Rumors have persisted of a flagship Samsung tablet even larger than the Galaxy Tab S7+, and now you might know what it looks like. OnLeaks and 91Mobiles have shared what they claim are images of the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. The slate would minimize the impact of its huge 14.6-inch display by stuffing the front camera system into a notch — potentially distracting, but better than a conventional design that might be even larger.

The design wouldn't be quite so unusual on the other side. The leak suggests the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra would have dual rear cameras and the familiar magnetic strip to hold your S Pen. The source claimed the imagery was "not 100 percent complete," so there's a chance the design could change slightly no matter how accurate it is as of this writing.

The regular Tab S8 and S8+ models aren't expected to use the notch. They might instead be subtle evolutions of the existing designs, which tuck the front camera into the bezel.

It's not clear just when the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra would arrive. 91Mobiles speculates that Samsung might launch the design in November or December, but it would be odd to wait until the very end of the year to release an important tablet, even if chip shortages weren't a factor. It might be easier for Samsung to wait until early 2022, when it can launch the Tab S8 series alongside the Galaxy S22.

It’s hard to remember, but 20 years ago, Apple was not a very cool company. Sure, OS X was intriguing, and the titanium PowerBook was definitely a cool computer, But when most people thought of Apple, it was probably the bulbous, colorful iMac G3 that popped into people’s heads. The company was starting to build its reputation for truly desirable products, but it wasn’t solidified just yet.

That all changed on October 23, 2001, when Steve Jobs pulled the first iPod out of his pocket. For a generation of music fans, it became the quintessentially cool item that was more than just a fad. It’s not a stretch to say it reinvented the music industry while simultaneously paving a path for Apple to become the world’s biggest company. It was the ultimate gateway drug to getting people who had never bought an Apple product before to see what all the fuss was about.

At this point, the somewhat skeptical reception to the iPod is part of tech industry lore – particularly Slashdot’s dismissal of the product as “lame” compared to a Nomad MP3 player. (Raise your hand if you ever used a Nomad. That’s what I thought.) And it’s not like the product was an instant hit – the first iPod cost $400 and only worked with the Mac, two factors that limited its appeal.

Those limitations helped it achieve some serious cachet, though. Seeing an iPod in the wild was a rarity, and my Mac-owning friends who were early adopters had to deal with my incessant questions and requests to hold it and spin its distinctive wheel. It didn’t help that my college suite-mate (who had a titanium PowerBook and iPod) and graphic designer friend (with a PowerMac G4 and iPod) were constantly going off about how great their hardware was. I was primed to become one of those switchers Apple liked to talk about in the early 2000s.

The iPod may have started out as a Mac-only product, but less than a year later, Apple opened it up to the other 98 percent of computer users by introducing a Windows-compatible model in the summer of 2002. Less than a year after that, Apple completely redesigned the iPod and released a new version of iTunes for Windows. At the same time, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, making it a lot easier to get legal music onto an iPod. With that, the iPod moved fully into the mainstream.

There’s no good way to quantify how many people bought an iPod for Windows and then eventually switched to a Mac. But, Mac sales increased from about 3 million in 2003 to more than 7 million by 2007. Apple’s move to more powerful Intel processors in 2005 likely helped adoption, but the iPod “halo effect” was often cited in the mid-2000s as a driver of the Mac’s increasing popularity.

Growing Mac sales and the most popular consumer electronics device of the decade truly paved the way for the iPhone to be the monumental success that it was almost. Sure, the iPhone eventually killed the iPod, but as Steve Jobs said, he’d rather cannibalize Apple's sales with another Apple product than let some other company do it — this was how he justified the existence of the iPod touch, which was basically an iPhone without a phone.

I might be overselling the iPod to Mac to iPhone evolution, because I lived it. After getting a second-generation iPod in 2002 (embarrassing admission time: I also bought four more full-size iPods between then and 2009), I got my first Mac in 2003 and the first iPhone in late 2007. I remember being more excited about my first iPhone than my first iPod, mostly because it was light years better than the Moto RAZR I was using at the time. But my first iPod was similarly a huge step forward from the MP3 players I owned before. And in my early 20s, there was nothing more important to me than music.

That may not make me unique, but it’s still true. Before the iPod was everywhere, someone else who had one was someone you could trust. They took music as seriously as you did; they knew how liberating it was to have your 100 favorite albums with you, on demand, any time you needed them. In a world where Apple Music offers access to 90 million songs anywhere you are for 10 bucks a month, that might seem quaint. But 20 years ago, it was a revelation.

I still have the last iPod I ever purchased, a 2008 iPod classic with 120GB of storage – about the same space as I have in my iPhone 12 Pro. It’s still stuffed to the gills with music, some 11,000-plus songs, most of which come from albums I carefully selected over time. Most of them are still in my Apple Music library, which has now ballooned to more than double that size, with over 25,000 songs.

