Air traffic is picking back up after dropping dramatically amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and more people need to get from an airport to where they're going. To make things a little easier for airline passengers, Uber is rolling out a bunch of tools centered around airport rides.
The Uber Reserve feature that the company debuted last November is now available for Uber Black and Uber Black SUV at more than 20 airports across the US, including ones in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Washington DC. You can book rides up to 30 days in advance. Uber will be able to track your flight information and automatically adjust your reservation time if you're going to land at a different time than expected. The driver will wait for up to 60 minutes at no extra cost to you and there's a curbside pickup option.
Speaking of curbside pickup, Uber says it's using machine learning to forecast demand so it can dispatch drivers and match them with passengers at the curb. The feature is live at 13 US airports, as well as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, London Heathrow, Montreal, Toronto Pearson and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.
A new feature called Ready When You Are will let you choose from a few pickup timing options when you reserve a ride after landing. You can make a request for 10 or 20 minutes out, or as soon as possible. This option is being piloted on Android starting today at six airports: Nashville, New Orleans, Portland (the one in Oregon), Philadelphia, Seattle and Toronto Pearson. The feature will hit iOS in November.
Finally, Uber Eats will let you order food in advance from some airport restaurants, so you can pick up a meal without having to wait in line. Uber is testing the option at Toronto Pearson, and it plans to bring the feature to US airports in the coming months.
A cornerstone of text messaging has been vulnerable for half a decade. Ars Technicareports that Syniverse, which routes billions of SMS chats for hundreds of carriers in the US and abroad, has used an SEC filing to disclose a hack that lasted for five years.
The company discovered in May 2021 that someone had "unauthorized access" to its operational and IT systems since May 2016, and during that time had "several" opportunities to access network databases. The intruders compromised logins for Syniverse's Electronic Data Transfer environment for about 235 carriers, according to the company.
The routing firm wouldn't say if the attackers obtained messages or otherwise violated users' privacy. In a statement to Ars, Syniverse generally kept to what it revealed in the SEC filing. The company said it hadn't found evidence of an "intent to disrupt" operations, and there was "no attempt to monetize" activity. The company couldn't rule out future discoveries, however, and a Motherboardsource said the EDT space included call record information. The intruders could have obtained text message content, the source added.
We've asked AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget's former parent company) if the attackers could have compromised texts passing through their networks. Syniverse said it fixed the security flaws and notified all customers when legally required, but that "no additional action" was necessary at this stage.
While that response suggests the practical damage might be limited, there's still cause for concern here — the attackers might have had access to massive volumes of sensitive messages while an important custodian was unaware. If nothing else, this is a reminder that mobile security depends as much on partner companies as it does carriers and phone makers.
Though they don’t come out with the annual frequency of an iPhone, video game consoles can always be counted on to have a few mid-cycle refreshes (think: the PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox One X). This week it’s Nintendo giving the OG Switch a makeover, adding an OLED screen and a few other exterior tweaks. But it’s basically the same system on the inside, so don’t call it the Switch Pro. It’s officially dubbed the Nintendo Switch OLED, because calling it the “slightly nicer Switch” doesn’t really move units from the shelves. If you’ve already invested in a Switch or Switch Lite you won’t need the upgrade, but if you’re still Switch-less this is the model to buy.
It’s $50 more than the original, which is not being pulled from shelves just yet. For $350, the new Switch has a full 7-inch OLED screen, a step up from the older model’s 6.2-inch display. The larger screen size is appreciated, though after six hours of playing it in handheld mode I didn’t notice the difference as much.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
What did catch my attention when I switched back to the original were the chunky bezels around the 6.2-inch display. I’ve never liked them and found them to be one of the least attractive things about the system. Now they make me recoil in disgust when I compare them to the OLED model’s slim lines, which have been whittled to a third of the size. The matte plastic frame around the screen has also shrunk and changed to a glossy plastic, making it even less obtrusive.
