France is preparing to launch a new electric vehicle subsidy program that would give people the ability to lease an EV for €100 ($100) per month. Budget Minister Gabriel Attal announced the plan over the weekend on the country’s LCI news channel, reports Bloomberg. “We know that for many French [EVs] remain very expensive,” he said, adding that the government was working to figure out how quickly it could implement the measure.
Under a subsidy scheme that’s similar to the one introduced by the US Inflation Reduction Act, French car buyers can currently receive as much as €6,000 off electric vehicles that cost less than €47,000. Consumers can also take advantage of a federal trade-in program to get money for their old combustion-engine cars. Despite those incentives, EVs only accounted for 12 percent of new vehicle sales in France during the first seven months of 2022.
For context, France is significantly behind on that front compared to countries like Norway. Last year, battery-electric and hybrid vehicles made up nearly two-thirds of all new car sales within the Nordic country. Much of what’s driving adoption there is a subsidy scheme that allows car buyers to avoid taxes that are found on internal combustion engine cars.
Attal’s announcement follows months of extremely hot weather across France as Europe and the world feel the brunt of worsening climate change. After enduring multiple heatwaves throughout June and July, parts of Paris saw temperatures rise to 36 degrees Celsius (nearly 100 Fahrenheit) earlier this month.
Amid Elon Musk's legal battle with Twitter, his attorneys have now subpoenaed the company's former security chief, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, to appear for a deposition on September 9th. Zatko last week submitted a lengthy whistleblower complaint against Twitter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. He accused the company of (among other things) having "egregious" security issues. Zatko suggested the problems may pose a national security risk.
In the subpoena, which was filed on Monday and obtained by The Verge, Musk's attorneys request materials related to how Zatko’s tenure at Twitter ended and what stock, if any, he owns in the company. There are also demands for documents that might indicate any illegal activity by Twitter or foreign intelligence agents it employs. Perhaps most pertinently to Musk's attempt to back out of his agreement to buy Twitter, the subpoena asks for information connected to the monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) metric Twitter uses, as well as documents Zatko has on Twitter's alleged spam problem.
Zatko claimed in the complaint that Twitter lied to Musk about the prevalence of bots and spam accounts, as The Washington Post notes. Musk has accused Twitter of fraudulently masking the true number of bots. In his bid to abandon the acquisition, Musk said Twitter made “false and misleading representations” about how many phony accounts are on the platform.
Meanwhile, Senate and Congressional committee leaders are investigating Zatko's claims. The whistleblower is set to appear at a Judiciary Committee hearing five days after he's scheduled to be deposed in Musk's case against Twitter. Zatko's assertions have been disputed by Twitter and its CEO Parag Agrawal.
Netflix has secured non-exclusive streaming rights to a handful of classic anime titles. Variety reports the company recently signed an agreement with Nippon TV to bring Berserk, Claymore, Death Note, Parayste: The Maxim and nine other shows and movies to viewers worldwide.
Of that group, Netflix plans to stream Hunter X Hunter first. As of September 2nd, the adaptation of Yoshihiro Togashi’s classic manga series will be available in 104 countries. A few titles, including Death Note and Hunter X Hunter, have been staples of Netflix’s anime catalog in North America for years. In fact, the former is so popular on the platform Netflix gave the Duffer brothers the green light to produce another live-action adaptation of the series. Other notable additions include Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting!, Monster and Nana,
The deal will also give anime fans a chance to watch some of those series on a platform that isn’t Crunchyroll. Ever since Sony acquired the streaming service for nearly $1.2 billion in 2020 and began migrating the Funimation catalog over, Crunchyroll has, for better and worse, been the dominant player in the overseas anime market.
T-Mobile is offering those on the Magenta Max plan another perk. Starting on August 31st, Apple TV+ will be included with the plan. The carrier previously offered users on certain plans a year of access. However, this is an ongoing promotion. T-Mobile says customers will be able to stream Apple TV+ at no extra cost as long as they remain a Magenta Max subscriber.
For several years, T-Mobile has bundled Netflix access with certain plans. Magenta Max members also get a year of Paramount+, along with YouTube TV and Philo discounts. Meanwhile, Magenta subscribers will get six months of Apple TV+.
Ongoing Apple TV+ access is a decent bonus, considering that there's quite a bit worth checking out on the platform these days. Among other original shows and movies, you'll be able to stream this year's Oscar Best Picture winner Coda, awards magnet Ted Lasso and the engrossing Severance. Apple has also added sports to the service, starting with MLB Friday Night Baseball games. Major League Soccer matches will be available on the platform next year.
Throughout my childhood and much of my adult life, homemade ice cream was something that happened at least once every summer. Whether it was church gatherings or family cookouts, rarely did a summer go by without sitting around a White Mountain ice cream maker chattering away as it churned a batch of banana or peach. I can also recall a few times having to use a hand-crank model, which took about five people tag-teaming to complete the task.