I’m still a firm believer in the art of making a good album, but I’ve also collected thousands of singles, or a handful of songs from artists who catch my ear on one of the many curated playlists out there. The music industry has changed, and so have I. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a debate for another time, but there’s no doubt that both the music and technology industries changed completely because of the iPod – something its humble introduction 20 years ago only barely hinted at.

More and more tech companies are issuing COVID-19 vaccine mandates to comply with the government's directives. Adobe is one of the latest to require all employees in the US to be inoculated against the virus. According to CNBC, the company has told employees in an email that they have to be vaccinated by December 8th if they don't want to be placed on unpaid leave. 

In the letter seen by the publication, the company explained that it's giving its personnel until December 8th to comply with the Biden administration's executive order. The president previously gave all federal contractors a December 8th deadline to require all their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Adobe does a lot of business with the US government. Earlier this year, it teamed up with government agencies in all 50 states to help them modernize their services with Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud. It even launched the Government Rapid Response Program during the pandemic to help ensure people can smoothly access government services, such as vaccine scheduling websites. 

Adobe Chief People Officer Gloria Chen wrote in the email that 93.5 percent of the US employees who responded to an internal survey was already fully vaccinated or in the process of getting both shots. Despite the mandate, the company will consider religious and medical exemptions. The company's move echoes many others in the industry. Google started requiring all employees to be vaccinated against the virus way back in July. Meanwhile, Apple has yet to issue to mandate, but it will start requiring unvaccinated employees to undergo daily rapid testing on November 1st.

Hayden Christensen isn't done playing Darth Vader. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he's reprising his role as the Sith Lord in the upcoming Disney+ series Ahsoka. Rosario Dawson will star as Ahsoka Tano, whom she also played in the second season of The Mandalorian. That's the first time Ahsoka's character appeared in a live-action Star Wars show — prior to that, Ahsoka was only seen in the franchise's animated entries.

Disney and Lucasfilm have yet to reveal the story for the live-action series. The Hollywood Reporter says, though, that it's set five years after the events in Return of the Jedi, similar to The Mandalorian. That Vader will be featured in a show about Ahsoka doesn't entirely come as a surprise, seeing she was Anakin Skywalker's padawan. But since Vader died in Return of the Jedi, it's unclear how his character will fit into Ahsoka's story, and whether he'll be shown in flashbacks or as a Force ghost.

Dave Filoni, who was involved in several previous Star Wars projects, will write the story and also serve as executive producer with Jon Favreau. The series will start production in 2022, though fans will get the chance to see Christensen play Vader before that in Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi that's set to debut early next year.

Facebook officials have long known about how the platform’s recommendations can lead users into conspiracy theory-addled “rabbit holes.” Now, we know just how clear that picture was thanks to documents provided by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

During the summer of 2019, a Facebook researcher found that it took just five days for the company to begin recommending QAnon groups and other disturbing content to a fictional account, according to an internal report whose findings were reported by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and others Friday. The document, titled “Carol's Journey to QAnon” was also in a cache of records provided by Haugen to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of her whistleblower complaint.

It reportedly describes how a Facebook researcher set up a brand new account for “Carol,” who was described as a “conservative mom.” After liking a few conservative, but “mainstream” pages, Facebook’s algorithms began suggesting more fringe and conspiracy content. Within five days of joining Facebook, “Carol” was seeing “groups with overt QAnon affiliations,” conspiracy theories about “white genocide” and other content described by the researcher as “extreme, conspiratorial, and graphic content.”

The fact that Facebook’s recommendations were fueling QAnon conspiracy theories and other concerning movements has been well known outside of the company for some time. Researchers and journalists have also documented the rise of the once fringe conspiracy theory during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But the documents show that Facebook’s researchers were raising the alarm about the conspiracy theory prior to the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal notes that researchers suggested measures like preventing or slowing down re-shared content but Facebook officials largely opted no to take those steps.

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to questions about the document. “We worked since 2016 to invest in people, technologies, policies and processes to ensure that we were ready, and began our planning for the 2020 election itself two years in advance,” Facebook’s VP of Integrity wrote in a lengthy statement Friday evening. In the statement, Rosen recapped the numerous measures he said Facebook took in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election — including banning QAnon and militia groups — but didn’t directly address the company’s recommendations prior to QAnon’s ban in October 2020.

The documents come at a precarious moment for Facebook. There have now been two whistleblowers who have turned over documents to the SEC saying the company has misled investors and prioritized growth and profits over users’ safety. Scrutiny is likely to further intensify as more than a dozen media organizations now have access to some of those documents.

On Tuesday, October 26th, Carli Lloyd will play her final game as part of the US women’s national soccer team when it takes on South Korea in a friendly match. In honor of the event, Fox Sports will stream a dedicated “CarliCam” that will follow Lloyd throughout the contest. You’ll be able to watch the game from that vantage point through the Fox Sports app, as well as the network's Facebook and YouTube accounts. It will also air the first 10 minutes of the match on Twitter.

