A group of Republican Senators led by Mike Crapo of Idaho has sent the Internal Revenue Service a letter expressing concerns about the agency's partnership with facial recognition service ID.me. Starting this summer, taxpayers will have to register for an ID.me account to be able to access the online services IRS offers, including the ability to file taxes through its website. To be able to sign up, they have to send ID.me a copy of their government ID, a utility bill and a video selfie of themselves. The Senators called the last one the "most intrusive verification item," since it's more than just submitting a picture of one's face and can't be easily replaced like a password. 

In the letter, the group said that it's "deeply concerned for many reasons," starting with the government's "unfortunate history of data breaches." It mentioned the attacks on the Office of Personnel Management back in 2015 as an example. If you'll recall, two separate attacks on the agency compromised the information of millions of then-current and former federal employees and led to the theft of 21.5 million Social Security Numbers. 

The group also cited an IRS report in 2019, wherein it estimated that it faces 1.4 billion cyberattacks a year. "It is highly likely, with personal information on a reported 70 million individuals, including biometric data, ID.me could be a top target for cyber-criminals, rogue employees, and espionage," the Senators wrote. They've asked the agency a series of questions meant to shed light on the partnership in the letter. The Senators want to know if the IRS did due diligence to ensure taxpayers' information would be protected before it approved the partnership and what kind of oversight the agency has over the company. they also asked IRS if it made sure ID.me's system had gone through an independent cybersecurity audit, among many other things. 

The CEO of ID.me recently admitted that the system uses a more powerful method of facial recognition than previously claimed. In a statement, he said ID.me employes a 1:many approach, which means it matches images against those in a database. He previously said it only uses a 1:1 approach that compares one's face to a photo on their government ID. A Bloomberg report published after that said the Treasury Department is reconsidering the IRS's partnership with the company and is now looking for alternatives to its facial recognition software. 

Nearly five years after going public, Snap is finally profitable. The company shared the milestone in its fourth-quarter earnings report, where it reported $23 million in positive net income.

That may be a tiny percentage of its $4.1 billion in quarterly revenue, but it’s an important step for the company which has at times struggled with user growth. But those challenges appear to be firmly behind Snapchat, as daily active users climbed to 319 million, an increase of 13 million for the second quarter in a row. DAUs were up 20 percent overall in 2021.

The news for shareholders was particularly welcome as Snap’s results came a day after Meta reported that Facebook’s daily active users had declined for the first time in its history. The resulting stock slide wiped more than $200 billion off the company’s market cap.

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Amazon Prime is increasing in price for the first time since 2018. The company used its latest earnings to reveal that it's raising the fee to $15 per month (previously $13), or $139 per year (previously $119). The higher rates kick in February 18th for new customers, but they won't take effect for existing customers until they renew March 25th or later — if you were thinking of trying Prime, you might want to sign up now to lock in the current price for a year.

Amazon pinned the increase on the "continued expansion" of Prime perks along with higher wages and transportation costs. As with the last time around, you can likely blame Amazon's ever more ambitious Prime Video plans for some of the increase. According to Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming Lord of the Rings series is expected to cost $465 million just for its first season — and that's not including other big productions. Throw in the MGM acquisition and Amazon has plenty of media-related expenses.

The company can't blame the hike on financial hardship, at least. Amazon's net profit jumped nearly 57 percent in 2021 to $33.4 billion — the lingering COVID-19 pandemic has been good for Amazon's core shopping business. A surge in profit from EV maker Rivian's initial public stock offering (Amazon has a 20 percent stake) helped mask lower income in the last calendar quarter of 2021, but it's evident the company doesn't need the Prime hike in the near future.

The Prime increase might also irk people beyond Amazon's customers. The company is raising rates even as it fights workers' efforts to improve working conditions, and as it faces increasing government scrutiny of its pricing and other practices. There won't be much sympathy from some corners, then, even if Amazon does use the extra revenue to help staff.

If the bonkers preorder numbers for both the hybrid Maverick and the EV F-150 Lightning weren't enough of an indication, Ford's Q4 earnings results are plenty proof that the company's electrification efforts are already paying dividends. 

“Financial performance is obviously critical,” President and CEO Jim Farley said in a release Thursday. “We’re also proud that customers see how Ford is taking EVs mainstream, and have already ordered or reserved more than 275,000 all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs, F-150 Lightning pickups and E-Transit commercial vehicles – and we’re breaking constraints to deliver every one of them as fast as we can.”

