The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max may have only arrived yesterday but developers are already dreaming up fun and interesting use cases for Apple’s new Dynamic Island interface. Take Apollo creator Christian Selig, for instance. On Friday, he updated his Reddit client to implement support for “Pixel Pals.” The feature adds a Tamagotchi-like critter that does cute things on top of your phone’s Dynamic Island while you have Apollo open. You can even choose between multiple creatures, including a cat, dog, hedgehog, fox or axolotl.

If you don’t have an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max, don’t worry. You can also add the creatures to your phone as lock screen widgets – provided you have iOS 16 installed. On the subject of iPhone widgets, Google teased one that will function as a shortcut to Chrome’s Dino game.

Selig isn’t the only person doing something creative with the iPhone 14 Pro’s Dynamic Island. In a tweet spotted by The Verge, WaterMinder creator Kriss Smolka showed off Hit the Island, a game that uses the UI element for a Pong-style game. You can download it from the App Store. I can only speak for myself, but these apps make me a bit jealous I'm still rocking an iPhone 12.  

Tesla has crossed another significant manufacturing milestone. As caught by Electrek, the automaker shared on Saturday that its Texas Gigafactory recently produced its ten thousandth Model Y SUV. The achievement could be good news for those hoping to buy a Cybertruck next year. Tesla plans to build the pickup truck primarily in Texas. The automaker initially expected to begin volume production in 2021 but then delayed the Cybertruck to 2022 and then 2023.

According to multiple reports, one of the reasons Tesla’s next EV hasn’t arrived yet is due to a bottleneck related to the company’s next-generation 4680 battery cells. In 2020, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the technology would lead to electric vehicles that cost less than cars with combustion engines. At that point, however, Tesla and battery partner Panasonic had yet to produce the cells at scale, and it was only this past June that they looked ready for a production surge.

That’s why the Model Y milestone is interesting. In April, Tesla began selling a new variant of the SUV that features 4680 battery cells. It can travel 279 miles on a single charge and starts at $59,990. On Saturday, Tesla didn’t say how many of the new Standard Range AWD variants it has produced to date. However, Electrek estimates the Texas Gigafactory is currently manufacturing more than 1,000 Model Y vehicles every week and that the plant is likely on track to begin making 2,000 units every seven days. 

If Half-Life: Alyx left you with an itch to revisit its seminal 2004 predecessor, now you can do so in virtual reality. On Friday, a group of fans known as the Source VR Mod Team released Half-Life 2: VR Mod. As long as you own the original, you can download and play the mod free through Steam.

While it’s currently in public beta, the mod allows you to play through Half-Life 2’s single-player story from start to finish. The Source VR Mod Team integrated a handful of features found in Half-Life: Alyx to modernize the experience and make it playable in VR. For instance, you switch between weapons using the same selection grid found in Valve’s 2020 game.

Other VR-minded tweaks include the addition of optional laser sights, over-the-shoulder ammo storage, manual reloading and two-handed weapon handling. There’s even support for room-scale movement. The Source VR Mod Team says the project isn’t finished, but that hasn’t stopped people from enjoying the experience, with the mod currently holding an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on 732 reviews.

Like Black Mesa before it, Half-Life 2: VR Mod has been a long time coming. As Eurogamer notes, the project was first announced in 2017 and went through development hell before remerging in 2021. The fact you can play it today is thanks to a recent influx of new team members who "revitalized" development.

The Department of Justice has asked a US federal judge to participate in the upcoming appeals case between Epic and Apple, according to court documents seen by Reuters. The companies will return to court next month to argue over the outcome of their 2020 antitrust case.

The Justice Department filed a brief to enter the case at the start of the year. The agency said it was concerned that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had improperly interpreted US antitrust law. In 2019, reports surfaced that the DOJ was preparing to launch a probe of Apple’s business practices. A decision to uphold the company's win over Epic could limit the DOJ’s ability to sue it for antitrust violations.

