The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference takes place next week and, as always in the lead up to the event, the rumor mill is churning away. A report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests that Apple will reveal some big updates for iPadOS 16. Apple has long been trying to position the iPad as a viable alternative to a laptop, and the software changes will seemingly nudge the device further in that direction.

Gurman's sources say iPadOS 16 will have a revamped multitasking interface, including more resizing options. Currently, users can run apps in full screen or side by side in Split View. The Slide Over function allows you to bring in a narrower version of a third app as well. The next version of iPadOS will seemingly make it easier to move between apps and see which ones you have open too. 

To add fuel to the fire, developer Steve Troughton-Smith last week spotted code in WebKit which indicates that Apple may allow for freely resizable windows in iPadOS.

Improved multitasking options and resizable apps will be very welcome for many users. Folks have long been able to use keyboards with the iPad and Apple added full mouse and trackpad support two years ago. Whether the mooted iPadOS updates will actually help the device become a laptop killer remains to be seen, but it's clear Apple hasn't given up on the idea. 

Also during Monday's keynote, we'll surely get a look at what's next for the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch operating systems. Gurman previously reported that iOS 16 will introduce more health-tracking features, upgraded notifications and support for always-on displays (which is expected to only be available on iPhone 14 Pro models at first). A refreshed lock screen may include widgets, which Messages is believed to be getting more features as well.

While we wait to learn more about Android 13, Google continues to release new features to its platform in the same regular cadence it's adopted for the last few years. Today, the company has announced a set of updates around GBoard stickers, the Play Store and accessibility apps like Lookout and Sound Amplifier.

First, Google is bringing custom text stickers, which it previously launched on Pixel phones, to all Android devices. The feature allows you to convert English words into images, so if you type "Hi Ma" into GBoard and tap the custom stickers button in the suggested emojis row, you'll see some auto-generated graphics featuring that text in different designs. Your language will have to be set to US English for this to work, for now.

The company is also adding more than 1,600 new Emoji Kitchen combinations so you can make new hybrid emoticons by tapping two symbols in succession. It's also adding rainbow-themed stickers for users to share their Pride celebrations. 

Sound Amplifier is an Android app that makes sounds around you louder, which could be helpful for people with hearing loss. "Today's update brings improved background noise reduction," according to Google, along with "faster and more accurate sound and a revamped user interface that is easier to see."

Also relevant to accessibility is the Lookout app, which uses the device's camera to identify and describe objects around the user. It can read out words on signs or tell you if there's say, a table at the two o'clock position, for example, so you can avoid walking into it. Today, Google's adding a new Images mode that uses its "latest machine learning model for image understanding" and can describe an image even if you opened it from "just about any app." The company also updated the Text, Documents, Food Label and Explore modes to make the app more accurate. Plus, Lookout now works offline, so you can use it without an internet connection.

Finally, those who have been racking up Google Play Points can use them to get in-app items without leaving their games or apps. You can choose to pay for things with solely Play Points or a mix of money and points. This feature is rolling out over the coming weeks in the countries where Play Points are available. Meanwhile, you can update your other apps like Lookout and GBoard to see the new tools announced today.

In 2018, Oregon's Department of Human Services implemented its Safety at Screening Tool, an algorithm that generates a "risk score" for abuse hotline workers, recommending whether a social worker needs to further investigate the contents of a call. This AI was based on the lauded Allegheny Family Screening Tool, designed to predict the risk of a child ending up in foster care based on a number of socioeconomic factors. But after the Allegheny tool was found to be flagging a disproportionate number of black children for "mandatory" neglect, and a subsequent AP investigative report into the issue, Oregon officials now plan to shutter their derivative AI by the end of June in favor of an entirely new, and specifically less automated, review system.

The department's own analysis predicts that the decision will help reduce some of the existing racial disparities endemic to Oregon's child welfare system. “We are committed to continuous quality improvement and equity,” Lacey Andresen, the agency’s deputy director, said in a May 19 email to staff acquired by the AP. 

A number of states across the country have already implemented, or are considering, similar algorithms within their child welfare agencies. But as with Northpoint's COMPAS before them, their implementation have raised concerns about the transparency and reliability of the process as well as their clear tendency towards racial bias.

“Making decisions about what should happen to children and families is far too important a task to give untested algorithms,” US Senator Ron Wyden (OR-D) said in a statement. “I’m glad the Oregon Department of Human Services is taking the concerns I raised about racial bias seriously and is pausing the use of its screening tool.”

In its place, the Oregon DHS will implement a Structured Decision Making model used by California, Texas and New Jersey. Oregon's other child welfare AI, one that generates a score for whether or not a foster kid should be reunited with their family, remains on hiatus.

Just a couple of weeks after divulging the release date for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Activision Blizzard is set to show off much more about the next game in the long-running series. A "worldwide reveal" will take place on June 8th at 1PM ET. 

The embattled publisher teased the reveal when it announced the October 28th release date last month. Activision previously confirmed some of the characters who will appear in Modern Warfare II, including John “Soap” MacTavish and Simon “Ghost” Riley. The reveal will surely offer a lot more info, probably including a first look at gameplay.