As for the display itself: yes, it is noticeably brighter. There’s enough of a difference that in my initial hands-on I was dismayed when I returned to my personal Switch at home hours later. When placed side by side, the difference is undeniable. The colors pop just a bit more, the blacks are deeper and the whites are… more white, with the original having a slight lavender tint in contrast to the purer white of the OLED screen.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
While not every game will benefit from better colors, Nintendo is also releasing Metroid Dread the same day. Like all titles in the series, the game traffics in a lot of dark spaces, with the bright pop of Samus’ red and yellow (or blue) armor contrasting nicely alongside backgrounds of brown and gray. It’s a good showcase for the OLED’s improved color fidelity and just a nice-looking game in general, which distracts from the fact that the new Switch doesn’t bring any actual improvements under the hood.
The CPU and GPU go unaltered, which ensures that all future Switch titles remain compatible with existing Switch and Switch Lite systems. This is pretty much in keeping with the Game Boy Advance and 3DS lines of products, which saw some radical redesigns like the Game Boy micro and 2DS over their lifespans. Sure, there were handhelds like the DSi and New 3DS that came with improved internal specs, but those never saw widespread adoption. The Switch OLED is a lot more like the Game Boy Advance SP: significant improvements to the display and form factor, but the same old library of games.
Alongside that new display are a bunch of minor tweaks that don’t seem like much when considered individually, but as a whole really improve the experience. The most notable is the new stand on the back. The one on the original Switch is small and roughly a finger’s width, with only two positions: open and closed. The one on my original launch unit no longer locks in the “closed” position and has a tendency to flop out when I’m playing in handheld mode. It also detaches completely if you look at it funny.
The Switch OLED’s stand is an entirely different beast. Instead of a skinny little strip, it’s now a Microsoft Surface-style panel that stretches across the back of the entire unit, with real hinges that can be left in a number of positions so you can now put your unit at whatever angle you prefer. I wouldn’t try to pull this thing off; the hinges are actually molded into the plastic, so if you do break it, it’ll have to go off to the Nintendo repair shop to get fixed up.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
To accommodate the new stand a bunch of stuff has been moved around on the back of the Switch unit. The logo is now printed on the stand itself, so it’s been moved to the lower half of the rear. The manufacturing info, like the parts number and voltage, is now printed in black on the black plastic, underneath the stand. So it’s doubly hidden — a subtle but welcome improvement. The rear speakers have been moved to the bottom edge of the unit, where they also serve as a way to pull the stand out. It’s actually very thoughtful, while providing clear game audio and minimizing system noise. And, while the microSD hasn’t been completely relocated, it’s now placed parallel to the bottom edge. I assume this small change is to keep users from accidentally pulling out the card when they’re trying to adjust the stand. The one thing that hasn’t been relocated is the USB-C port on the bottom, so you still can’t recharge it in tabletop mode.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
There are fewer changes to the device’s top edge, with the most notable being a button redesign resulting in longer, thinner power and volume switches. The new buttons aren’t easier to hit, but they do look sleeker and feel better under my fingers thanks to the textured plastic of the Switch OLED. The system is actually just nicer to hold now, like when it kept the sweat from pooling under my clammy hands during a particularly stressful boss fight in Metroid Dread.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
Because the Switch OLED has to be compatible with all existing accessories, that means the unit is the same height and width as the original model. The Joy-Cons haven’t gotten a redesign, but hopefully the infamous “Joy-Con drift” has been eradicated by now. The new black and white color scheme is very nice, a step up from my all-gray launch unit in terms of style. If you like a more playful color palette, the Switch OLED can also be bought with red and blue Joy-Cons, or you can swap any other Joy-Cons you want. But the white ones don’t show scratches as easily as the other shades, so they’ll look spiffy for longer.
