Long gone are the days when you needed to swipe a physical credit card, with your phone typically being all you need to complete in-person transactions. PayPal is finally getting on board with the change, announcing that you can now add it and Venmo's credit and debit cards to your Apple Wallet. As part of their motivation for the expansion, the company cites a 2022 Morning Consult survey that found 42 percent of people in the United States have used a mobile wallet.

PayPal has long offered credit cards, while Venmo launched its first in 2020 (and has made sure you know about it anytime you use the app or the company sends you an email). With this further offering, you can pay for in-person transactions with PayPal or Venmo using Touch or Face ID on your iPhone or Apple Watch, as well as use Apple Pay to complete digital purchases on these devices and your iPad or Mac.

Adding a PayPal or Venmo card to your Apple Wallet is the same process as any other card. Visit your Apple Wallet app, choose the option to add a debit or credit card and then scan in or manually enter its details. You can also immediately add your PayPal credit or debit card to your Apple Wallet through PayPal's site. However, the PayPal Business Debit Card and Venmo's credit and debit cards will be available to add through their respective apps "in the coming months." PayPal previously rolled out tap-to-pay support on iPhones and Androids, but it was through the company's apps. 

Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky told the Financial Times that the company is going "a little bit beyond its core business" starting next year. Chesky wants Airbnb to expand its focus and is currently planning a push into long-term rentals. The service already offers monthly rentals, but apparently, only 18 percent of gross nights booked in the second quarter of 2023 come from stays longer than 30 days. Chesky believes the company can do more to drum up interest in long-term bookings and that offering rentals for up to a year represents a "huge opportunity." 

"In this post-pandemic world, there's this   unrecognized market of a month, two months, three months, because people can work from laptops, people are going away for the summer," he told the publication. 

Chesky's plan, if executed well, could be what the company needs to be able to regain lost NYC listings. The city used to be one of the biggest Airbnb markets with the most number of listings available, but officials recently started enforcing new regulations that wiped out most of them. NYC mandated that hosts will have to lodge an application to be able to rent homes to guests for less than 30 days, and it has reportedly been slow to issue approvals. Further, hosts can only rent out homes for short-term stays if they're also staying there, and only two guests are allowed at any one time. 

In addition to putting a focus on long-term rentals, Chesky also intends to expand its experiences selection, so it could offer more "things to do on your trip." He presented more ideas under consideration to the Times, as well, including dining pop-ups and car rentals. "The second biggest asset usually in someone's life after their home is their car," he said. "That'll be the next thing." His statement hints at a business model similar to services like Turo's, which people have been calling "Airbnb for cars."

A Florida-based company called X Social Media has accused Elon Musk’s X Corp. of trademark and service mark infringement. With SpaceX, AI venture xAI (not to mention the brief existence of banking startup x.com), Musk really loves the letter X. At the time of the renaming, trademark attorney Josh Gerben told Reuters there was “about a 100 percent probability that both opportunistic and legitimate plaintiffs will sue Twitter/X over the new name.” Conveniently, Gerben’s law firm is representing the plaintiff in this case.

X Social Media says it’s “offered its advertising and social media services connecting law firms and those in need of advocates since 2016.” While its logo looks vastly different from the logo used by the social network formerly known as Twitter, it apparently “frequently emphasizes the ‘X’ portion of its mark throughout its advertising.” The plaintiff told the court it has already suffered losses in revenue due to Twitter’s rebranding and that the confusion will probably continue to its “financial detriment.”

It’s now asking the court for an injunction against Musk’s X, asking for damages equivalent to three times its losses or the defendant’s profits. If it’s looking for X/Twitter’s profits, it might struggle.

— Mat Smith

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!​​

The biggest stories you might have missed

SteelSeries starts out strong with its first dedicated gaming microphones

Ford’s new F-150 Lightning Flash has a 320-mile range and hands-free highway driving

The FCC has begun fining companies over their dead satellites

The best laptops for 2023

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE hands-on: Moving beyond fan edition

The original Apple Watch lineup is officially obsolete

The 2015 original series includes a $17,000 edition.

