Instagram is adding two new enhancements to its livestreaming toolset. Starting today, creators can schedule their Live broadcasts up to 90 days in advance, and share the fact they’re doing so in both posts and Stories. Viewers can use those to set a reminder for themselves not to miss the broadcast.

Instagram also plans to roll out a “Practice Mode” soon. The tool allows creators to connect with guests before they start a broadcast so that they can do things like check audio levels and lighting, and go over any content they plan to cover.

The new features follow the introduction of audio-only livestreams in April. If you’re someone who merely watches Live sessions, Live Scheduling and Practice Mode won’t change your experience dramatically, but they may help your favorite creators get more organized.

As promised in July, TikTok is rolling out more ways for livestreams to wrangle their unruly audiences. Now, streamers and their trusted helper will be able to temporarily mute people for minutes, hours or the length of an entire livestream. According to Eric Han, head of Tiktok's US Safety team, muting a person will remove their entire comment history from the stream. And of course, you could also just turn off comments entirely or filter out specific keywords. Together with Tiktok's last batch of "kindness" updates for livestreamers, the platform is aiming to create a safer environment for creators.

Han says the prompts TikTok added in July — which pop up to make you think twice about posting an "unkind or harmful" comment — have led almost 40 percent of people editing or withdrawing their comment entirely. That's not too surprising, as Twitter found a similar feature also led to reduced bullying.

Given Tiktok's meteoric rise as a relatively young social network, it's apparently learned quite a bit from the struggles of older outfits like Facebook and Twitter. Based on its Q2 Community Guidelines Enforcement Report, the company says it's also getting better at weeding out improper videos. Han says 73.3 percent of harassment videos were removed before there were any user reports, whereas that figure was 66.2 percent in the previous quarter. Similarly, 72.9 percent of videos showing hateful behavior were removed in the second quarter, compared to 67.3 percent previously. 

Nightdive Studios’ immersive sim franchise System Shock franchise is being turned into a live-action TV show. You'll be able to watch it on the upcoming streaming service Binge, which is also working on a show based on Ubisoft's Driver.

More details about the System Shock TV show will be revealed in due course. It will tell "a harrowing story of Citadel Station and its rogue AI that subjects the crew to unimaginable horror," Binge said. The service, which is set to launch next year, didn't reveal when the series will premiere.

Meanwhile, Nightdive is working on a System Shock remake. The game was supposed to arrive this past summer, but it's now scheduled to debut by the end of 2021.

System Shock joins a long list of shows and movies based on games that are in the pipeline. Among them are Twisted Metal, Firewatch, Disco Elysium and a ton of Netflix projects, like League of Legends series Arcane. Rumors are also floating around that Epic Games might be making a Fortnite movie.

Elsewhere, Sony is supposed to release the Uncharted film in February at long, long last. Has, uh, anyone happened to see a trailer lying around somewhere?

Amazon allegedly "ran a systematic campaign" of copying other companies' products in India and gamed search results to promote its own versions. Reuters obtained thousands of pages of internal documents including emails and business plans that detail the practices.

A private brands team in India (which works on the company's own products) used data from Amazon's marketplace in the country to find and target goods and create knockoff versions, the agency reported. The goal was to find “reference” or “benchmark” wares and copy them. A document from 2016 detailed a plan for an Amazon brand called Solimo, which is tailored toward the Indian market. The aim was to “use information from Amazon.in to develop products and then leverage the Amazon.in platform to market these products to our customers.”

The document indicated that the private brands group aimed to form partnerships with the manufacturers of the benchmark items, because those companies use “unique processes which impact the end quality of the product.” The team sought to gain insights from the manufacturers and use the so-called "Tribal Knowledge" in its own versions to "fully match quality with our reference product."

After it made the knockoffs, the company manipulated search results with a method called “search seeding” so that AmazonBasics and Solimo items would pop up near the top of the page, according to the document. The company also "aggressively" used a technique called “search sparkles on PC, Mobile and App to specifically promote Solimo products on relevant customer searches from ‘All Product Search’ and Category search,” per the document. Sparkles are the banners placed above search results.

"As Reuters hasn't shared the documents or their provenance with us, we are unable to confirm the veracity or otherwise of the information and claims as stated," an Amazon spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "We believe these claims are factually incorrect and unsubstantiated."

"Amazon identifies selection gaps based on customer preferences at an aggregate level only and shares this information with all sellers," the spokesperson added. "Amazon’s policy strictly prohibits the use or sharing of non-public, seller-specific data for the benefit of any seller, including sellers of private brands. This policy applies uniformly across our company to all employees — our internal teams receive regular trainings on its application and we thoroughly investigate any reports of employees acting contrary to this policy."