The one change in the system’s dimensions is the weight, thanks to the OLED screen. When handling the original and new Switch side by side, the difference is undeniable. But it’s not a big enough divide to make the Switch OLED less portable in any way. Subjectively, it might actually seem a bit lighter, possibly because the weight is well-distributed. The one thing about the build that feels like a step down is that the OLED model has a tiny bit of flex in the middle of the rear panel that’s not present in the original. However, it doesn’t make much of a difference to the build quality unless you’re planning to take a hammer to the back of the unit.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
Because the system keeps the same internals, that means the battery has gone unchanged as well. It’s the same as the refreshed 2019 battery, which offers between four and nine hours of battery life compared to the launch unit’s cap of six hours. However, the new OLED should be more power-efficient than the LCD, and in use it appears to be. I got almost seven hours of Metroid Dread before I got the “low battery” warning at 15 percent, and that’s a game that makes frequent use of vibration. Compare that to the four or five hours I tend to get out of my OG Switch, even when playing something fairly tame like Animal Crossing or Untitled Goose Game.
If you already have an existing Switch, you can drop the OLED model into your current dock and it will work just fine. But the system does come with its own, redesigned dock that you might want to set up. It looks a lot nicer thanks to its rounded corners and glossy black plastic on the inside (which admittedly will probably scratch up over time). The back panel isn’t great, as it feels flimsy and can come off completely (so you may lose it). But all of these are outweighed by the important addition of an ethernet port.
Prior to this, the Switch has always been intended as a wireless system, and it hasn’t been stellar. Early models had a tendency to “forget” how to connect to your WiFi, forcing you to restart the system. And even now, downloading from the Nintendo eShop can be pokey; even with the OLED model I had to leave my system sitting for an hour or two while it downloaded games wirelessly. But now you can just plug in a cable for a faster, more reliable connection. If you have one in your living room, that is. Many people don’t, which makes this a feature for the more technical-minded fans. It’s the one new feature of the Switch OLED that I would consider “pro” level, and if you have a place to plug in it’s certainly worth the $50 premium.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
Overall, the Switch OLED is a nice system coming out at an odd time, as it’s been over four years since the release of the original Switch. Based on Nintendo’s past release history, that would indicate a new console some time around 2023. So it’s a big ask of people to buy a $350 system if something better is just around the corner. (Nintendo has categorically denied that it has plans for a new Switch as recently as last week, but that doesn’t preclude that one will come out eventually.)
There’s also the specter of the Steam Deck in December, just two short months from now (assuming no delays). It's far more powerful than the Switch, and is also much larger, but promises access to almost the entire Steam library, which happens to overlap with the current Nintendo eShop quite a bit. The biggest selling point for the Switch OLED is access to storied franchises like Mario and Zelda, as well as the incredible bargain that is Switch Online. But you don’t need an OLED screen or wired ethernet to enjoy old NES, SNES, N64 and Genesis titles.
Kris Naudus / Engadget
If you’re not going to be able to plug it into ethernet, or don’t need better speeds because you play offline all the time, the choice to upgrade to a Switch OLED is tricky. If you always play on the TV, there’s absolutely no point in buying this one, as there’s no difference in the dock’s output quality. It’s going to look the same as it always has, as this is most definitely not the rumored upgrade to 4K. But even if you’re a handheld player it’s not a must-have, unless you’ve given up on your original Switch because you just really, really hate LCD displays, or absolutely need more than five hours of battery life.
Alphabet subsidiary Wing has launched a pilot program that will have its drones fly products from the rooftops of shopping centers. In fact, it has already started the program in its biggest market, Logan, Australia. The subsidiary has teamed up with Australian retail property group, Vicinity Centres, to test the new model at Logan's Grand Plaza, where Wing's drones have been flying orders to customers from businesses directly below their launching pad.
Wing has been operating in Logan over the past two years, but up until now, businesses have had to co-locate their products at the company's delivery facility. This is the first time the subsidiary is conducting deliveries from participating merchants' existing location instead. Wing has been flying its drones from the rooftop of Grand Plaza since mid-August, delivering sushi, bubble tea, smoothies and other products from merchants in the shopping center. Starting today, the drones will also deliver over-the-counter medicine and personal care and beauty products.
