Your Venmo money is now useful for much more than covering your share of last night's pizza. As promised last year, Amazon is rolling out the option to use either your Venmo balance, a linked bank account or an associated debit card for payments. You can make Venmo the default if you like, and that service's purchase protection still applies in addition to Amazon's own safeguards.
The Venmo option is available to some Amazon shoppers today. It should be widely available in the US by Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), the company says. You can add the choice through Amazon's website or mobile app.
The support doesn't come as a shock. Venmo has close to 90 million users as of this writing. The new payment choice could encourage that large audience to use Venmo more often in general, especially for shopping. For Amazon, meanwhile, this opens the door to customers who rarely use conventional payment methods.
This Amazon move also comes as PayPal increasingly makes Venmo a catch-all platform. You can use Venmo to pay for Lyft rides, manage cryptocurrency and even cash checks. Now, you can do a large chunk of your online shopping. Venmo still isn't a full-scale replacement for traditional banking at this stage, but it's noticeably closer.
A new Bayonetta game is like the circus rolling into town. Bayonetta is the ringmaster, of course, and she shows up out of the blue with boxcars of strange beasts, weird friends, dangerous spells, magnificent clothing and endless promises to impress. Her stories don’t always make sense, but they’re filled with melodrama and action, magic and gunfire, and once Bayonetta enters the spotlight, there’s no looking away. Especially not when she’s dancing her way through a spell in an outfit made of her own hair, while 40-storey monsters fight to the death at her back.
Bayonetta 3 is full of classic Bayonetta madness, all of it amped up by one degree. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, the enemies are absolutely massive, Bayonetta’s magic is incredibly powerful, her outfits are outstanding, and the fights don’t stop coming. A loose plot holds the entire game together – an army of man-made bioweapons called Homonculi is threatening the existence of the multiverse – but it’s just an excuse to throw Bayonetta and friends into an endless string of battles in a variety of crumbling cities. In that way, Bayonetta 3 isn’t very different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though PlatinumGames’ latest installment has way more witchcraft, silliness and shoe-operated guns than anything helmed by Robert Downey Jr.
Structurally and mechanically, Bayonetta 3 is as rich as its predecessors. Bayonetta acquires new skills and weapons throughout her quest; she collects fragments of fallen enemies to purchase items, consumables and accessories in the Gates of Hell shop, while orbs unlock abilities on her skill tree. Combat is all about performing stylish combos and executing well-timed dodges, and each fight is infinitely replayable if you’re chasing high scores. There are also plenty of challenges and secrets to find in each level.
Bayonetta 3 is a Switch exclusive, and it struggles as much as any fast-paced action game on that console: At times, inputs feel sluggish and it becomes difficult to track which moves are actually lined up. The game does a fine job of providing visual indicators for attacks and there is a rhythm to be found in the fray, but the entire thing runs in Switch Reaction Time (does not adhere to daylight saving).
For fans of the series, there’s nothing missing in Bayonetta 3 – in fact, there’s just more. More weirdness, more one-liners, more swag, and more combat mechanics. For instance, one section puts players in control of Bayonetta’s witchy buddy, Jeanne, for a side-scrolling action sequence with 1960s espionage flair. Another mechanic allows Bayonetta to control time in short bursts, at times reverting to her younger self. Throughout the game, the Demon Masquerade ability adds hellish features to Bayonetta’s weapons and allows her to transform into various demons, while the Demon Slave skill allows her to summon and control giant creatures of hell, each with a specific moveset.
Most of Bayonetta’s demons are inspired by classically spooky animals like moths and spiders, but one of her forms is a literal train. A little over halfway through the game, Bayonetta is infused with the energy of Satan’s choo-choo and she’s able to summon a hellish tank engine during fights. Attacking as the train with Demon Slave slows down time temporarily, allowing players to quickly draw a track and indicate points of damage along the route, ideally in the path of nearby enemies. Let go of the Demon Slave button and the train barrels down the ghost track in real time, dealing hefty damage to anything it hits. Bayonetta also acquires the ability to turn into a literal train-witch hybrid through Demon Masquerade, rushing forward with heavy-duty chainsaw-like attacks. Because of course she does.