Infinity Ward is on deck for this year's Call of Duty game, which is a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare. That itself was a reboot of the Modern Warfare sub-series, which started in 2007 with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Confused yet? Don't blame you.

Infinity Ward is also working on a major revamp of the Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale, which will arrive at the same time as Modern Warfare II. Among the updates will be a new engine for both games.

Amazon is trying to fend off scalpers and bots that snag all of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles before you can secure one. It's rolling out an invite-based ordering option for high-demand products that are in low supply to help legitimate shoppers get their hands on the items.

The invite option is available now for PS5 in the US. It will be enabled for Xbox Series X in the coming days. The company told TechCrunch it plans to use the system for more products and in other countries.

Requesting an invitation doesn't cost anything and you don't need to be a Prime member. When you visit the PS5 page on Amazon, there's now a "request invitation" button — you may need to click the "new and used" link to see it alongside the other ordering options.

Amazon

Amazon will assess whether an account that requests an invitation is authentic by looking at things like the account creation date and purchase history. If it believes you are, indeed, a human and your invite request is granted, Amazon will send you an email with instructions on how to buy the product.

You'll have a certain time period in which to complete your purchase before the invite expires and you'll see a countdown on the product page. Amazon will dish out more invites for a hot-ticket item as it receives more stock.

Sony has a similar invite system on its PlayStation Direct site, where it sells the PS5 in limited quantities. It would have been nice if Amazon had implemented its version before the consoles arrived in November 2020, but c'est la vie. 

Although requesting an invitation won't guarantee that you'll be able to buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X from Amazon, it could help. What's more, it might mean you don't have to participate in the rush to secure one whenever there's a restock.

There are other ways Amazon could fend off scalpers too, such as limiting the price of items for Marketplace sellers. At the time of writing, a third-party seller is offering the PS5 disc version on Amazon for $999 — double the console's retail price. Others are selling it for around $800.

You'll have to be patient if you want an official way to turn your Steam Deck into a makeshift desktop. As The Verge notes, Valve has indefinitely delayed its Steam Deck Docking Station due to a combination of supply shortages and pandemic-related manufacturing shutdowns. The company said it was "improving the situation" and would share more info when available.

The setback won't affect production and reservation windows for the Steam Deck itself, Valve said. In the interim, the company vowed to upgrade support for third-party USB-C hubs and external monitors.

The Docking Station cradles the Steam Deck while providing display, Ethernet and USB connections. It was announced alongside the handheld system, but wasn't available when the Steam Deck first reached customers. Valve still lists the release as "late spring." The delay won't preclude you from using the Steam Deck as a PC or attaching it to a TV, but generic hubs clearly won't be as elegant as a dock built with the console in mind.

BMW is expanding its lineup of electric vehicles once again. The iX1 SUV is an all-electric variant of the X1 crossover — BMW announced a third-gen edition of that vehicle as well. The iX1 is pegged as an entry-level model that's expected to supplant the i3 as the automaker's least expensive EV.

The company says the X1 will have two petrol and two diesel engine options when it arrives in October. Those variants "will immediately be followed by" the iX1 xDrive30, along with plug-in hybrid versions.

The iX1 will have a dual-motor powertrain with one on each axle. They'll produce a combined output of 313 horsepower and 364 lb-ft of torque. BMW says the EV will be able to go from zero to 100 kh/h (62 mph) in 5.7 seconds.

The automaker estimates the iX1 will have a range of up to 438 kilometers (272 miles). It can be charged at a rate of up to 127 kW and BMW claims you'll be able to top up the battery charge level to 80 percent of capacity in 29 minutes at high-speed public stations.

Inside the EV, you'll see a curved display with support for voice and touch controls. The central console includes a wireless charging tray for your smartphone. There will be support for BMW Digital Key Plus, along with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

BMW will build all models in the X1 lineup at its plant in Regensburg, Germany. It's keeping many of the details about the iX1 under wraps for now, including the battery capacity and pricing. The company should reveal pricing closer to the launch window.

Don't worry if you thought the Polestar 2's performance was somehow tepid. Polestar has announced a production version of the performance-tuned "Beast" EV it showed at the 2021 Goodwood Festival of Speed. The Polestar 2 BST edition 270 now produces 476HP from its dual motors (up from 408HP), and you'll also see modifications like a lowered ride height, stiffer springs, adjustable Öhlins dampers, a front strut bar and Polestar 1-influenced 21-inch wheels with custom Pirelli P Zero tires. This is a Polestar EV you can take to the track, to put it simply.

The BST edition 270 isn't quite as capable as the Beast. You'll have to make do with the usual four-piston Brembo brakes instead of the six-piston Akebonos from last year's one-off model. Even so, the improved driving dynamics and 4.4-second sprint to 62MPH should make it a viable alternative to rivals like Tesla's Model 3 Performance.