Engadget

Apple’s first-generation Watch is now officially obsolete, including the Hermes and $17,000 18-carat gold Watch Edition models, according to Apple’s latest obsolete product list seen by MacRumors. That means the Series 0 Watch models, first released in 2015, are no longer eligible for hardware service and providers cannot order parts. Still, the original watch fulfilled a role, like the very first iPhone, of proof of concept. Apple improved on the wearable to become the most popular smartwatch by a fair margin — it’s just not a watch that grows in value.

Continue reading.

A pedestrian was pinned under a Cruise robotaxi after another car’s hit-and-run

The woman is in critical condition.

A Cruise autonomous car was involved in a horrific accident in San Francisco on Monday evening. A pedestrian crossing a street was hit by another car, which sped off. However, the hit-and-run hurled her in front of a Cruise driverless taxi, which stopped atop her leg as she screamed in pain. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the woman was still in critical condition at 9:30 AM ET on Tuesday. Cruise says there weren’t any passengers in the AV, which was in autonomous mode. Cruise and Waymo got approval from California regulators this year to operate and charge fares for fully autonomous cars in San Francisco at any time of the day. However, the state’s DMV asked the company in August to reduce its fleet of driverless taxis by half, pending an investigation into crashes involving the AVs.

Continue reading.

Surface Laptop Go 3 review

Microsoft’s basic PC grows up.

Engadget

When the Surface Laptop Go debuted three years ago, it seemed like Microsoft made the cheapest possible notebook without sacrificing that Surface flair. The result was a $549 computer with such mediocre specs it just wasn’t worth considering. Now, with noticeably faster than previous Laptop Go models and better build quality, Microsoft’s getting a lot of things right, even though prices start at $799.

Continue reading.

How to watch Google unveil the Pixel 8

Find out all the juice about the Pixel 8 lineup and the Pixel Watch 2.

Yes, we know everything already. So. Many. Leaks. But Google may have some surprises or fancy Pixel features to warrant watching along with its livestream. (I hope so.) It all starts at 10 AM ET on October 4. We’ll have full coverage of all the Pixel news right here on Engadget, including our own liveblog.

Continue reading.

After closing its 3DS and Wii U eShops earlier this year, Nintendo will shut down online services for those consoles in "early April 2024," it announced. That will put a halt to multiplayer features, along with "online co-operative play, internet rankings and data distribution," Nintendo wrote. Nintendo's Badge Arcade that allowed users to decorate their Nintendo 3DS home menu will also disappear. The date isn't fixed in stone yet, and Nintendo said it may even discontinue services "earlier than planned." 

Most online play on those consoles will end, but the company will continue to operate its Pokémon Bank cloud storage service, although "that may also end at some point in the future," Nintendo said. In addition, you'll still be able to redownload previously purchased games and get patches "for the foreseeable future," according to a FAQ. Nintendo shut down online play for the Wii U versions of Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon in March 2023 to resolve security issues, only bringing them back online in August.

Finally, though SpotPass features are disappearing, StreetPass links within the 3DS ecosystem will keep working as long as you can find another player who has one. "For example, you will be able to use StreetPass in StreetPass Mii Plaza, which is pre-installed on Nintendo 3DS family systems, but you will no longer be able to use features that use online communication (such as receiving new panels in Puzzle Swap)." 

The Wii U console was released in 2012 and discontinued in 2017, becoming one of the company's worst-selling consoles. The 3DS, launched in 2010 and discontinued in 2020, was a bigger success. The Nintendo Network, which arrived in 2012, provided online services for both devices. 

Gmail already has some handy Smart Replies you could use for when you're incredibly busy or when impersonal responses would do for certain emails. But what if you don't really have anything to say, and the best reply to an email is just... an emoji? Well, Google has got your back. The tech giant has launched emoji reactions for Gmail — and, yes, that means you'll be able to react to emails like you can to instant messages. 