This is far from the first time we've heard reports of Amazon allegedly copying other companies' products. Over the years, the company has been accused of cloning the Instant Pot, Allbirds sneakers and a camera bag from Peak Design to name a few. A 2020 Wall Street Journal investigation also indicated that Amazon studied sales data of third-party products on its platform to inform the design and pricing of its own goods.

Regulators in India, the US and Europe have targeted Amazon over alleged anti-competitive practices. Reuters points out that an investigation in India is looking into whether the company unfairly promoted its own branded goods.

Facebook is introducing new policies to safeguard users from online bullying and harassment. In a post attributed to Head of Safety Antigone Davis, the company said it will take down mass coordinated harassment campaigns targeted at individuals at heightened risk of offline harm. It will do so even if the content people post wouldn’t normally violate its safety guidelines. Additionally, Facebook says it will remove objectionable content in whatever form it takes, be that direct messages, comments or posts. As part of the same policy, the company will remove state-linked networks that work together to silence and harass people.

Had the above policy been in place in the past, one situation where Facebook may have enforced it was when Taylor Swift’s Instagram account was bombarded with snake emoji following a dramatic breakup with electronic producer Calvin Harris. Speaking of celebrities, the company has also put in place new protections to safeguard public figures from sexual harassment and appearance shaming. To that end, it plans to remove profiles, pages and groups dedicated to sexualizing those individuals. It will also target “severe sexualizing content,” including photoshopped images and drawings.

“We made these changes because attacks like these can weaponize a public figure’s appearance, which is unnecessary and often not related to the work these public figures represent,” the company said. Facebook will also provide additional protections for individuals who become famous involuntarily. Those may include individuals like journalists and human rights activists. 

Facebook has repeatedly faced pressure to do more to prevent bullying and harassment across all of its apps, but particularly on Instagram. In the aftermath of the Euro 2020 final, which saw three Black players on the English national team face a flood of harassment after England lost to Italy, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri promised the company would introduce new features to protect users. “Racism and hate speech have no place on Instagram,” he said at the time. “It is not only honestly fucked up to see people treated that way, but it breaks how Instagram works.”

Activision has unveiled its big, new approach to squashing hackers in Call of Duty: Warzone and Vanguard, and it's a two-pronged system called RICOCHET Anti-Cheat. The first stage is a series of server-side enhancements that will better identify and remove cheaters from games, and this is scheduled to hit Warzone with the Pacific update later this year. These new server tools will be live in Vanguard when it comes out on November 5th.

The second prong is a PC kernel-level driver designed to monitor the deepest level of every player's rig while they're in-game, in an effort to stop outside software from sneaking in through this back door. The kernel, or ring 0, is the most privileged level of any PC, granting access to every layer of hardware, and generally reserved for things like graphics card drivers and trusted bits of the operating system. The RICOCHET Anti-Cheat kernel-level driver will only turn on when Warzone or Vanguard is active; it's not an always-on situation.

While operating in the kernel isn't uncommon for anti-cheat software, this is likely the most concerning part of Activision's new plans for many players. Riot Games faced scrutiny in 2020 for implementing a similar kernel-level driver in Valorant, though the main issue was that it was always on, operating even when the game wasn't active. (Confusingly, the Valorant anti-cheat system is called Vanguard).

This isn't a new worry, either — in 2013, the always-on ring 0 anti-cheat system employed by ESEA was commandeered to turn unsuspecting players' PCs into a secret bitcoin mining farm.

With these lessons in mind, Activision has stressed that RICOCHET will only be active when the associated game is live, saying specifically, "the driver shuts down when you exit the game and turns on when you start a new game."

The kernel-level driver will hit Warzone alongside the Pacific update this year, and it'll come to Vanguard at a later date.

Cheating has been a significant problem in Call of Duty: Warzonefor a long while now. Activision has banned more than 500,000 accounts since the game's launch, though it's not uncommon for matches to be riddled with aimbots and cheap hacks to this day. Players have been screaming for a robust anti-cheat system in Warzone and other Call of Duty titles, and RICOCHET is Activision's kernel-level, not-always-on answer.

Over the next year, DoorDash has earmarked $1,000,000 to support local restaurants affected by state or federally declared natural disasters. With help from Hello Alice, it will distribute $10,000 grants to businesses that can use the funds to pay for essential expenses like rent, supplies and payroll in times of need. Starting on November 1st, the companies will process applications every three months, with funding to follow shortly thereafter.