Unfortunately, White Mountain’s products can be hard to find in-stock these days, so after a few weeks of keeping an eye on Amazon, my wife went with a recommendation from Good Housekeeping for Father’s Day. Cuisinart’s Pure Indulgence 2-quart (ICE-30BCP1) ice cream maker is a compact countertop model that takes up about the same amount of space as a food processor. It has a bowl insert that you stick in the freezer to chill and a plastic dasher churns away your ice cream, frozen yogurt or sorbet while you sit on the couch.
My first attempt at using the ICE-30BCP1 wasn’t great. I went by the included directions which said the bowl could be ready for use in six hours. The guidance was if you took the bowl out of the freezer and didn’t hear any liquid sloshing around, it was ready to use. Well, this wasn’t the case for me, and as I would find, it wasn’t for lots of other people on the internet are using similar ice cream makers either. In reality, the bowl needs to sit in the freezer for 24 hours before use, and now I begin the process on Thursday to make a batch on Saturday or Sunday.
Billy Steele/Engadget
In fairness, Cuisinart explains the freezing process can take up to 22 hours depending on the temperature of your freezer, but mine is a chest unit in the garage not the one attached to my fridge. We were also eager to use it quickly the first time we opened the box. As you might expect, the company recommends you just store the bowl in the freezer so it’s ready to go at all times. I don’t have the space to do this, so the Thursday-to-Saturday timeline has served me well in subsequent batches.
Once I figured out the bowl prep, the ICE-30BCP1 was easy to use. I’ve been working through different recipes, some you have to cook and cool, others you simply mix and freeze. So long as the liquid going in is around 40 degrees when you start, this ice cream maker has no trouble completing the churning process in 25-35 minutes. Of course, the texture is still quite soft, which is a trademark of homemade ice cream to me. If you prefer yours a little firmer, a couple of hours in the freezer typically sets everything nicely. So far, I’ve made House of Nash Eats’ peach, Serious Eats’ fresh pineapple and two batches of the peanut butter cup in Cuisinart’s user manual. They’ve all turned out great.
There’s no denying an appliance like the ICE-30BCP1 is more convenient than what White Mountain offers, but there are niceties I miss. The primary one being all the chats around the ice cream maker while you’re waiting for the thing to do its job. You know the ones: the best place to get homemade ice cream if you’re not making it yourself, which place has the best peach and the time we messed up and got salt in the canister.
Indeed, Cuisinart keeps you from a briney final product since you don’t need rock salt and ice (or to constantly monitor both). And once you get the hang of the whole process, the only problem you’ll have is deciding on your next recipe.
Google's Pixel 6a has hit a new low price after going on sale just a week ago. You can now pick one up for $370 in "charcoal" or "sage" colors for a savings of $79 off the regular price (19 percent off) — $20 cheaper than the previous deal. That's a great price on an already affordable, nearly new handset that offers a lot of bang for the buck.
The Pixel 6a is a top mid-range smartphone pick, offering the same Tensor chip as the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, while giving you the purest Android experience possible. It offers excellent camera quality for the price, with the two 12-megapixel rear cameras and 8-MP front sensor delivering bright, colorful pictures and video. It also comes with a very distinctive design, along with a sharp 6.1-inch screen, long-lasting battery and more.
You don't get everything available in the flagships, of course. The 60Hz refresh rate isn't as smooth as the higher-end Pixels or Samsung's A53. Storage is limited to 128GB, there's no wireless charging and Google dropped the headphone jack we loved on the Pixel 5a — so you'll need a dongle for wired audio. Still, there aren't many other phones that can match it in this price range, particularly considering the discount.
Snapchat is the latest app to add dual camera functionality. The app is launching the “Dual Camera” recording feature it previewed during its Partner Summit earlier this year. The update enables users to snap photos and video using their phone’s front-facing and rear cameras simultaneously. It’s available now on iOS for iPhone XS and newer (Snap says Dual Camera won’t be available on Android for several more months.)
The company first teased the feature in April, when it said the new video option would be part of a suite of more advanced features for creators called “director mode.” But while director mode hasn’t yet launched — Snap says it’s expected in the coming months — the company opted to roll out Dual camera as a standalone feature in the main Snapchat camera.
Capturing content with both device’s cameras at once isn’t a new concept — the briefly popular app Frontback experimented with it nearly a decade ago — but the concept has become more popular in recent months with the rise of selfie app BeReal. However, Snapchat’s take on the feature is a bit different than those apps, which were more focused on selfies.
With Snapchat’s Dual Camera enabled, users can record video using both cameras at once, and can change up the layout of the two clips. There’s a split-screen version, which places each camera on one half of the screen; a picture-in-picture style; and a cutout mode similar to the effect you might get with TikTok’s green screen. Dual Camera mode also supports Snapchat's signature augmented reality lenses, though for now the effects can only be applied after the fact.