Google has started rolling out the feature to Android devices, and you'd know that you already have access to it if you see a smiley face icon at the bottom of an email when you open it on the app. You can tap on the icon to bring up a menu where you can find the emoji options to choose from. Everyone's reactions will show up right next to the icon, and some of them will come with their own short animations. If you choose the party popper, for example, prepare for digital confetti on your screen upon sending one or upon opening a message with party popper reactions. It'll be a lot less fun for people on the email chain not using Gmail, though, because they'll receive each reaction as a separate email. 

While you can only access emoji reactions on Android at the moment, the feature will make its way to iOS devices and the web over the next few months.

Google

Spotify has added a new feature for Premium subscribers meant for bookworms. Starting on October 4, subscribers in the UK and Australia will get access to a selection of more than 150,000 audiobooks without having to pay extra. US subscribers will also be able to enjoy the new perk sometime later this year. While they're getting access to a wide range of books and can choose to listen to as many as they want, the offering comes with a catch: Subscribers will only get 15 hours of free audiobook listening every month. The streaming giant told us that users can top up their listening hours to the tune of $11 for another 10 hours after the allocation.

That makes Spotify's service a lot more expensive than Audible's, which costs $8 a month and has no listening limit. The company first made audiobooks available on its platform back in September last year. It launched with 300,000 titles in its library, and users could purchase any of them from within the service. Spotify could have added audiobooks to Premium subscriptions as a way to get users hooked to consuming different types of media in one place. It's just a question of whether users would be willing to pay $11 for every 10 hours of listening after the first 15. That may sound lengthy to some, but for voracious readers (or audiobook listeners), that's nowhere near enough.

"We believe that offering personalized music, podcasts, and audiobooks on a single platform gives you a superior way to connect with your favorite artists, podcasters, creators, and authors — all in one spot," Spotify explained in its announcement.

That said, users can still purchase any title they want from Spotify's audiobook library, so there's no need to pay for additional hours if they have specific books in mind. The feature also comes with auto-bookmarking, preventing users from having to repeat pages and lose precious minutes of listening. Plus, if they activate Spotify Sleep Timer, they can fall asleep while listening to their books without having to rewind when they wake up. It's also worth noting that subscribers can download audiobooks for offline listening. 

At the moment, the new perk is only available for individual Premium subscribers and to plan managers of Family or Duo accounts, but Spotify says it plans to expand its availability in the future. 

I never really understood Samsung’s fan edition branding, and after not making an FE version of the S22 last year, I thought that designation might have been killed off for good. But now in 2023, Samsung is bringing the FE tag back with a bit of a twist. Instead of standing for “fan edition,” the moniker will simply be used to denote devices that share some features and design traits with the company’s flagship devices but with lower prices. Additionally, on Tuesday Samsung expanded the line, announcing four new FE models including the Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Tab S9 FE, Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ and the Galaxy Buds FE.

The S23 FE may be the most straightforward of them all. It features an almost identical design to the regular model, but with a 120Hz 6.4-inch OLED display that fits between the standard S23 (6.1 inches) and the S23+ (6.6) in size. Around back, you still get three rear cameras including a 50-MP main sensor, a 12-MP ultra-wide and a slightly lower-res 8-MP telephoto with a 3x optical zoom. Notably, unlike Samsung’s A-series phones, the S23 FE still features a glass design with metal sides, the difference is that the FE uses Gorilla Glass 5 instead of Gorilla Glass Victus like on the standard S23. However, there is a refreshed range of colors including mint, purple, cream and graphite in addition to a couple of exclusive hues on Samsung.com.

Inside, the other major difference is that the S23 features an older Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip (instead of a Gen 2 processor). So even though that silicon is still relatively speedy, you’re not getting full flagship performance. Battery capacity has also increased slightly to 4,500 mAh. But aside from that, the specs are pretty similar. You can choose from either 128GB or 256GB of storage, with the phone also offering features like an in-screen fingerprint reader and an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.