Currently, the program is only available to restaurants in the US. Other eligibility requirements include that a business owner operate three restaurants or less. None of those locations may have generated more than $3 million in revenue over the last 12 months. Notably, a partnership with DoorDash or Caviar isn’t required to apply for the program.

The relief fund comes as food delivery apps face increasing scrutiny from local governments. The City of Chicago recently launched separate lawsuits against DoorDash and GrubHub, accusing the two companies of using bait-and-switch tactics to mislead consumers. New York City also recently passed sweeping legislation aimed at protecting workers of app-based delivery services.

Just in time for the holiday season, Bose has released a new portable Bluetooth speaker designed for both strong audio performance and durability. The SoundLink Flex has an IP67 rating, meaning it's water, dust and dirt resistant, and the company even claims that the speaker will float to the surface if you drop it in water (but you should probably fish it out quickly if it drops into a bathtub or the ocean).

The silicone rear and powder-coated steel grille should protect the speaker from drops and bumps, according to Bose. The company also claims the device is resistant to UV light and corrosion and it won't peel or flake.

But it's not just the speaker's apparent toughness that makes it interesting. Bose says it packed the SoundLink Flex with features "to deliver astonishing audio performance." It claims that the custom transducer provides maximum audio clarity and "bass that you can feel in your chest.” The SoundLink Flex also has dual-opposing passive radiators, as well as Bose's digital signal processing tech, which should minimize distortion.

Bose

The speaker can detect its orientation and adjust the audio output accordingly. So, whether it's horizontal, vertical or hanging from the utility loop, the sound will be optimized. It's the company's first Bluetooth speaker that uses this Bose PositionIQ tech.

SoundLink Flex can remember up to eight Bluetooth connections to make it easy to switch from one device to another. You can adjust the settings using the Bose Connect app and control your phone's voice assistant and take calls using the speaker's microphone.

You can pair a second Bose Bluetooth speaker for stereo or simultaneous playback. The SoundLink Flex can connect to other Bose speakers and soundbars as part of a home audio system. Bose says you'll get up to 12 hours of playback on a single charge and you can recharge the lithium-ion battery with a USB-C cable.

The SoundLink Flex is just under eight inches wide, 2.1 inches deep and 3.6 inches tall. It weighs just over a pound and is available in black, white smoke or stone blue. The speaker costs $149 and you can pick it up from Bose's website starting today.

Anker is jumping into the increasingly crowded world of audio eyewear. The company's Soundcore brand has introduced Soundcore Frames glasses that promise stealthy music playback and calls. The hook, in this case, is style — Soundcore is offering your pick of ten reasonably fashionable frames you can swap in and out depending on your mood or lens needs, including prescription, polarized and blue light filtering lenses.

You'll also get "surround" sound with speakers in front of and behind the ears, noise reduction (including an anti-leak private listening mode) and a mix of touch and voice-based controls. You won't use these all day with 5.5 hours of music listening, although a 10-minute charge is enough to provide another 1.5 hours. They're IPX4 water-resistant, so you at least won't have to worry about a the rain.

The Soundcore Frames will be available in November for $200. Extra frames will cost another $50 each. That's not a spectacular price for audio glasses, but the style is sharp enough that you might not mind the outlay — especially if you aren't looking for smart glasses.

Reddit has launched a new feature called Predictions, which can make polls more fun by giving you tokens to bet with. The website has been testing the feature for a year, and now that it's widely available, community mods and mod-approved users will be able to create Predictions Tournaments with a series of questions that challenges you to predict the outcome of an event or conversation. 

You'll get 1,000 tokens for free when you join a tournament, which can consist of as many questions as a moderator wants — they can add more even after the tournament has started. When you vote for the prediction you want, you'll have to bet some of the tokens you get after you joined. How to distribute those tokens is totally up to you, and you will win more on top of the ones you used for every correct prediction. The larger the number of tokens you put in, the more you can win. However, you'll have to make your tokens last throughout the tournament, and there's no way to get more if it turns out that your prediction game is weak. It's a totally user-driven experience, since the tournament's creator will also be in charge of resolving the outcome and making sure you get your winnings.

So, what do you get for correct predictions aside from winning tokens? Mostly, recognition in the form of a leaderboard. Tokens are only for use in the Prediction experience, so you can't really do anything with them on the website. Reddit will start rolling out the feature today, and it will be available for all communities with at least 10,000 members. 

Reddit