Nintendo/PlatinumGames
By the time the train demon appears, it actually fits into the rest of the game nicely. Bayonetta’s world has always been wacky, and 3 is no exception. If you can handle the idea of Umbra Witches and bartending angels, you can deal with some light locomotive play.
I don’t take Bayonetta games too seriously and this feels like the right move, especially after playing the third installment. The series’ sense of combat is rich and its storyline is incredibly intricate, involving divine wars and parallel universes, and yet it all just feels like an excuse to make Bayonetta dance her way through a spell while massive monsters fight in the background. Thankfully, this is the best part of the series – Bayonetta is powerful and fighting in her (gun)shoes feels great, but her personality is what makes this franchise a cult hit. Bayonetta is confident, sarcastic and always correct; her outfits are stunning and so are her friends; she dances like an angel; she never has a hair out of place and her one-liners never stop. She’s a drag queen in a universe loosely held together by witchcraft, and the chaos of this combination is truly magical.
Bayonetta 3 is ridiculous and slightly disjointed, but that's precisely what makes it so wonderful. It builds on a multiverse of weird and witchy ideas, and it delivers exactly what fans of the series expect – something totally unexpected.
Apple surprised us last week with two new iPads. We’ve spent a bit of time with the new entry-level iPad ($449) which has been redesigned to match the rest of the iPad family with flat edges, USB-C and a Touch ID-enabled power button. Unusually, it also has a landscape selfie camera. Inside, there’s an A14 chip, which might not match the M1 in the iPad Air (let alone the M2 in the new iPad Pro), but it’s still a powerful enough processor.
So far, Engadget’s Nathan Ingraham is pleasantly impressed, although there are other corners cut – it still only supports the first-generation Apple Pencil. Expect our full review and verdict soon. For now, read up on our first impressions here.
– Mat Smith
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Two agents may have tried to bribe a US law enforcement official.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday that two spies from the People's Republic of China attempted to interfere in a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice into Huawei. According to a Bloomberg report, Guochun He and Zheng Wang were working for the benefit of Huawei. The two agents attempted to bribe a law enforcement official to provide them with information on the Justice Department's investigation. Starting in 2017, they allegedly sought to obtain details about witnesses, evidence and possible additional charges that could be filed against Huawei, unaware that they were talking to an FBI double agent.
Apple has raised the prices of Apple Music and Apple TV+. Music now costs $11 per month for individual plans (up from $10) in the US, or $109 per year. The Family plan now costs $17 per month instead of $15. TV+ sees the largest relative jump — the price has increased from $5 per month to $7, and from $50 per year to $69. Apple has also increased prices for its multi-service One bundles. You'll now pay $17 per month for an Individual plan versus the earlier $15.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released audio of what our planet's magnetic field sounds like. While it protects us from cosmic radiation and charged particles from solar winds, it turns out that the magnetic field has an unnerving rumble. Scientists from the Technical University of Denmark converted data collected by the ESA's three Swarm satellites into sound, representing both the magnetic field and a solar storm.
Urtopia’s mission seemed pretty clear, to make the most feature-rich, connected bike the world has ever seen. Its ebike packs in a 4G SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a fingerprint reader and even mmWave sensors for collision detection. However, when we tested an early prototype, we didn’t get to see how all that came together, software-wise. Now, we got to test the bike along with its companion app and some of its unique ideas. Thanks to the 4G radio, you should get a log of your ride in the app every single time you go out. We say “should” as it often didn’t work for Engadget’s James Trew.
Don’t spend a fortune on an autonomous dirt sucker.
In a change from just a few years ago, there are now plenty of budget robot vacuum options to choose from. We consider anything under $300 to be cheap in this space and you may be surprised to see how many there are to choose from. And if you’re new to the world of robot vacuums, you may find that one of these budget gadgets does everything you expected and more. We’ve got our favorite picks from the likes of Roomba, Shark and even Anker.
Last June, NASA announced that it would convene a panel to study "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP), aka UFOs — while saying it doesn't believe they're "extraterrestrial in origin." Now, the space agency has unveiled the 16-member panel that will focus on "unclassified sightings and other data collected from civilian government and commercial sectors."
Chairing the panel is David Spergel, former head of astrophysics at Prince University. Other members include Anamaria Berea, a research affiliate at the SETI (Search for Intelligence Life) Institute in Mountainview, California; retired NASA astronaut and test pilot Scott Kelly; and others ranging from oceanographers to astrophysicists to science journalists.
