Google's decision to enable two-factor authentication by default appears to have borne fruit. The search firm has revealed that account breaches dropped by 50 percent among those users where 2FA (two-step verification in Google-speak) was auto-enabled. The plunge was proof the extra factor is "effective" in safeguarding your data, Google said, although it didn't disclose the exact number of compromised accounts.

The company didn't say how rapidly it expected 2FA to spread, but promised to continue the rollout through 2022. More than 150 million people have been auto-enrolled so far, including more than 2 million YouTube creators.

The company also promised more security upgrades to help mark Safer Internet Day. As of March, Google will let you opt-in to an account-level safe browsing option that keeps you from visiting known harmful sites. Google is also expanding Assistant's privacy-minded Guest Mode to nine new languages in the months ahead, and has promised to ramp up safeguards for politicians ahead of the US midterm elections.

The reduced volume of account breaches isn't a shock — requiring more effort to crack an account is bound to deter some would-be intruders. It hasn't always been easy to show the tangible impact of 2FA on security, though, and the sheer scale of Google's user base gives it a representative sample others can't easily match.

The Perseverance rover is a capable machine, but one thing it can't do is send rock, sediment and atmospheric samples from Mars back to Earth by itself. NASA hopes to retrieve some of those through its Mars Sample Return Program, and it's taken another step forward in the project. The agency has chosen Lockheed Martin to build the first rocket to be fired off another planet.

The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) will be a small, lightweight rocket and is a crucial component of NASA's ambitious plan. “This groundbreaking endeavor is destined to inspire the world when the first robotic round-trip mission retrieves a sample from another planet — a significant step that will ultimately help send the first astronauts to Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

A Sample Retrieval Lander will take the MAV to the surface of Mars. It will land in or close to Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed last February.

The lander will act as the launch platform for the MAV. Once the MAV is in orbit, the plan is for a European Space Agency Earth Return Orbiter equipped with NASA’s Capture, Containment and Return System payload to capture the rocket. The aim is to bring the samples back to Earth by the mid-2030s.

“We are nearing the end of the conceptual phase for this Mars Sample Return mission, and the pieces are coming together to bring home the first samples from another planet," Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters, said. "Once on Earth, they can be studied by state-of-the-art tools too complex to transport into space.”

Lockheed Martin will deliver multiple MAV test units and a flight unit to NASA. The contract, which is worth up to $194 million, calls for the company to design, develop, test and evaluate the integrated MAV system, and to design and develop the ground support equipment.

Not only does the MAV need to be able to tolerate the Martian environment and be compatible with several types of spacecraft, it needs to be small enough to squeeze inside the Sample Retrieval Lander. It's a tough challenge, but Lockheed Martin has several years to figure things out. The lander won't launch before 2026.

The Department of Justice has seized approximately $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. At the time, the incident was the second-largest heist of its kind, with a hacker stealing 119,756 units of Bitcoin, then valued at approximately $63.7 million. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced the seizure of more than 94,000 Bitcoins and the arrest of the duo who allegedly tried to launder the fortune.

According to the agency, husband and wife Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan obtained the cryptocurrency after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s systems and initiated more than 2,000 illegal transactions. The cryptocurrency was deposited in a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein. The two then allegedly spent the next five years moving more than 25,000 Bitcoins using a “complicated” laundering process that eventually saw some of the money end up in their financial accounts. Following a court order, federal agents obtained online files from Lichtenstein that included the private keys to the digital wallet that held the stolen cryptocurrency.

“Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. “Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.”

The case marks the largest financial seizure in the Justice Department’s 151-year history. Before today, its largest cryptocurrency seizure involved the Silk Road dark web marketplace. In 2020, the agency recovered 69,000 Bitcoins, worth about $1 billion at the time. Lichtenstein and Morgan face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the money laundering and conspiracy charges brought forward by the Justice Department.