"The United States believes that its participation at oral argument would be helpful to the court, especially in explaining how the errors (in antitrust law interpretation) could significantly harm antitrust enforcement beyond the specific context of this case," the Justice Department wrote on Friday.

The agency has asked for 10 minutes of the court’s time. Neither side is against the Justice Department’s involvement, though Apple has requested that the DOJ’s argument time count against Epic’s total time allotment or that the court extends the proceedings.

If you plan to purchase Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro, you should consider buying them from Amazon. Ahead of their September 23rd release date, the retailer has priced the earbuds at $240, or $10 less than MSRP. It’s a modest discount, to be sure, but it’s also not often that you can get new gadgets at release for less than their suggested retail price.

Engadget hasn’t had a chance to review the 2022 AirPods Pro yet, but the current generation model earned a score of 87 from us in 2019. Based on the improvements Apple detailed at its recent iPhone 14 event, the new AirPods Pro look like a solid upgrade. They feature Apple’s new H2 chip, leading to significantly improved active noise cancelation performance and a more functional transparency mode, according to the company. Additionally, they include volume touch controls, a feature missing from the first-generation model. Apple has also improved playtime with a charging case it claims can provide the AirPods Pro with up to 30 hours of battery power.

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The next time you build a gaming PC, you probably won't be adding an EVGA GPU to your list of possible components. The company, which is best known for manufacturing NVIDIA GeForce-based video cards, is getting out of the GPU-making business. As Tom's Hardware and Ars Technica report, company CEO Andrew Han sat down with YouTubers JayZTwoCents and Gamers Nexus in a closed-door interview to reveal EVGA's decision. He also talked about his grievances with NVIDIA.

Han told the YouTubers that NVIDIA had stopped treating EVGA as a true partner over the years despite their history. NVIDIA had allegedly stopped informing EVGA about new product announcements and important information, such as suggested retail pricing and availability. That left add-in board partners like EVGA to find out details about the latest products on stage, the same time we all do. Further, NVIDIA's first-party Founders Edition cards undercut the prices of their counterparts from EVGA and other partners, forcing the vendors to mark down their prices. 

EVGA, Han said, will continue selling cards based on older GeForce GPUs like the RTX 3000 series. After it runs out of stock, though, that's it — the company has no plans to team up with NVIDIA rivals AMD or Intel. EVGA has been selling other computer components and accessories, such as power supplies and gaming mice, for a while now. But according to Gamers Nexus, 80 percent of the company's revenue comes from GeForce sales, so this decision could put the company's very existence in jeopardy. When the YouTuber commented that this must have been a difficult decision to make, the CEO reportedly replied that this was easy and it was working with NVIDIA that was hard.

In its forums, EVGA has posted the following statement:

EVGA will not carry the next generation graphics cards. EVGA will continue to support the existing current generation products. EVGA will continue to provide the current generation products. EVGA is committed to our customers and will continue to offer sales and support on the current lineup. Also, EVGA would like to say thank you to our great community for the many years of support and enthusiasm for EVGA graphics cards.

As for NVIDIA, Bryan Del Rizzo, the director of global public relations for GeForce, told Tom's Hardware:

We’ve had a great partnership with EVGA over the years and will continue to support them on our current generation of products. We wish Andrew and our friends at EVGA all the best.

In August, LastPass had admitted that an "unauthorized party" gained entry into its system. Any news about a password manager getting hacked can be alarming, but the company is now reassuring its users that their logins and other information weren't compromised in the event.

In his latest update about the incident, LastPass CEO Karim Toubba said that the company's investigation with cybersecurity firm Mandiant has revealed that the bad actor had internal access to its systems for four days. They were able to steal some of the password manager's source code and technical information, but their access was limited to the service's development environment that isn't connected to customers' data and encrypted vaults. Further, Toubba pointed out that LastPass has no access to users' master passwords, which are needed to decrypt their vaults.