Snap isn’t the only company experimenting with dual-camera-recording. Instagram is also testing a dual camera setup called Candid Challenges, which the company confirmed last week is currently an “internal prototype.” For now, that feature sounds more like a straight copy of BeReal, but it’s not difficult to imagine the feature could one day make an appearance in Reels as well
If the foldable phone life isn't for you yet but you still like Samsung gadgets, you can pick up one of the company's other flagships for some of the best prices we've seen. Amazon has discounted the entire Galaxy S22 lineup ahead of Labor Day, so you can get the Galaxy S22 Ultra for $930, the S22+ for $750 or the standard S22 for $650. Those are new record-low prices for the Ultra and the S22, and a return to its best price ever for the S22+.
Aside from the Galaxy Z Fold 4, the Galaxy S22 Ultra has all of the most advanced features Samsung has to offer right now. Its a hybrid device that marries features from both the S and Note families, with the result being a handset with a 6.8-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen that supports 120Hz refresh rates, a peak brightness of 1,750 nits and S Pen input. The stylus is built into the phone, so Note loves will be able to doodle, take notes and more wherever they may be.
The S22 Ultra also has a formidable triple rear camera system, consisting of a 108-megapixel main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide shooter and two 10MP telephoto lenses. We were impressed by the photos taken with the smartphone, plus improvements like better auto-framing and new features like Adaptive Pixel make it a great system for mobile photographers.
Overall performance is solid as well. The S22 Ultra runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and 12GB of RAM, and the base model has 128GB of storage. It handled everything we threw at it, and we rarely felt it get warm even under stress. While we wish the S22 Ultra's battery life was a bit longer, it's still enough to get you through the day.
Getting all of that for less than $1,000 is a great deal, but if you're on a tighter budget, either the Galaxy S22+ or S22 handsets would make great choices. Both earned a score of 87 from us thanks to their slick designs, lovely displays and strong overall performance — and if you spring for the S22+, you'll get additional perks like a longer battery life, faster WiFi speeds and support for UWB and WiFi 6E.
Smartphones aren't the only Samsung gadgets on sale at Amazon right now either. A bunch of Galaxy tablets are up to 30 percent off, so you can pick up the Galaxy Tab S7 FE for $500, or $180 off its usual price, and the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite for $300, or $130 off the normal rate. All of those deals expire today, though, so you'll have to decide soon if you want to pick one up. Also, the Galaxy Buds Pro are $60 off and down to $140, while the Galaxy SmartTag+ is $10 off and on sale for only $30.
Sony is making a push into mobile gaming with the launch of "PlayStation Studios Mobile" and acquisition of Savage Game Studios, it announced. Sony said the new studio will be "providing more ways for more people to engage with our content, and striving to reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games."
Savage Game Studio doesn't appear to have produced any games yet, but its co-founders had a hand in mobile franchises like Clash of Clans and Angry Birds. It will join PlayStation Studios Mobile, which will operate separately from its console division and create "new experiences" based on PlayStation IP and franchises. Savage is also currently working on a "new unannounced triple-A mobile live service action game," though it didn't offer any more details.
As a console maker first and foremost, Sony has a delicate balancing act with mobile, much as it did when it jumped into PC gaming with titles like Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. To that end, it was sure to note that any efforts beyond console "in no way diminish our commitment to the PlayStation community."
At the same time, Sony no doubt felt pressure to enter the very lucrative mobile space. Michail Katkoff, CEO and Co-founder of Savage Game Studios, said that Sony's PlayStation Studios "respects our vision for how we can best operate and succeed," and will let them "tap into PlayStation’s amazing catalog of IP." In that sense, Sony might take the same course Nintendo did when it brought Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem and other franchises to mobile.
Following months of tests and troubleshooting, NASA hopes to launch its long-awaited Artemis 1 Moon mission. Before today, the plan was for the agency's next-generation Space Launch System rocket to blast off sometime after 8:33AM ET. However, during the night a lightning storm moved close to the Kennedy Space Center, forcing NASA to delay the start of propellant loading. The agency later discovered a hydrogen leak and had to troubleshoot through a communications issue with the Orion spacecraft the SLS is supposed to put on a trajectory toward the moon. It's unclear if those issues could delay the launch.
Liquid hydrogen replenish is closed and now in revert to troubleshoot the bleed on engine number 3. Teams are working to increase pressure in the bleed on engine 3 to continue conditioning the four RS-25 engines on @NASA_SLS for launch. https://t.co/wEUPRpb8q2
If the mission doesn't get underway today, it could blast off later this week. The current launch window is open until September 6th. If the rocket is delayed beyond that date, the earliest we could see NASA attempt to put Artemis 1 in space again would be between September 19th and October 4th. Whatever happens over the next few hours, you can watch it all unfold on NASA's official YouTube channel.
Once it's underway, Artemis 1 will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a trip beyond the moon. If all goes according to plan, the capsule should return to Earth after spending 39 to 42 days in space. The mission is mostly designed to test NASA's latest hardware before a planned crewed spaceflight sometime in 2024.