Disney+ dipped its toes into the world of livestreaming for the first time in the US with a broadcast of this year's Oscar nominations, offering a glimpse of a possible direction for the platform. "We performed a test for livestreaming capabilities on Disney+ in the US with this morning’s Academy Award nominations," a Disney+ spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "We are pleased with the results and will continue to test as part of our ongoing and iterative approach to deliver the best user experiences to consumers.”

The nominations were broadcast on multiple platforms, including Hulu, Good Morning America, ABC News Live and the Oscars website. Given Disney+ was not the only option for awards aficionados to watch the nominations, it was a smart way for Disney to test the platform's livestreaming capacity without placing too much strain on the infrastructure. Notably, Disney owns ABC, the network that broadcasts the Academy Awards ceremony each year.

Disney+ does offer some livestreaming options in other countries, including sports in India and WWE events in Indonesia. Of course, Disney has other platforms with livestreaming options in the US, including Hulu + Live TV and ESPN+. So, it's not impossible to imagine Disney+ streaming live sports, the Oscars ceremony or other events in the future — something that could help it stand out from rivals like Netflix, which has largely steered clear of livestreaming.

Just a few short months after debuting it for the European market, Kia has announced on Tuesday that the PHEV (plug-in hybrid) variant of its venerated Sportage line of SUVs will be made available for sale in America as well. When the Sportage PHEV arrives in Q3 of this year, it will offer a 66.9 kW electric motor backed by a 13.8 kWh battery in addition to its 1.6-liter, 177-hp turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

Unlike the EV6 or IONIQ5, the new Sportage PHEV is not built upon Hyundai's E-GMPT platform. Rather, it rides atop the N3 chassis like the Sorento and Optima. All-wheel drive will come standard.

“The first Sportage PHEV to be introduced in the U.S. demonstrates that Kia is listening to our consumers who are asking for electrified solutions and super-efficient powertrains, and Sportage delivers on that promise in a sophisticated, refined package,” Sean Yoon, president and CEO, Kia America, said in a statement Tuesday. “As Kia continues to implement our Plan S strategy and push toward carbon neutrality, models like Sportage PHEV are paving the way.”   

Hyundai Motor Group

The small stature of the Sportage's battery means that though it can only provide enough juice to propel the vehicle around 32 miles on electricity alone, it can be recharged far more quickly than a full EV. Kia estimates that the 13.8 kWh battery will require only around two hours to fully fill using a Level 2 charger. The vehicle's regenerative braking system should help keep its cells topped off, though the company has not yet released EPA mileage or range estimates yet (but expect them to drop as we get closer to the Sportage's actual on-sale date).

Hyundai Motor Group

The exterior of the PHEV version will look very much like its HEV and ICE counterparts, and its interior will feature all the same bells and whistles that consumers have come to expect from modern hybrid vehicles. The Sportage will offer a slew of driver assist systems, like what we saw recently in the EV6, 12.3-inch a instrument cluster — and equally-sized central infotainment system — as well as 4G Wi-Fi for up to 5 devices, stolen vehicle tracking, OTA map updates and access to the Kia Connect mobile app.

Some jurisdictions are looking into ways of boosting semiconductor production amid the global chip shortage that's impacting all kinds of sectors. The European Union, for one, wants to become a bigger player in the field and it announced a $49 billion plan to help it get there. The EU's executive branch has revealed the European Chips Act, which, in part, aims to reduce the bloc's reliance on components from Asia.

The EU believes the plan will allow Europe to harness its strengths in areas like research and manufacturing, while addressing what it says are some of the region's weaknesses. The legislation aims to bolster research and development, boost production and monitor the supply of semiconductors.

The plan, which requires approval from member states and the European Parliament, involves public and private investments and looks to mitigate any future disruption to chip supply chains. The bloc also wants to double its share of the global semiconductor market to 20 percent by 2030.

“The European Chips Act will be a game changer for the global competitiveness of Europe's single market," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. "In the short term, it will increase our resilience to future crises, by enabling us to anticipate and avoid supply chain disruptions. And in the mid-term, it will help make Europe an industrial leader in this strategic branch."