Within the first six weeks of operating from the Grand Plaza, Wing's drones have already made 2,500 deliveries to several Logan suburbs. The Alphabet company plans to expand not just its partner merchants in the center, but also its delivery coverage area. Jesse Suskin, Wing’s Head of Policy & Community Affairs in Australia, also said that if the Grand Plaza pilot is successful, the company can "potentially roll out similar models in other locations across Vicinity Centres’ retail property portfolio."
While it remains to be seen whether the Grand Plaza pilot will lead to rooftop deliveries from more Vicinity locations, Wing has been quite successful in Logan. It has already made more than 50,000 deliveries in the city this year alone and has celebrated its 100,000th delivery overall last August.
Hackers claim to have accessed Twitch and leaked a vast amount of company data, including proprietary code, creator payouts and the "entirety of Twitch.tv." Video Games Chronicle has reported that Twitch is aware of the breach, according to the attackers, but has yet to respond publicly.
On top of of the Twitch.tv code, the attackers said they stole the the site's mobile, desktop and console Twitch clients. It also accessed "proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services used by Twitch," other properties like IGDB and CurseForge, an unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios (code-named Vapor) and Twitch SOC internal red-teaming tools. It also shows creator payouts from 2019 until now, including top streamers like Nickmercs, TimTheTatMan and xQc .
Although we haven't verified the claim that "the entirety" of Twitch's source code has been leaked, the files in the 128GB repository do appear to be genuine, and the payout figures for almost 2.4 million streamers seem to be present. The hackers said that the leak, which includes source code from almost 6,000 internal Github repositories, is also just "part one" of a larger release.
It doesn't appear that information like user passwords, addresses and banking information were revealed, but that can't be ruled out in a future drop. If you have a Twitch account, you should activate two-factor authentication so that bad actors can't log into your account if your password has been stolen.
The group also stated that Twitch's community is a "disgusting toxic cesspool," so the action may be related to recent hate raids that prompted streamers to take a day off in protest. Twitch has previously said that it's trying to stop the hate raid problem but that it wasn't a "simple fix."
It's not clear yet how attackers could have stolen such a large amount of data, especially considering that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which operates one of the largest web-hosting companies in the world.
We’ll get into why Facebook saw its entire business fall off a cliff on Monday, but first: e-readers.
It’s a device category we don’t see much development in — probably because it’s very much a device for reading text and not much else. Amazon’s Kindle, thanks to its powerful online e-book store, generally has the category sewn up, with several e-reader options from luxe to sometimes-$60 slates.
But I love an underdog — and most things with an e-ink display. Like this and this.
So I have time for Kobo's new $260 Sage e-reader, which lets you add handwritten notes with a stylus. It has an 8-inch 1,440 x 1,920 e-ink screen that adjusts brightness and color depending on the time of day. You can also convert to plain text your handwritten e-notes made on e-books and PDFs and send them to other devices — a feature Kobo already offered on its larger and more expensive $399 Elipsa.
If you’re looking for an e-reader that doesn’t have Amazon hooks — or you need to take notes on your e-books — you can pre-order the Sage now. It starts shipping on October 19th.
Following the massive service outage that took out all of its services, Facebook has published a blog post detailing what happened. According to Santosh Janardhan, the company's vice president of infrastructure, the outage started with what should have been routine maintenance.
A command was issued that was supposed to assess the availability of the backbone network that connects all of Facebook’s disparate computing facilities. Instead, the order unintentionally took all those connections down. Matters were made worse because the outage made it impossible for Facebook engineers to connect to the servers they needed to fix.
The Surface Pro 8 addresses many of the issues we had with the Pro 7, including a gorgeous premium design. Editor-in-Chief Dana Wollman put the hybrid device through its paces, and she particularly loved the 120Hz display.
But the starting price ($1,100) is higher than its predecessor — still not including a keyboard. That makes it tougher to justify picking the Surface Pro 8 over a comparably priced laptop. Especially at a time when there are so many excellent options to choose from.