Next, we have the Galaxy Tab S9 FE and S9 FE+, which sport nearly identical specs aside from the latter having an extra camera, a larger battery and a bigger display (10.9 inches vs. 12.3 inches). The biggest departure from the regular Tab S9 is that the FE models feature LCD displays instead of OLED panels. At first, that was a bit of concern as Samsung’s OLED screens are some of the best in the business and have become a signature feature on its mobile devices. But after seeing them in person, even with a slightly lower max refresh rate (90Hz vs. 120Hz), I’m not that worried. The Tab S9 FE’s displays are bright, colorful and even support the company’s Vision Booster tech for increased viewability outdoors.

Photo by Sam Rutheford/Engadget

Similar to the S23 FE, the Tab S9 features less powerful silicon (an Exynos 1380 chip) instead of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. But even so, Samsung says the Tab S9 FE delivers 38 percent better CPU performance and 73 percent faster GPU performance when compared to the Tab S7 FE from 2021. Granted, comparing the new one to a two-year-old model may not be super convincing, but if you’ll recall, there was no Tab S8 FE. But the thing I really appreciate is that Samsung hasn’t messed with the tablet’s general design. It still features a super sleek aluminum chassis and a bundled S-Pen, just like you get on the normal model.

Finally, there’s the Galaxy Buds FE which are essentially a cheaper version of the standard Galaxy Buds 2 but without wireless charging. The case is identical right down to the USB-C port in back, the only change is on the sides of the buds themselves. Compared to their more expensive counterpart, the Galaxy Buds FE feature a flatter touch panel which Samsung says was altered due to customer feedback that a curvier design makes tap gestures harder to perform.

The buds still come with both active noise cancellation and support for passthrough ambient sound, though interestingly their expected battery is a touch longer at around six hours with ANC on or nine hours with it off. The two new additions are the ability to locate the buds using SmartThings Find and Easy Pair/Auto Switch which makes it faster and easier to control audio when connected to multiple devices.

Of course missing out on some performance or a few features might be worth it in order to get more affordable devices, which is sort of what the FE line is all about. For the type of people who don’t care about wireless charging, at $100 the Galaxy Buds FE could be a great alternative to the $150 Galaxy Buds 2. It’s a similar situation for the Tab S9 FE line which isn’t quite as fast but starts at $450 compared to $800 for the regular model. And then there’s the S23 FE, which $600 presents a $200 savings over the standard S23 despite featuring a larger display and battery. So if you’re OK with devices that aren’t quite as fancy, but come with a more palatable price, the new Galaxy FE family could be worthy alternatives.

The Galaxy Tab S9 FE/FE+ and Galaxy Buds FE will be available on October 10, followed by the Galaxy S23 FE on October 26.

A traditional watermark is a visible logo or pattern that can appear on anything from the cash in your wallet to a postage stamp, all in the name of discouraging counterfeiting. You might have seen a watermark in the preview to your graduation photos, for example. But in the case of artificial intelligence, it takes a slight twist, as most things in the space usually do.

In the context of AI, watermarking can allow a computer to detect if text or an image is generated from artificial intelligence. But why watermark images to begin with? Generative art creates a prime breeding ground for the creation of deep fakes and other misinformation. So despite being invisible to the naked eye, watermarks can combat the misuse of AI-generated content and can even be integrated into machine-learning programs developed by tech giants like Google. Other major players in the space, everyone from OpenAI to Meta and Amazon, have pledged to develop watermarking technology to combat misinformation.

That’s why computer science researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) took it upon themselves to examine and understand how easy it is for bad actors to add or remove watermarks. Soheil Feizi, a professor at UMD told Wired that his team’s findings confirm his skepticism that there aren’t any reliable watermarking applications at this point. The researchers were able to easily evade the current methods of watermarking during testing and found it even easier to add fake emblems to images that weren’t generated by AI. But beyond testing how easy it is to evade watermarks, one UMD team notably developed a watermark that is near impossible to remove from content without completely compromising the intellectual property. This application makes it possible to detect when products are stolen.