In fact, the company reports that sales of its EVs in January "grew almost 4 times faster than the overall electrified segment" (13,169 units in total), making Ford the current number 2 retailer of electric vehicles in the country behind Tesla (and the country’s top-selling automaker overall), prompting a promise from Farley to double the company's global production capacity for EVs "to at least 600,000 by 2023." He expects EVs to "represent at least 40 percent of its product mix by 2030."

In all, Ford saw revenue of $37.7 billion, a net income of $12.3 billion and $2 billion in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) in Q4 2021. The company sold 6,513 Mavericks in January alone — with 3,549 of these sold as hybrids — along with 2,370 Mach-Es, 27 percent of which were of the GT variety. Ford also saw strong interest in its new Transit line of commercial EVs with more than 300 American businesses placing orders for 10,000 vehicles. And, while not wholly electrified, Ford did point out that its pickup lines — the F-150, Ranger, and Maverick — with combined sales of 62,293, outsold GM’s pickups in January. 

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Democrats in Congress on Thursday renewed a push to hold tech companies accountable for bias in their algorithms. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), along with House representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced an updated version of a bill that would require audits of AI systems used in areas such as finance, healthcare, housing, education and more. First introduced by Wyden in 2019, the Algorithmic Accountability Act has never passed the committee level in either the House or Senate.

“If someone decides not to rent you a house because of the color of your skin, that’s flat-out illegal discrimination. Using a flawed algorithm or software that results in discrimination and bias is just as bad. Our bill will pull back the curtain on the secret algorithms that can decide whether Americans get to see a doctor, rent a house or get into a school,” said Wyden in a press release.

A wave of studies found evidence of racial and gender bias in AI tools and automated systems used in everything from approving mortgages and credit cards to prescribing pain medication. Civil rights groups in recent years have lobbied Congress to hold companies accountable for flawed and biased algorithms.

The bill would require companies to perform an audit of their AI systems and report their findings to the Federal Trade Commission. It would also require the FTC to force companies to make high-profile AI decision making public. Under the bill, the FTC would create a public database where consumers can review critical decisions that have been automated by companies.

The legislation would require companies that use AI tools in “critical decision making” to evaluate the outcomes of such tools and regularly report their findings to the FTC. According to an analysis of the bill released by Wyden’s office, this includes any decisions by businesses that are related to the “cost, terms, or availability of education and vocational training, employment, essential utilities, family planning, financial services, healthcare, housing or lodging, legal services, or any other service, program, or opportunity that has a comparably legal or similarly significant effect on a consumer’s life as determined by the Commission through rulemaking.”

The bill has been endorsed by a handful of civil liberties and digital rights groups, including EPIC, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Fight for the Future, and others. “Color Of Change commends Sens. Wyden and Booker and Rep. Clarke for advancing racial justice equities in tech regulation. We hope Congress will pass this instrumental legislation,” said Arisha Hatch, Vice President of Color Of Change, in a statement.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill will next need to be reviewed and voted on by their relevant committees in Congress. The date for this vote has yet to be scheduled.

Engadget has reached out to the bill’s co-sponsors for further details on the legislation and its next steps in Congress, and will update when we hear back.

Quantum computing is still rare enough that merely installing a system in a country is a breakthrough, and IBM is taking advantage of that novelty. The company has forged a partnership with the Canadian province of Quebec to install what it says is Canada's first universal quantum computer. The five-year deal will see IBM install a Quantum System One as part of a Quebec-IBM Discovery Accelerator project tackling scientific and commercial challenges.

The team-up will see IBM and the Quebec government foster microelectronics work, including progress in chip packaging thanks to an existing IBM facility in the province. The two also plan to show how quantum and classical computers can work together to address scientific challenges, and expect quantum-powered AI to help discover new medicines and materials.

IBM didn't say exactly when it would install the quantum computer. However, it will be just the fifth Quantum One installation planned by 2023 following similar partnerships in Germany, Japan, South Korea and the US. Canada is joining a relatively exclusive club, then.

The country is no stranger to quantum computing. Controversial company D-Wave is based in Canada, after all. Even so, the IBM move is significant. It gives Canada a more generalized system that could conquer problems impractical to solve using conventional supercomputers. This won't necessarily revolutionize Canada's scientific community, but it could provide an edge until quantum computing is relatively commonplace.