Back in August, Lloyd announced she would retire from professional soccer by the end of the year. Over her 17-year career, she has been one of the most dominant players in the sport. She scored the gold medal-winning goals in both the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2015 and 2016, she was named the FIFA Player of the Year. More recently, she helped Team USA secure the bronze medal at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo with a pair of goals in a match that ended with a four-three score. While Tuesday will mark Lloyd’s final game with Team USA, she’ll play out the remainder of the NSWL season with Gotham FC before finally hanging up her jersey.

Overwatch hero Jesse McCree has a new name, and, no, it’s not Deadeye Dave. As promised, Blizzard has renamed the gunslinger in the aftermath of his real-life namesake leaving the studio back in August. As of October 26th, McCree will be known as Cole Cassidy.

“To make the new Overwatch better — to make things right — he had to be honest with his team and himself.” Blizzard said in a tweet. “The cowboy he was rode into the sunset, and Cole Cassidy faced the world at dawn.”

The real Jesse McCree left the studio after the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision Blizzard for fostering a “frat boy” workplace. While not directly named in the complaint, McCree reportedly took part in the infamous "Cosby Suite" where Blizzard employees, including former World of Warcraft creative director Alex Afrasiabi, allegedly harassed women. When it first announced the name change, Blizzard said it wanted to find one that better represented Overwatch’s ideals. It also promised it would no longer name in-game characters after employees.

Alongside the name change, Blizzard is testing two potential changes to Cassidy’s kit. It may tweak his Deadeye ultimate to make it more deadly and allow players to use his Combat Roll in midair. The latter change should help with avoiding vertical knockback abilities from heroes like Doomfist and Wrecking Ball. You can try out the tweaks by launching Overwatch’s Experimental mode.

Another former Facebook employee has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The latest complaint, which was first reported by The Washington Post, alleges Facebook misled its investors about “dangerous and criminal behavior on its platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.”

In the complaint, the former employee described a conversation with one of Facebook’s top communication executives who, following disclosures about Russia’s use of the platform to meddle in the 2016 election, said the scandal would be a “flash in the pan” and that “we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine.”

Like Frances Haugen, the latest whistleblower is also a former member of Facebook’s integrity team, which was tasked with fighting misinformation, voting interference and other major problems facing the company. And, like Haugen, the former Facebook staffer said that the company has “routinely undermined efforts to fight misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content out of fear of angering then-President Trump and his political allies, or out of concern about potentially dampening the user growth.”

The SEC filing also describes illegal activity in secret Facebook Groups, and Facebook’s policy of allowing politicians and other high-profile users to skirt its rules. It names Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg as being aware of the problems and not reporting them to investors, according to The Post.

While many of the details sound similar to other complaints from former company insiders, news of another complaint adds to the pressure on Facebook, which has spent much of the last month trying to discredit Haugen and downplay the significance of its own research. Meanwhile, lawmakers have called on Zuckerberg to answer questions from Congress, and Haugen is expected to brief European officials as well.

A Facebook spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Zuckerberg is expected to announce plans to rebrand the company with a new name next week.

For a while now, Discord has offered a feature called Rich Presence. It’s an API developers can use to connect their games to Discord and make it easier to jump into them from the chat app. We’ve mostly seen studios add the integration to individual titles, but now EA is doing it at the launcher level.

Starting today, its EA app will allow you to connect your Discord account. Once you link the two together, your Discord contacts will not only see that game you’re playing through the EA app but they’ll also know how long you’ve been at it and the specific game mode you’re in at the moment. They’ll also see if you’re ready to group up to play something different. That last point is important since it might help push your friends to play a game they hadn’t planned to when they first launched Discord.

You can connect your accounts by navigating to the settings menu in the EA app, and then clicking on “My account” followed by “Connected accounts.”

Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt publisher CD Projekt has expanded its portfolio after picking up indie developer The Molasses Flood. The Boston-based studio is behind survival game The Flame in the Flood and action village-building title Drake Hollow.

Formed in 2014 by Bioshock, Halo and Guitar Hero veterans, The Molasses Flood caught CD Projekt's attention because it makes "games with heart," president and co-CEO Adam Kiciński said in a statement. “The Molasses Flood share our passion for video game development, they’re experienced, quality-oriented, and have great technological insight. I’m convinced they will bring a lot of talent and determination to the group.”

The Molasses Flood will operate independently from CD Projekt Red's other teams. The studio's next game is an "ambitious project" based on an existing CD Projekt franchise, which could very well mean another Cyberpunk or Witcher game. In any case, more details will be announced later.

This week, CDPR delayed the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 to 2022. The studio previously planned to release the updates by the end of this year.