The introduction of the Chips Act follows an effort to bolster chip production in the US. This month, the House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act, which earmarks $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing as well as almost $300 billion for research and development. President Joe Biden plans to sign the bill into law should it pass through the Senate.

Legislation on both sides of the Atlantic could lead to a battle between Europe, the US and Asia to attract chip manufacturers. If legislators approve them, the plans should ultimately boost global semiconductor production, which will benefit manufacturing process for things like medical equipment, electric vehicles and game consoles.

Ever found yourself immersed in a web search, only to lose track after an interruption? Google thinks it can help. It's introducing a previously teased Journeys feature (shown above) in the latest release of Chrome for desktop that lets you resume searches based on topics. Type a related word or visit the Chrome History Journeys page and you'll see the option to resume your research, complete with associated links and search terms. Return to a vacation search, for instance, and you might see the tourism websites you didn't visit the first time around.

Journeys are rolling out now to all Chrome desktop browsers. They're initially limited to surfers using English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portugese, Spanish and Turkish.

Other updates are useful even if you've cleared out your search backlog. Chrome Actions should be more useful — you can perform additional browser tasks just by typing them in the address bar, such as "manage settings" and "view your Chrome history." Android users, meanwhile, will see a significantly expanded repertoire of home screen widgets (below) that help you start text, voice and Lens searches. You can even launch Incognito tabs or the offline Dino game. While Android is already well-equipped for search widgets, this should still prove helpful if you routinely use Chrome's special features.

Google

The rumors of direct iPhone contactless payments were true. Apple has revealed Tap to Pay on iPhone, an upcoming feature that will let businesses accept payments just by bumping handsets (and the Apple Watch). Stores won't need dongles, terminals or other hardware to take your money.

The technology requires an iPhone XS or later and unsurprisingly supports Apple Pay, but it will also work with other digital wallets, third-party payment platforms and contact-free credit and debit cards. Stripe is already planning to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to business customers, including Shopify's Point of Sale app, in the spring. Other platforms and apps are coming later in 2022, Apple said, with a future iOS beta giving developers their first chance to implement Tap to Pay.

The tech will initially be available in the US, but it will work with common payment cards from American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa. American Apple Stores will support Tap to Pay on iPhone later in the year.

Apple is promising the same levels of privacy and security you normally get with its tap-to-pay functionality, including encrypted transactions. The company doesn't know who's making a purchase or what you're buying.

This isn't a surprising move. Apple bought Mobeewave in 2020 with a not-so-subtle hint it would use the Canadian startup to turn iPhones into payment terminals. This also furthers Apple's ever-growing payments strategy which also includes Apple Pay, Apple Pay Cash and Apple Card. It's also a potential blow against Android — in theory, shops that embrace an iPhone-based payment system will be slightly less convenient for Android-toting customers.

It's safe to presume this will pose trouble for companies that have thrived on phone-based payment hardware, like Block's Square brand. While these firms frequently rely more on their services for income than devices, they may have to support Apple's new feature in their apps to remain competitive.

From musicians pulling their music to a high-profile podcaster pausing their exclusive show, Spotify is under attack from all sides. Furore over Joe Rogan’s podcast and Spotify’s subsequent misinformation policies and actions has come both internally and externally. Much of the backlash is warranted as Spotify hasn’t been up front about the content of Rogan’s podcast, or misinformation in general. And the lack of transparency is why the company’s current issues are much bigger than one massively popular creator.

By now, you’ve likely heard something about the Joe Rogan saga. The popular podcast host has been controversial for years, but criticism ramped up after a December 31 episode featuring physician and biochemist Dr. Robert Malone. While speaking to Rogan, Dr. Malone made a number of unfounded claims about COVID-19 vaccines, including that “mass formation psychosis” led many in the US to take the jab. After the episode was posted, hundreds of doctors, nurses, scientists and educators sent a letter to Spotify urging it to create a clear misinformation policy and take "responsibility to mitigate the spread” of such content.