This variant will be very difficult to get. As the name implies, Polestar is making just 270 examples to sell across China, Europe and North America. You'll have to register just to be invited to buy one; if selected, you'll pay $75,500. Production is poised to start in the middle of the year, with deliveries starting in the fourth quarter.

The debut of this limited version makes sense. Polestar was originally Volvo's badge for high-performance models, and it spun out from Volvo (and Volvo's parent Geely) with a focus on speed. In that regard, the BST edition 270 is a reminder of the brand's roots, and a hint that projects like the Polestar 3 SUV and O2 convertible concept are just extensions of that go-fast strategy.

Chinese readers are about to lose some choice in e-books. Reutersreports Amazon is pulling Kindle products from China over the course of the next two years. The company will stop offering Kindle e-readers to local retailers as of today, and plans to shutter its digital bookstore in the country on June 30th, 2023. The Kindle app will leave Chinese online stores on June 30th, 2024, and customers will have until then to download any books they've already purchased.

Amazon will still provide warranty service and other help for Kindle e-readers, and will accept returns for "non-quality issues" for any device bought after January 1st, 2022. Hardware, apps and books will still be usable after the 2024 cutoff.

In its notice, Amazon stressed that this didn't represent a withdrawal from China. The company had a "long-term commitment" that included online shopping and smart home devices. Amazon also told Reuters that this wasn't due to censorship or other government pressure, and that it occasionally "make[s] adjustments" following reviews.

Poor sales might play a role. While Amazon is a frontrunner in the e-reader and e-book markets for numerous countries, it has struggled in China as of late. The country was once the Kindle's largest market, with internal data (obtained by Reuters) showing that it represented over 40 percent of e-reader sales in 2017. The rise of Chinese competitors like Xiaomi andTikTok parent ByteDance eroded Amazon's share, however, and iiMedia Research analyst Zhang Yi told Nikkei that the Kindle brand is now "relatively niche" in the region. The Chinese are more likely to read with their phones, and domestic e-book services like Tencent's China Literature dominate where the Kindle app isn't even in the top 10.

Amazon isn't the only American company scaling back its Chinese presence. Airbnb, LinkedIn and Yahoo (Engadget's parent company) have either limited services or withdrawn entirely. Amazon's exit from e-reading is one of the more prominent examples, though, and illustrates how difficult it can be for US firms to court Chinese audiences.

One of the first things I set out to do when I joined Engadget in the summer of 2018 was to build a beautiful home office. At my previous job, I didn’t get many opportunities to work remotely, so it wasn’t a priority. That turned out to be a mistake, because when I began working from home I found it quickly wore me down. My kitchen simply wasn’t cutting it as an office – so I set out to change things.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

Piece by piece, the office I built in my bedroom came together into a space where I enjoyed sitting down to write. But it wasn’t until this year that it felt like it was complete. The piece that was missing was the BenQ Screenbar, a lighting fixture you install on your monitor.

I put off buying the Screenbar for a few years, mostly because of its $170 CAD ($109 USD) price tag. So why then didn’t I buy a regular table lamp you ask? Well, the Screenbar drew my eye for a few reasons. I live in a small condo in Toronto, so a lamp that could sit on my monitor, instead of my table, was appealing because space is at a premium, especially on my small desk. Additionally, the Screenbar shares a feature I love on the Philips Hue lights. Out of the box, you can adjust the color temperature of its LEDs — no need to buy separate bulbs. BenQ also claims the Screenbar produces less glare than a traditional table lamp due to how you position it on top of your monitor.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

Setup is also easy. A USB-C to USB-A cable connects the Screenbar to your computer, providing it with all the power it needs. You don’t need to install any software on your PC to use the device. Four capacitive buttons on the top allow you to turn the Screenbar on and off, adjust the color temperature and brightness, or turn on automatic brightness. BenQ sells a more expensive version of the Screenbar that comes with a puck you can place on your desk for more convenient access to the controls, but that’s unnecessary for most people.

The one downside of the Screenbar is that it takes up space you could otherwise use to mount a webcam. With a flat, 27-inch monitor like my Dell, it’s possible to fit both, but neither could sit dead center.

Depending on your needs, that could dissuade you entirely from considering the BenQ Screenbar. For me, it was an easy decision to make. I don’t need to do a lot of Zoom calls. The position of my office desk also isn’t ideal for video calling. When I sit down to write, my back faces a wall-to-wall window. That’s not an easy scene for a web camera to expose. My solution has been to use my MacBook Air and sit by the side of the window when I need to jump on Zoom.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

Looking back now, I wish I had bought the Screenbar earlier. To say it has transformed the atmosphere of my bedroom and office would be an understatement. Winter in Toronto is a long, dark affair. In January and February, the sun can set as early as 5PM. My mood, like many people’s, can vary greatly depending on the amount and quality of light that filters into my home. The fact you can adjust the color temperature of the Screenbar’s LEDs between 2700K and 6500K means it can produce warm, bright, sunlight-esque whites, making it ideal for all-day use and even color-sensitive work like photo editing. In my experience, it’s the perfect solution for a small space.