The panel is separate from a Pentagon group investigating UAPs reported by military pilots and investigated by US defense and intelligence officials. Now, the US government is effectively running two tracks of UFO probes after keeping such work behind closed doors for years.
Conspicuously absent are special effects experts like Corridor Crew skilled at spotting fake and altered clips. In a recent video, the group debunked a number of famous videos UFO clips, even from the Pentagon, ascribing them to ordinary occurrences like a camera's iris, a bird and an infrared lens flare.
NASA itself doesn't seem to believe there's much going on with these videos and sightings, either. However, it said the panel can still serve an important role in determining how to classify them — even if there are no aliens involved.
"Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what's happening in our skies," said NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen. "Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable explainable."
If you've been trying to send messages via WhatsApp and they're not going through, you're not alone. The messaging app has been down for many users around the world for at least 30 minutes. Based on information from Downdetector — and from Engadget editors' reports — the service isn't working in several countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, India and the Philippines. WhatsApp users either can't connect to the service at all or their messages get stuck with the loading wheel and aren't being delivered. Instagram and Facebook appear to be fine and unaffected.
The Federal Trade Commission wants to limit the amount of personal information Drizly can collect as part of the enforcement actions it's proposing against the marketplace and its CEO. According to the FTC, the alcohol delivery service that Uber had purchased in 2021 and its chief executive, James Cory Rellas, were alerted to security issues way back in 2018. The commission has found that they had failed to adequately protect their users' information, which enabled a data breach in 2020 that exposed the data of 2.5 million users.
Based on the FTC's original complaint, a Drizly employee posted the company's logins for its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud account on GitHub in 2018. Drizly stores users' details, such as their emails, postal addresses, phone numbers, and even their unique device identifies, geolocation info and any other data purchased from third parties that can be linked back to them on AWS. Hackers were able to use those logins to infiltrate Drizly's servers and use them to mine cryptocurrency.
While Drizly took back control by changing its login information, the FTC says it failed to implement "reasonable safeguards" to protect its users and to address its security issues despite publicly claiming that it had done so. In 2020, a hacker was able to get into an employee's account and access the company's GitHub. They then hacked into Drizly's database and stole the personal information of 2.5 million customers, which had since been offered for sale on at least two different websites on the dark web.
The FTC says those events were made possible by Drizly's poor security practices, such as not requiring employees to use two-factor for GitHub, where it stored login information. Drizly also didn't limit workers' access to users' personal data, the FTC adds, and had no senior executive overseeing its security practices.
Under the FTC's proposed orders, Drizly will have to destroy any personal data it previously collected that's not necessary to be able to provide its services. It will also have to refrain from collecting unnecessary data in the future and will have to publicly divulge the information it requires from users on its website. In addition, it will have to implement a comprehensive security program and appoint an executive to oversee its operations.
The commission has also issued orders that personally apply to Rellas due to the role he played in presiding over Drizly's lax security practices. If Rellas decides to leave the alcohol deliver service, he will still be required to implement an information security program at future companies where he takes on the role of a CEO, majority owner or senior executive involved in security. As The Washington Post notes, the FTC rarely singled out executives in similar security breach cases in the past, and this indicates a new approach at handling companies with inadequate security measures.
Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement:
"Our proposed order against Drizly not only restricts what the company can retain and collect going forward but also ensures the CEO faces consequences for the company’s carelessness. CEOs who take shortcuts on security should take note."
The FTC will publish these proposed orders soon, and they will be open for public comment for 30 days before the commission decides if will make them official.
1. @FTC has taken action against @Drizly (a subsidiary of @Uber) and its CEO James Cory Rellas for security failures that led to a data breach exposing the personal information of around 2.5 million consumers. https://t.co/jQCtn9DU4C
Days before Elon Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter could finally close, workers at the social company are warning that staff cuts would be “reckless.” Timereports that an open letter from an unspecified number of Twitter employees, directed to Musk and Twitter’s board, is making rounds within the company.
The letter comes on the heels of a report from The Washington Post, that Musk wants to cut as much as 75 percent of Twitter’s roughly 7,500 staff. “Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation,” the letter says. “A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation. We cannot do our work in an environment of constant harassment and threats.”