Oh, we’re not done. Microsoft’s Laptop Studio was also in for review. Devindra Hardawar tested it out, and he believes the Surface Laptop Studio is a solid successor to the Surface Book. While it’s faster than the Book 3, and it has a gorgeous, flexible screen, it’s oddly lacking in sheer CPU power compared to the competition. He explains all in his full review.
The three main Kingdom Hearts games are coming to Nintendo Switch. You'll be able to play Kingdom Hearts - HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMix, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and Kingdom Hearts III. They're all cloud streaming games on Switch, so you'll need a good internet connection to play them. The news came off the back of the announcement that Kingdom Hearts protagonist, Sora, will be final character to join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Sora means ‘sky’ in Japanese, so there’s some irony in the game series being streamed from the cloud.
Find out all about the company's latest flagship phones.
The company plans to reveal everything there is to know about the Pixel 6 lineup on October 19th at 1 PM ET. Months ago, the company spilled some info on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, including what the phones look like. In August, Google said Tensor, the first system-on-chip it designed, will feature in the new additions to the Pixel series.
Expect some substantial camera upgrades, with the Pixel 6 Pro packing 4x optical zoom and an additional telephoto option. In comparison, Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro tops out at 3x optical zoom.
Universal Studios Japan has teamed up with the Pokémon Company to develop "groundbreaking" entertainment starting in 2022, the companies announced. The theme park is effectively doubling down on its Nintendo-related attractions in the park, following the opening of Super Nintendo World and the announcement of a new Donkey Kong expansion.
There aren't a lot of details about the project, but the companies said that they've formed a "long-term strategic alliance and that multiple development projects are underway." Whatever they build, it will involve "outstanding creativity" and "world-class entertainment technology," according to the enthusiastic press release.
The Pokémon Company is technically separate from Nintendo, though Nintendo does own a big chunk of it. Judging by the press release and a previous leak, it doesn't seem that the Pokémon section or attractions will be inside Super Nintendo World, however.
Super Nintendo World currently only exists in Universal's Osaka park, but it's under construction at Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Studios Singapore, and the upcoming Universal's Epic Universe at Universal Orlando Resort. To that end, it's likely that a Pokémon park would appear in the US, too.
Lest you've forgotten, the Universal Pokémon expansion wouldn't technically be the first Poké-related theme park. Pokémon The Park, aka PokéPark, was a traveling Japanese theme park that ran in 2005 and 2006 in Japan and Taiwan.
Amazon has opened a 4-star store in Bluewater, a mall located just southeast of central London. And it's not just the first 4-star store outside the US, it's also the company's first shop in the UK that sells non-food and non-perishable items. Similar to Amazon's 4-star stores in New York and other parts of the US, the shop in Bluewater will sell products rated 4 stars and above, are top sellers or are trending on the e-commerce giant's UK website.
Since the shop can't carry all the highly rated products Amazon sells online, the selection in-store will be curated, though they will include goods across top categories like consumer electronics, toys, games, books, kitchen and home. It will sell products from small businesses across the UK, as well as the company's own devices, including Kindle e-Readers, Fire tablets and Echo speakers.
The shop will have sections that correspond to specific sections of the website, as well, such as Most Wished For, which will feature products from Wish Lists. "Trending in Bluewater" will showcase items local customers have been buying, while "Most Gifted" will feature the top items ordered as gifts. Amazon says it will switch out products regularly based on customer feedback and to keep up with the latest trends.
Products in the store will be marked with digital tags containing the item's price, average star rating and the number of customer reviews. In addition, customers don't have to be Prime members to be able to shop there. That said, the store won't feature Amazon's Just Walk Out technology like the company's Fresh grocery store in London. Just Walk Out allows shoppers to grab what they need from the shelves and, well, walk out without having to pay at a manned or a self-checkout counter. They can make their purchase from Amazon's UK website, however, and simply pick up their order from the store the next day.