The CEO said there's no evidence that this incident "involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults." They also found no evidence of unauthorized access beyond those four days and of any traces that the hacker injected the systems with malicious code. Toubba explained that the bad actor was able to infiltrate the service's systems by compromising a developer's endpoint. The hacker then impersonated the developer "once the developer had successfully authenticated using multi-factor authentication." 

Back in 2015, LastPass suffered a security breach that compromised users' email addresses, authentication hashes, password reminders and other information. A similar breach would be more devastating today, now that the service supposedly has over 33 million registered customers. While, LastPass isn't asking users to do anything to keep their data safe this time, it's always good practice not to reuse passwords and to switch on multi-factor authentication.

National Drive Electric Week is right around the corner. Plug In America, the Electric Vehicle Association, environmental organization Sierra Club and Nissan (one of the main sponsors) are all backing the initiative, which aims to highlight the benefits of having an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid. Between September 23rd and October 2nd, EV owners will show off their rides and chat to folks curious about making the switch at events across the US (some are taking place in Canada and Mexico as well). Many dealers are taking part too. 

The website has a list of dozens of events. You can see which ones are happening in your neck of the woods by punching in your zip code or city. Alternatively, you can see all the events on a map view. With many jurisdictions phasing out sales of new gas-powered cars in the coming years, it may not be a bad idea to have more clarity on EVs and what it's like to own one sooner rather than later.

The intruder who claims to have hacked Uber might not have done much damage. The ridesharing firm has determined that there's "no evidence" the perpetrator accessed sensitive user data, such as trip histories. All services are functioning properly, and the company has restored the use of internal software it took down upon discovering the breach.

Uber didn't say more about the reported culprit or the nature of the incident. Bleeping Computer says it has seen screenshots from the hacker that purport to show Uber's IT resources, including its Amazon Web Services console, Google Workspace dashboard and virtual machines. The perpetrator also gained access to Uber's bug bounty program, suggesting they might be aware of security holes the company hasn't necessarily fixed.

Account info appears to be safe. However, there are concerns the attacker might have access to source code, or could sell the bounty data to other hackers who might use vulnerabilities for their own campaigns. There may be fallout in the days ahead, even if Uber passengers don't have any immediate reasons to worry.

With PS VR2 set to arrive early next year, Sony is starting to accelerate the hype train for its next-gen virtual reality headset. The hardware made its public debut at the Tokyo Game Show this week (early impressions are largelypositive) and the company revealed some more titles that are coming to the platform during Tuesday’s State of Play. Some other important information just emerged, albeit on the negative side: PS VR games will not work on PS VR2.

“PS VR games are not compatible with PS VR2 because PS VR2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation VR experience," PlayStation senior vice-president of platform experience Hideaki Nishino said on the latest episode of the Official PlayStation Podcast (as spotted by Nibellion). “PS VR2 has much more advanced features, like [an] all-new controller with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, inside-out tracking, eye tracking… Video and audio are coming together and 4K HDR, of course. This means developing games for PS VR2 requires a whole different approach than the original PS VR.”

Some games that do work on PS VR have been confirmed for PS VR2 (such as No Man's Sky), but this is still disappointing news. It means players will not be able to access PS VR games from the new headset, so if they want to be able to dip back into older games from time to time, they'll need to keep the old hardware around. 

It seems that newcomers to PlayStation VR will also not be able to check out games they might have heard good things about, such as Astro Bot Rescue Mission or Moss, unless the developers port their games to PS VR2. A more limited library of games may make the new headset a less appealing purchase.

The decision could have something to do with the fact that the PS VR2 uses different tracking methods. The controllers are completely different. PS VR uses the PlayStation Camera and light-based tracking, while Sony tracks the position of the new Sense controllers using infrared LED. Still, those hoping to bring (almost) their entire PS4-era collection of PlayStation games over to the current generation when PS VR2 arrives may feel discouraged.