The letter also includes a list of demands for “current and future leadership” of the company. In addition to “fair severance policies for all workers,” letter writers want Musk to keep existing employee benefits in place, including remote work. Musk has previously criticized remote work, and suggested most Twitter employees should return to the office.
The letter also hints at the potential ideological divide between some Twitter workers and Musk, who has said he favors less moderation. “We demand that leadership does not discriminate against workers on the basis of their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs,” the letter says.
It’s unclear how many workers have signed onto the letter so far. But it’s yet another sign of how messy things could get for Twitter employees under Musk. After a months-long legal battle, the deal seems to be on track to close by the October 28th deadline.
Fallout 5 is nowhere near release, but Bethesda might have something to tide you over. VGCreports the game developer has unveiled plans to release a "next-gen" (really, current-gen) update for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2023. The upgrade will offer high frame rate and 4K quality features, and include new (if currently unspecified) Creation Club content.
This isn't the first time Bethesda has spruced up visuals for Fallout 4. An update for the Xbox One X enabled 4K in the 2015-era title, but only at 30 frames per second. The company took advantage of FPS Boost on Xbox Series X and S to deliver 60FPS gameplay last year, but apparently capped the resolution at 1080p. While it's not clear exactly what improvements you'll see this time around, it won't be surprising if there are fewer compromises.
The strategy is familiar, at least. As with CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3 patch, it's an effort to sustain interest in an old game while work continues on a long-awaited sequel. No, this likely won't spur sales, but it might keep Fallout 4 in players' minds (and to a degree, Fallout 76) until there's a new release. If nothing else, it's another way to mark the series' 25th anniversary.
Since 2019, Bumble has used machine learning to protect its users from lewd photos. Dubbed Private Detector, the feature screens images sent from matches to determine if they depict inappropriate content. It was primarily designed to catch unsolicited nude photos, but can also flag shirtless selfies and images of guns – both of which aren’t allowed on Bumble. When there’s a positive match, the app will blur the offending image, allowing you to decide if you want to view it, block it or report the person who sent it to you.
In a recent blog post, Bumble announced it was open-sourcing Private Detector, making the framework available on Github. “It’s our hope that the feature will be adopted by the wider tech community as we work in tandem to make the internet a safer place,” the company said, in the process acknowledging that it’s only one of many players in the online dating market.
Unwanted sexual advances are a frequent reality for many women both online and in the real world. A 2016 study found that 57 percent of women felt they were harassed on the dating apps they used. More recently, a 2020 study from the United Kingdom found that 76 percent of girls between the ages of 12 and 18 have been sent unsolicited nude images. The problem extends beyond dating apps too, with apps like Instagram working on their own solutions.
A group of workers at YouTube Music Content Operations, an Alphabet subcontractor, have filed with the National Labor Relations Board for union recognition and bargaining power after a supermajority of the 58-strong group signed union cards. "As a part of the YouTube Music Content Operations team, workers ensure music content is available and approved for YouTube’s 2.1 billion monthly active users worldwide," the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) said in a statement.
The workers, who are based in Austin Texas, were already paying AWU-CWA dues and are now seeking bargaining rights. The AWU-CWA says those rights would force Alphabet to recognize the union as the workers' bargaining unit. The NLRB has scheduled a hearing for November 14th. The union, which was formed in January 2021, now counts nearly 1,200 Alphabet workers as members, including full-time employees as well as temporary, vendor and contract workers.
The AWU-CWA says it "won't stop organizing until all Alphabet workers (full-time, temporary, vendor and contract workers) have dignity on the job, the pay and benefits we deserve, and a seat at the table." Earlier this year, a group of Google Fiber workers in Kansas City voted to unionize with the AWU-CWA. This month, the AWU filed complaints with the NLRB, accusing the company of firing Google data center workers in retaliation for union activity. The union says Google fired two workers who attempted to discuss pay and working conditions.
“We are honored to welcome the workers of the YouTube Music Content Operations team as members of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA," Google software engineer and AWU-CWA executive chair Parul Koul said. "Google platforms like YouTube have largely been a success thanks to the labor and efforts of the thousands of contract workers that ensure quality content while being denied their fair share. We’re excited to see these workers bring Alphabet to the bargaining table and use their power to win the quality pay, benefits and rights on the job they deserve.”