Motorola is once again kicking off a new year with a new Moto G Stylus, and this one still offers solid value — if you're willing to make a couple of sacrifices. The newly introduced Moto G Stylus 2022 model still has a 6.8-inch 1080p display (albeit with a centered hole-punch camera) and an otherwise mostly fmiliar design, but makes the leap to a faster 90Hz refresh rate. You also won't be hurting for longevity with a sizeable 5,000mAh battery in place of last year's 4,000mAh pack.

While those are appreciable improvements, this latest Moto G Stylus is oddly conservative in some places. For one, there's no 5G — slightly odd for a 2022 budget phone when devices like Samsung's A32 5G already managed the feat last year. It ships with Android 11 instead of Android 12, for that matter. You do get 6GB of RAM and a higher-resolution 50MP main rear camera (up from 4GB and 48MP respectively), but Motorola has ditched the Snapdragon 678 in favor of MediaTek's Helio G88. That's more of a step sideways in performance than a leap forward. You still get a ultra-wide and macro cameras, though, and the 128GB of expandable storage plus water resistance should help the phone last.

The 2022 Moto G Stylus is available to pre-order now through Amazon, Best Buy, Motorola and Walmart for $300. That still makes it a good value, but it's not an easy choice between this and last year's Moto G Stylus 5G. You'll have a better display and processing power, but you'll lose 5G and the extra built-in storage. The better value could depend on sale prices for each handset, too. Until there's an updated Moto G Stylus 5G, you may need to shop carefully to find the best device.

A bill targeting Apple and Google's app store restrictions has taken a step forward. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 20-2 to advance the Open App Markets Act, with only Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis opposing. The vote showed once again that there's bipartisan support for the bill.

Should the legislation become law as it stands, it would prevent app marketplace owners with more than 50 million users in the US from locking third-party developers into their payment systems. The App Store and Google Play Store, which require third-party apps to use their respective payment systems, pass that threshold.

They wouldn't be able to block or punish developers from offering apps at other prices on different platforms, and they'd have to let developers contact their users with "legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings." Another provision would force Apple and Google to let users install third-party app stores or sideload apps. This would have a bigger impact on Apple, since Android already allows sideloading.

Apple and Google have opposed the bill, claiming that it would put user security and privacy at risk. They said the same things about the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a more sweeping tech reform bill that the committee passed last month. Both bills will go to the Senate floor for debate and a vote.

The stakes are high for both companies. The App Store and Google Play Store each take a 15 percent cut of in-app purchases up to the first $1 million developers make in annual revenue. After that, the fees rise to 30 percent. 

Google parent company Alphabet reports Play Store revenue under "Google other revenues," which also includes hardware and non-ad income from YouTube. That business segment brought in $8.2 billion last quarter, a year-over-year increase of 22 percent. App Store revenue falls under the Apple's services segment, which raked in $19.5 billion in Q4.

Apple was last year ordered to allow developers to direct users to other payment methods as a result of its legal battle with Epic Games. An appeals court judge granted a last-minute delay before the change was supposed to take effect.

The Joe Rogan Experience was problematic long before Spotify paid a reported $100 million for exclusive rights to the show in 2020. Rogan’s tendency to let guests disseminate hideous and demonstrably false viewpoints has attracted criticism before, but as with many things, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the controversy to new heights in recent weeks. On December 31st, Spotify published an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience in which virologist Dr. Robert Malone likened the belief that vaccines are effective to "mass formation psychosis."

A few weeks later, 270 doctors, nurses, scientists and educators sent an open letter to Spotify asking the company to adopt a clear misinformation policy to help curb the spread of dangerous false claims, like those made in that episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.

Over the last few weeks, the backlash to Rogan’s podcast has come from others on the platform. Several high-profile musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from Spotify over the platform’s dissemination of misinformation. Spotify’s Science VS podcast also announced this week that it would only produce episodes that fact-check misinformation spread on the platform until the company made a stronger effort. Author and researcher Brené Brown has paused her Spotify-exclusive podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead as well.

Rogan and Spotify haven‘t seen a response of this magnitude before, and it shows no signs of abating. Indeed, several of these artists and podcasters chose to remove their content after Spotify publicly shared its content guidelines and announced a plan to add a “content advisory” to any podcast that discusses COVID-19.

In many ways, what Spotify is grappling with right now is the same thing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have had to confront over the last five years. They’re so big that they need to have guidelines around what people post, and accept some degree of responsibility for how they disseminate information. Spotify needs to do the same thing, with the added wrinkle that there’s no gray area: By paying artists and podcasters to appear on its platform, the company has a responsibility for the content it puts out. Of course, it's not clear Spotify sees it that way. 

