco Mayor's Office, NHTSA, DMV and other officials, the report states.

The company said it intended to let a video of the dragging incident speak for itself, then answer questions about it. However, the video didn't play clearly and fully due to internet connection issues, and then Cruise employees failed to verbally affirm the pullover maneuver and dragging of the pedestrian. In case that's not bad enough, the third-party findings state:

Cruise leadership was fixated on correcting the inaccurate media narrative that the Cruise AV, not the Nissan, had caused the Accident. This myopic focus led Cruise to convey the information about the Nissan hit-and-run driver having caused the Accident to the media, regulators and other government officials, but to omit other important information about the Accident. Even after obtaining the Full Video, Cruise did not correct the public narrative but continued instead to share incomplete facts and video about the Accident with the media and the public.

The report says the failings came about due to "poor leadership, mistakes in judgment, lack of coordination, an 'us versus them' mentality with regulators, and a fundamental misapprehension of Cruise’s obligations of accountability and transparency to the government and the public." 

Prior to the crash, Cruise was facing other problems with its autonomous vehicles (AVs) failing to recognize children and the frequency with which human operators took control. According to former CEO Vogt, human drivers needed to intervene in trips every four to five miles. 

Cruise had its license to operate suspended in California back in October. The company also laid off 24 percent of its workforce late last year, following the resignation of co-founder Daniel Kan and the departure of its CEO Kyle Vogt. On top of the two federal investigations, the company is also facing a lawsuit from the city of San Francisco. 

Catching up on a new podcast should get easier very soon. Apple has announced that it will automatically transcribe podcasts, which should allow more people to enjoy episodes. Apple Podcast will allow creators to upload their own transcript for display or opt for Apple to create one.

There are some caveats to be aware of, though. Apple Podcasts should start creating the transcription when the episode is uploaded. However, it has a "short delay" until it's available, so people eager to play their favorite podcast right away will have to wait for an unspecified amount of time (Apple tells podcasters to give it at least 24 hours after uploading an episode). It's likely that the longer the episode is, the longer the transcription will take to be ready. The transcription will also not update if parts of the recording are changed with dynamically inserted audio, and it won't display music lyrics. 

Podcasters must follow Apple's quality requirements for their episodes to get correctly transcribed. According to Apple, podcasts with people talking over each other or music might not have as good a transcription. If someone chooses to upload their own, it must be a VTT or SRT file. A podcaster can also edit a transcription for greater accuracy. 

Apple Podcasts' transcriptions should launch in the spring on iOS 17.4 in English, German, Spanish and French. The feature is available in over 170 countries and regions, with older episodes getting transcribed over time. 

In late 2023, genetic testing company 23andMe admitted that its customer data was leaked online. A company representative told us back then that the bad actors were able to access the DNA Relatives profile information of roughly 5.5 million customers and the Family Tree profile information of 1.4 million DNA Relative participants. Now, the company has revealed more details about the incident in a legal filing, where it said that the hackers started breaking into customer accounts in late April 2023. The bad actors' activities went on for months and lasted until September 2023 before the company finally found out about the security breach. 

23andMe's filing contains the letters it sent customers who were affected by the incident. In the letters, the company explained that the attackers used a technique called credential stuffing, which entailed using previously compromised login credentials to access customer accounts through its website. The company didn't notice anything wrong until after a user posted a sample of the stolen data on the 23andMe subreddit in October. As TechCrunch notes, hackers had already advertised that stolen data on a hacker forum a few months before that in August, but 23andMe didn't catch wind of that post. The stolen information included customer names, birth dates, ancestry and health-related data. 

23andMe advised affected users to change their passwords after disclosing the data breach. But before sending out letters to customers, the company changed the language in its terms of service that reportedly made it harder for people affected by the incident to join forces and legally go after the company. 

In late 2023, genetic testing company 23andMe admitted that its customer data was leaked online. A company representative told us back then that the bad actors were able to access the DNA Relatives profile information of roughly 5.5 million customers and the Family Tree profile information of 1.4 million DNA Relative participants. Now, the company has revealed more details about the incident in a legal filing, where it said that the hackers started breaking into customer accounts in late April 2023. The bad actors' activities went on for months and lasted until September 2023 before the company finally found out about the security breach. 

23andMe's filing contains the letters it sent customers who were affected by the incident. In the letters, the company explained that the attackers used a technique called credential stuffing, which entailed using previously compromised login credentials to access customer accounts through its website. The company didn't notice anything wrong until after a user posted a sample of the stolen data on the 23andMe subreddit in October. As TechCrunch notes, hackers had already advertised that stolen data on a hacker forum a few months before that in August, but 23andMe didn't catch wind of that post. The stolen information included customer names, birth dates, ancestry and health-related data. 

23andMe advised affected users to change their passwords after disclosing the data breach. But before sending out letters to customers, the company changed the language in its terms of service that reportedly made it harder for people affected by the incident to join forces and legally go after the company. 

Following Apple's announcement of enabling third-party app stores for iOS users in the European Union, Epic Games confirms that it'll be bringing Fortnite back to the iPhone and iPad in Europe later this year — by way of a new Epic mobile games store. This will mark the title's official return to Apple's platform since it was yanked back in August 2020, after Epic offered discounts to payments made directly to its own store, instead of Apple's App Store and Google Play which would take a 30-percent cut. iOS users have had to rely on Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now to play Fortnite, but this will soon be a thing of the past for those based in Europe.