⭐ ⭐ EXCITING NEWS!⭐ ⭐ We're SO excited for Amazon 4-star to be opening here at Bluewater today - the first store of its kind in the UK! Visit the brand new store to discover thousands of top-rated products including Amazon devices, smart home accessories, books and more. 🤩 pic.twitter.com/jaXFndilyQ
Drivers in the UK are taking legal action against Uber over its real-time biometric identification checks, TechCrunch has reported. A union representing the drivers claims that some members were wrongly suspended when they were misidentified, and lost their licenses as a result. "[The] facial recognition systems... are inherently faulty and generate particularly poor accuracy results when used with people of color," the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) wrote in a blog post.
Backed by two worker's rights groups, the union is crowdfunding the legal action, taken on behalf of former UberEats courier Pa Edrissa Manjang and former Uber driver Imran Javaid Raja. It said they were "unfairly dismissed after the company's facial recognition system failed to identify them."
"Workers are prompted to provide a real-time selfie and face dismissal if the system fails to match the selfie with a stored reference photo," the ADCU wrote. "In turn, private hire drivers who have been dismissed also faced automatic revocation of their private hire driver and vehicle licenses by Transport for London."
BREAKING: in global first, the ADCU launches legal action against Uber's racist facial recognition software.https://t.co/cTIT96AXjV
Earlier in 2021, Uber was forced to reclassify UK drivers as workers, offering benefits like pension pay and holiday time. That came about because of a lawsuit filed on behalf of two Uber drivers, James Farrer and Yaseen Aslam, who eventually helped form the ADCU in February 2020.
Transport for London (TfL) pulled Uber's license in 2019 over "a pattern of failures." One particular sore point was that it allowed uninsured and suspended drivers to operate in the city, due to a loophole allowing them to upload their photos to another driver's account. To meet the regulator's requirements, Uber introduced random driver checks via a facial recognition system that uses Microsoft's FACE API technology, according to the ADCU. (Uber won back its license in September of 2020.)
The union noted that Microsoft withdrew sales of its facial recognition software to US police departments, and that the use of similar software has been discontinued or banned by Amazon, IBM, Axon and other companies. It also cited stats showing that facial recognition programs are far less accurate for people of color.
However, Uber pushed back, saying that it doesn't depend solely on AI. "Our Real-Time ID Check is designed to protect the safety and security of everyone who uses the Uber app by helping ensure the correct driver is behind the wheel," Uber responded in a statement to TechCrunch. "The system includes robust human review to make sure that this algorithm is not making decisions about someone’s livelihood in a vacuum, without oversight." It added that no Uber or Uber Eats accounts is suspended solely as a result of AI.
However, Farrer said that the union has won at least 10 appeals in court against drivers dismissed by TfL that cite Uber's ID checks. "With Imran [Javaid Raja], Uber and TfL have already admitted they got it wrong. But he was out of work for three months. No apology. No compensation,”
Nokia has a rich history of, well, interesting tablets like the iPad knockoff N1, but has only released smartphones since the brand was purchased by HMD Global. Now, HMD/Nokia have launched their first tablet together, the 10.4-inch T20, with the key features being a large battery, cheap price and US availability.
The T20 isn't what you'd call a beautiful tablet, given the plain-Jane design and chunky bezels, though it does have a solid metal body structure and relatively thin (7.8mm) and light (470g) profile. The screen also looks pretty nice on paper, with 2K (2,000 x 1,200) resolution and 400 nits of brightness.
Nokia
The key feature is the battery, though. With an 8,200mAh (non-removable) cell, it will let you surf the web for 15 hours between charges, play video for 10 hours or do Zoom-type calls for seven hours. It also comes with relatively fast charging (15 watts), though the charger in the box outputs just 10 watts.
Other specs are about what you'd expect for a tablet in this price category, including a Tiger T610 8-core CPU, up to 4GB of RAM/64GB of storage (expandable), and an 8-megapixel rear camera/5-megapixel front camera. There's optional LTE as well, though Nokia didn't say how much extra that would cost.
Giacomo Mantovani
For what it is, $250 price looks pretty decent. However, the world of Android tablets is an unremarkable one — will Nokia's brand recognition matter? The Nokia T20 arrives to the US and elsewhere around the world tomorrow (October 7th).