Google

In a similar collaborative research effort between the University of California, Santa Barbara and Carnegie Mellon University, researchers found that through simulated attacks, watermarks were easily removable. The paper discerns that there are two distinct methods for eliminating watermarks through these attacks: destructive and constructive approaches. When it comes to destructive attacks, the bad actors can treat watermarks like it's a part of the image. Tweaking things like the brightness, contrast or using JPEG compression, or even simply rotating an image can remove a watermark. However, the catch here is that while these methods do get rid of the watermark, they also mess with the image quality, making it noticeably worse. In a constructive attack, watermark removal is a bit more sensitive and uses techniques like the good old Gaussian blur.

Although watermarking AI-generated content needs to improve before it can successfully navigate simulated tests similar to those featured in these research studies, it's easy to envision a scenario where digital watermarking becomes a competitive race against hackers. Until a new standard is developed, we can only hope for the best when it comes to new tools like Google’s SynthID, an identification tool for generative art, which will continue to get workshopped by developers until it hits the mainstream.

But the timing for innovation by thought leaders could not be better. With the 2024 presidential election in the United States poised to take center stage soon, AI-generated content could play a huge role in swaying political opinion with things like deep fake ads. The Biden administration has even made note of the issue, citing that there are reasonable concerns for how artificial intelligence can be used for disruptive purposes, particularly in the realm of misinformation.

Samsung announced a new portable solid-state drive (SSD) today. The Portable SSD T9 offers up to 2,000 MB/s sequential read and write speeds through the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. The SSD ships in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB options.

Samsung says the T9 is around twice as fast as its predecessor, the T7 (Engadget’s previous pick for the best portable SSD). “The USB interface enables two lanes of 10 Gbps operation to provide 20 Gbps data transfer rates which delivers faster speeds when transferring high-resolution videos or large files, effectively saving creators’ time during heavy workloads like video editing,” the company wrote in a press release. Samsung says it can transfer a 4GB video in nearly two seconds or a 90-minute 4K recording in 12 seconds.

Samsung

The device has an aluminum body with a rubber covering. Samsung says this allows it to withstand drops up to nine feet (one foot shorter than the T7 Shield). The company describes the cover as being ideal for heat control and comfort when gripping it. The SSD ships with USB Type C-to-C and USB Type C-to-A cables, and it includes a five-year limited warranty.

The T9 is compatible with Samsung’s Magician software, which enables performance benchmarks, security features and firmware updates. The software runs on Windows, macOS and Android.

The Samsung Portable SSD T9 is available today at Samsung’s website and retail partners (including Amazon). The drive costs $140 for 1TB, $240 for 2TB and $440 for 4TB.

Meta’s Oversight Board is set to take on a new high-profile case ahead of next year’s presidential election. The board said it planned to announce a case involving a user appeal related to an “altered” video of President Joe Biden. The board didn’t disclose specifics of the case, which it said would be announced formally “in the coming days,” but suggested it will touch on policies that could have far-reaching implications for Meta.

“In the coming days the Oversight Board will announce a new case regarding a user-appeal to remove an altered video of President Joe Biden on Facebook,” the Oversight Board said in a statement. “This case will examine issues related to manipulated media on Meta’s platforms and the company’s policies on misinformation, especially around elections.”

While neither Meta or the Oversight Board has shared details about the video in question, the case could further shape the social network’s policies around AI-generated or otherwise manipulated media. Even before the rise of generative AI tools that make it easier than ever to create fake videos of public figures, Meta has taken heat over its response to suggestively edited videos of politicians. In 2019, the company declined to remove an edited clip that falsely claimed then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was “drunk.”

The incident prompted the company’s current policy that bars AI-generated deepfakes, but allows some other types of edited videos to remain up. Over the last year, fact checkers have regularly debunked deceptively-edited videos of Joe Biden that often spread widely on Facebook and Instagram.

It’s not the first time the Oversight Board has weighed in on a case involving a head of state, The board previously got involved in Meta’s suspension of Donald Trump, and recently recommended Meta suspend the former prime minister of Cambodia (Meta ultimately declined to do so). When the Oversight Board agrees to a case, Meta is only required to implement the board’s decision for the specific Facebook or Instagram post in question. The board also makes a number of policy suggestions, which Meta is free to ignore, though it must provide written responses.