Fortnite's grand return to iOS in Europe is all thanks to the EU's new Digital Markets Act, which goes into effect March 7. This allows developers to take payments and distribute apps from outside of the App Store, pending Apple's new "Notarization" approval process to spot harmful apps. Apple is also introducing a new fee structure that claims to cost less, if not the same, for most developers who publish to European markets.

Even though the upcoming changes will allow Epic Games to make money off iOS users once again (at least in Europe), founder and CEO Tim Sweeney called out Cupertino for the "new Junk Fees on downloads and new Apple taxes on payments they don't process." The exec later spotted more "hot garbage" in the details, particularly the terms related to requesting an entitlement from Apple. "Under what possible theory of antitrust regulation is it acceptable for a monopoly to decide what companies are allowed to compete with it, and on what terms they can compete? Apple makes a mockery of free market competition," Sweeney said in a post on X. The infuriated tone here comes as no surprise, especially after the US Supreme Court rejected Epic's appeal that Apple violated federal antitrust laws earlier this month.

After three years of service, NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter has flown on Mars for the last time. Earlier this month, during its 72nd flight, Ingenuity stopped communicating with the Perseverance rover. Although NASA later reestablished contact with the helicopter, it emerged that at least one of Ingenuity's carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged during a landing on January 18th. The helicopter is upright and is still in contact with ground controllers, but it's no longer capable of flight.

Ingenuity far outlasted its original planned lifespan. NASA designed the helicopter to carry out up to five test flights over 30 days. But it stayed in service for over three years. Ingenuity flew over 14 times farther than originally anticipated and it had a total flight time of over two hours.

“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”

After Ingenuity's initial five flights, NASA decided to keep the helicopter running as an operations demonstration. It scouted ahead for Perseverance.

On January 18, the Ingenuity team planned a short vertical flight so they could pinpoint the helicopter's location after it had to make an emergency landing on its previous jaunt. The chopper reached a height of 40 feet and hovered for 4.5 seconds before descending at a rate of 3.3 feet per second. However, it lost contact with Perseverance when it was about three feet above the surface.

It's not clear how the rotor blade sustained damage. NASA's looking into whether the blade struck the surface. Perseverance is too far away to take a look at Ingenuity itself. The chopper's own camera spotted damage on the shadow of a rotor blade.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

The hardy helicopter endured tough terrain, a dead sensor, dust storms (after which was able to clean itself) and a winter on Mars. The Ingenuity team will wind down the helicopter's operations after carrying out final tests and downloading the last data and imagery from its memory. After making history as the first aircraft from Earth to conduct a powered, controlled flight on another planet, all Ingenuity can do now is rest easy on the surface of Mars. 

Shortly after Japan’s space agency became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, its scientists discovered the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) unfortunately touched down upside down. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that the SLIM landed on the lunar surface on January 20 but it knew it might have bigger problems due to an issue with power generation. Just hours after making landfall, JAXA expected the power to run out, before it ultimately did.

SLIM met the moon’s surface about 55 meters east of the original target landing site, JAXA said. The agency did get all of the technical information related to its navigation prior to landing and ultimately becoming stationary on the lunar surface. JAXA captured photos of the SLIM from its The Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2, its fully autonomous robot currently exploring the moon.

The reason behind the main engine malfunctioning is under investigation by the space agency. There is a slim chance for regeneration because the solar cells that power the spacecraft are facing west, meaning there is a chance for SLIM recovery if enough light from the sun reaches the cells as more time passes. The SLIM JAXA team took to X earlier this week to write, “We are preparing for recovery.” The agency said it will “take the necessary preparations to gather more technical and scientific data from the spacecraft.

Researchers at MIT have developed a rapid 3D-printing technique that uses liquid metal to allow for extremely fast prints. The process can manufacture large aluminum components in minutes, whereas many pre-existing techniques would take hours to finish the same build. The technology has already been used to create table legs, chair frames and related furniture parts.

It’s called liquid metal printing (LMP) and involves directing molten aluminum along a predefined path into a bed of tiny glass beads. These beads quickly harden into a 3D structure. Researchers say the new process is at least ten times faster than comparable metal manufacturing techniques.

However, there is one major caveat. This process sacrifices resolution for speed and scale. This is why the researchers have used it to create low-resolution items like chair legs and not, say, intricate parts with complex geometries. MIT researchers say this trade-off still makes the technology useful for creating “components of larger structures” that don’t require extremely fine details. This includes furniture parts, as mentioned above, but also components for construction and industrial design.

Despite the resolution downgrade, parts made using LMP are still durable and can withstand post-print machining, like drilling and boring. The folks behind this technology say the builds are much more durable than those built with wire arc additive manufacturing, which is a pre-existing metal printing method. This is because LMP keeps the material molten throughout the entire process, lessening the chances of cracking and warping.

The researchers recommend combining LMP with other techniques for jobs that require both speed and a high resolution. “Most of our built world — the things around us like tables, chairs, and buildings — doesn’t need extremely high resolution”, said Skylar Tibbits, a senior author of a paper that introduced the project.

It’s also worth noting that this printing method doesn’t require aluminum. It can work with other metals. The researchers chose aluminum due to its popularity in construction and the fact that it’s easily recycled.

The folks behind this tech hope to keep iterating on the concept to improve heating consistency, to prevent sticking, and allow for greater control over the molten metal. The team’s been having issues with larger nozzle diameters leading to irregular prints, which is something that needs to be worked out. Tibbits said the method could eventually become a “game-changer in metal manufacturing.”

Despite slightly falling out of favor in the commercial space, 3D printing has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Researchers have developed a tiny 3D printer that actually gets inserted into the body to repair and clean damaged tissue. Scientists also recently printed a working piece of the human heart.