When the group posted the letter online, Engadget reached out to Spotify to ask if the company already had a misinformation policy, how it takes action against misinformation and if it was considering any action against the Malone episode of JRE. The company didn’t respond. Two weeks later, CEO Daniel Ek penned a statement on the matter and posted the company’s “platform rules” on a Sunday afternoon. It’s unclear if Ek was already planning to publish the platform-wide policy or if it was in response to a report two days earlier of internal explanations to employees as to why certain episodes of Rogan’s podcast hadn’t been removed.

During the company’s Q4 2021 earnings call last week, Ek took responsibility for not publishing the content policy sooner. "We should've done it earlier and that's on me," he admitted. To employees during a company meeting the same day, the CEO explained that Spotify is not a publisher, so it doesn’t have creative control over Rogan’s show in advance. He said that since JRE is licensed content, it doesn’t have oversight like it does for podcasts from The Ringer or Gimlet – production companies Spotify owns. “We don’t approve his guests in advance, and just like any other creator, we get his content when he publishes, and then we review it, and if it violates our policies, we take the appropriate enforcement actions,” Ek said.

Genaro Molina via Getty Images

Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote this weekend that Spotify’s “failure to take any meaningful responsibility, other than adding a few disclaimers, is all too reminiscent of the way Facebook, for years, has dodged accountability for spreading so many harmful lies.” And part of shirking responsibility comes in the form of Spotify’s argument of a platform versus a publisher.

Spotify is a publisher, no matter what it says to the contrary. Paying a reported $100 million to lock down JRE as an exclusive brings more responsibility for its content than a show from "any other creator.” Ek argued during that same speech to employees that “exclusivity does not equal endorsement” and that the solution is to secure “an even broader set of exclusives that represent even more voices.” These two statements point to Spotify trying to build a foundation when the house is nearly finished.

A treasure trove of exclusives has helped make Spotify the number one podcast app in the US, according to Ek. Over the last few years, the company has purchased podcast production studios like Gimlet, Parcast and The Ringer, making shows exclusive to its service along the way. It has amassed a wealth of talent, including the most popular podcast globally on Spotify in Joe Rogan’s show. Sure sounds like the behavior of a publisher.

One of Spotify’s most important podcast acquisitions was Anchor, an all-in-one production suite that made creating and publishing shows a breeze. The company has since leveraged its powerful ad setup for shows on the service and Anchor has regularly introduced new features to make recording even easier. It’s literally a place where anyone can publish a podcast and it has helped Spotify add over a million shows to its library. In late 2020, Spotify said Anchor accounted for 70 percent of its podcasts, around 1.3 million at the time.

Billy Steele/Engadget

However, Anchor’s own platform policy hasn’t been updated since July 2021. There’s no mention of COVID-19 misinformation, except for one item that bans any content that “conflicts with the Terms, as determined by Spotify, collectively (‘Objectionable Content’).” Right now, that would include Spotify’s recently published policy. However, until recently, those guidelines weren’t public, and Anchor wasn’t clearly displaying Spotify’s policy. Now it’s doing so via a clickable pop-up when you upload a show.

“Spotify's Platform Rules apply to all content on Spotify, including Anchor,” a Spotify spokesperson told Engadget. “We began highlighting our Platform Rules in our creator and publisher tools on February 2nd to raise awareness around what’s acceptable and help creators understand their accountability for the content they post on our platform.”

The lack of transparent guidelines is Spotify’s biggest problem. The issue goes beyond Joe Rogan and covers the entire platform. When asked for comment about removing Neil Young’s music from the service (at his request), the company said it had “detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.” Those policies were not made public until four days later. What’s more, when Engadget asked for information about the “over 20,000” podcasts that had been pulled, Spotify didn’t respond.

Right now, we only know about a fewspecific instances of content actions. So what happens when a creator who’s not being paid a vault of money espouses similar opinions to the ones Joe Rogan or his guests share on JRE? You know, the ones the company has already said “didn’t meet the threshold for removal.” On last week’s earnings call, Ek was adamant that Spotify doesn’t “change our policies based on one creator nor do we change it based on any media cycle, or calls from anyone else.” However, a Media Matters analysis of Rogan’s show going back to July 2020 highlights numerous times the podcast host has run afoul of the “long-standing” rules on violence or hatred toward marginalized communities and COVID-19 misinformation.