Instead of simply being a podcast player, Spotify has a host of exclusive deals and owns major podcasting studios including Gimlet Media and The Ringer. These financial entanglements mean Spotify has to make tough decisions about how much of a voice it wants to give to potentially objectionable creators like Joe Rogan. As Ashley Carman of The Vergenotes, Apple delisted Alex Jones's Infowars show from its podcasts app, but people could still find his show and listen to it through RSS. But The Joe Rogan Experience is part of an increasingly common closed podcast ecosystem — and any company that participates in such a system could have similarly difficult decisions to make about what creators say on those platforms.

Spotify’s response to this controversy has been tepid at best. The content guidelines the company published say nothing about spreading misinformation on the platform, and the COVID-19 content advisory draws a false equivalency between legitimate discussion and incorrect information. It’s hard to imagine these moves doing anything to quell the backlash any time soon.

And that backlash is now coming from Spotify employees, as well. The Vergeviewed screenshots from Spotify’s internal Slack that showed the company said it reviewed all episodes of Rogan’s podcast and found that none met the threshold for removal. This was a response to Spotify employees reportedly being “vocally upset” about Spotify’s deal with Rogan and his view on vaccines. And earlier today, Carman and The Vergeonce again published details of an internal Spotify meeting where employees voiced their concerns and where Ek defended his decisions, including Ek insisting that Spotify is simply a platform, not a publisher.

“Everyone’s a little upset, especially the people whose initiatives directly contradict what’s happening,” a source who asked to remain anonymous told Carman. “People are feeling increasingly frustrated that no matter what the company says messaging-wise, or no matter what people’s initiatives are, it all kind of ladders up to, ‘What’s the best for Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan’s audience?’”

Ek continued to defend Spotify’s relationship with Rogan today, saying that “exclusivity does not equal endorsement,” (n.b.: paying money to support something is literally endorsing something) and saying that exclusive deals like the one the company cut with Rogan are what’s helping keep the company successful. “To be frank, had we not made some of the choices we did, I am confident that our business wouldn’t be where it is today,” Ek reportedly said. 

It’s hard to imagine Spotify turning its back on Rogan. The Joe Rogan Experience remains an exceptionally popular show, and Spotify made its feelings about Rogan clear when they backed up a dump truck full of cash to have exclusive rights to the show – and they’ve been steadfast in their defense of him since then. The company knew he was a controversial figure before, and he’s so popular that someone else would surely open their wallets for his show if Spotify decided to cut him loose.

It’s not impossible that Rogan could do something that would cause Spotify to change its stance. After all, Facebook and Twitter eventually banned the former president of the United States after putting up with years of lies and dangerous rhetoric. And Twitter recently banned Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. But it’ll take a lot more than Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulling their music catalogs to make Spotify change course, given its financial investment in Rogan. If Rogan or a guest on his show called for an insurrection at the US capitol — that might move the needle. But short of that, it seems likely that Spotify will likely wait for this current storm to subside and simply move on with the status quo.

Last October, Adidas partnered with Swedish headphone maker Zound, best known for its work with Marshall, to announce three sets of new true wireless earbuds. One of those was the FWD-02 Sport earbuds, which were supposed to launch last year. Following a delay, however, they’re finally available starting this month.

Adidas

As a refresher, the FWD-02 Sport are a pair of runner-friendly earbuds with swappable ear tips and wings, and a force sensor so you can control them while wearing gloves. They’re also IPX5 certified so they’re resistant to sweat and water. Adidas and Zound claim you can expect up to 6 hours of playtime from the earbuds, with the charging case providing another 19 hours of battery life before you need to head to an outlet.

The case features a mesh top layer, which Adidas said helps the buds dry faster when you need to store them. The FWD-02 also include an Awareness mode that allows ambient sounds to filter through so you can stay safe while using them for outdoor workouts.

At $170, the FWD-02 earbuds face some stiff competition, particularly from Apple’s Beats Fit Pro. While they’re $30 more expensive, they include active noise-cancellation, a fit a lot of people like and Apple’s H1 chip for hands-free access to Siri, one-touch pairing and other iOS-specific features. The lack of ANC isn’t a dealbreaker for a pair of sport-focused earbuds like the FWD-02, but it’s a feature that more and more people are looking to get on their next pair of headphones.