Spotify is saying more about the situation to employees than it is to the public, and none of it is sensitive info or trade secrets. By addressing a major controversy in private, which is ultimately reported by the media, the company further erodes what trust it has left. The company hasn’t publicly confirmed that it removed over 70 pre-Spotify-deal episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast for racist language, including use of the n-word, late last week at Rogan’s request. But, again, Ek acknowledged the move to employees internally. Why not just let an unnamed spokesperson confirm the details when asked? Especially given Rogan himself addressed the content of those episodes in an apology video. The company also needs to open up about podcast removals and disclose what its review procedure is.

Genaro Molina via Getty Images

Spotify created a content policy, so it’s clearly considering how to police its platform. But what’s in place now is only a partial solution in need of immediate expansion, explanation and revision before more damage is done. It’s vague at a time where some specifics would go a long way. This is not about advocating for the company to “silence” Joe Rogan over his COVID views or anyone else who has been wrong on a podcast. It’s clear the company isn’t going to do so under the terms of its current deal with the host anyway. But a blanket warning label and mostly rationalizing its actions in private isn’t enough.

Of course, Spotify isn’t the first big tech company to hide behind the “platform” label, especially when it comes to taking responsibility for content. Facebook is perhaps the biggest example, as it has argued it’s a technology platform rather than a publisher. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company does bear some responsibility for what’s on the site but its actions have been tepid at best. Facebook has also argued that it’s a publisher when taking such a stance is beneficial in court. Twitter has made the same case, most notably when questioned on how it enforced a “hacked materials” policy regarding a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. “Is Twitter a publisher? No, we are not. We distribute information,” then-CEO Jack Dorsey told Congress. Section 230, the law that currently protects platforms from legal action for things users post, enables companies to make the argument. And that’s a big reason why Congress is looking to reform it.

Ek wrote in his most recent message to staff that “canceling voices is a slippery slope,” and that's true. The issue is the chief executive’s mission to find “a balance,” whether that’s with a wider variety of viewpoints or by equally weighting “creator expression with user safety.” Unless that balance comes with more transparency and oversight, more volume isn’t going to solve anything. 

This year’s Academy Awards nominations have been revealed, and Apple TV+ execs will surely be pleased. The service’s films received six Oscar nods overall, up from two last year. Most significantly, Apple has broken through in the Best Picture category. CODA is the first Apple Original movie to receive a nomination for the top prize.

It’s the first film with a principally deaf cast to be nominated for Best Picture. It’s been 35 years since a deaf performer was nominated, and Troy Kotsur is now the first male actor to ever receive a nod, as he’s up for Best Supporting Actor.

Writer and director Sian Heder is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay — CODA is a remake of a French film called La Famille Bélier. Apple paid a Sundance record of $25 million to acquire the rights to the film, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Drama and the Audience Award at last year’s festival.

The other Apple movie that received nominations this year was Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. It earned nods for Best Actor for Denzel Washington, Best Cinematography and Best Production Design.

Elsewhere, Netflix continued the run of awards success it has had over the last few years with a whopping 35 nominations across the board. Star-studded climate change satire Don’t Look Up and Western The Power of the Dog are both nominated for Best Picture. The latter leads the pack overall with 12 nominations. Jane Campion, who received writing and directing nods, is the first woman to land two Best Director nominations. Other nominated Netflix films include The Lost Daughter, The Hand of God, Tick, Tick… Boom and the fantastic The Mitchells vs. The Machines.

Elsewhere, Dune has 10 nominations and Best Picture frontrunner Belfast received seven. Amazon’s Being the Ricardos landed three acting nods, while No Time To Die, which marks Daniel Craig's final outing as James Bond, was nominated for Original Song, Sound and Visual Effects. Meanwhile, Japanese drama Drive My Car broke through in the Best Picture and directing races for four nominations in total.

The 94th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 27th.