Xiaomi is challenging Facebook in the wearables arena by launching its own smart glasses. The device will be capable of displaying messages and notifications, making calls, providing navigation, capturing photos and translating text right in real time in front of your eyes.

Developing...

After an eleventh hour delay late last week, Samsung One UI 4 is ready for public beta testing. If you live in the US, you can sign up to take part in the beta by registering through the Samsung Members app on your Galaxy S21 starting on the morning of September 14th.

Once it becomes available later this year, One UI 4 will be the first version of Samsung’s skin based on Android 12, the latest iteration of Google’s mobile operating system. Google released the final Android 12 beta last week, and most signs point to an official release on October 4th. 

Ahead of today’s announcement, Samsung told Engadget One UI 4 features many of Android 12’s most notable tweaks. For instance, you can customize your phone’s home screen, notifications and wallpapers. It also includes redesigned widgets, as well as new emoji to discover and use.

Social media platforms like Facebook “have played a major role in exacerbating political polarization that can lead to such extremist violence,” according to a new report from researchers at New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

That may not seem like a surprising conclusion, but Facebook has long tried to downplay its role in fueling divisiveness. The company says that existing research shows that “social media is not a primary driver of harmful polarization.” But in their report, NYU’s researchers write that “research focused more narrowly on the years since 2016 suggests that widespread use of the major platforms has exacerbated partisan hatred.”

To make their case, the authors highlight numerous studies examining the links between polarization and social media. They also interviewed dozens of researchers, and at least one Facebook executive, Yann Le Cun, Facebook’s top AI scientist.

While the report is careful to point out that social media is not the "original cause" of polarization, the authors say that Facebook and others have “intensified” it. They also note that Facebook’s own attempts to reduce divisiveness, such as de-emphasizing political content in News Feed, show the company is well aware of its role. “The introspection on polarization probably would be more productive if the company’s top executives were not publicly casting doubt on whether there is any connection between social media and political divisiveness,” the report says.

“Research shows that social media is not a primary driver of harmful polarization, but we want to help find solutions to address it,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “That is why we continually and proactively detect and remove content (like hate speech) that violates our Community Standards and we work to stop the spread of misinformation. We reduce the reach of content from Pages and Groups that repeatedly violate our policies, and connect people with trusted, credible sources for information about issues such as elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.”

The report also raises the issue that these problems are difficult to address “because the companies refuse to disclose how their platforms work.” Among the researchers recommendations is that Congress force “Facebook and Google/YouTube, to share data on how algorithms rank, recommend, and remove content.” Platforms releasing the data, and independent researchers who study it, should be legally protected as part of that work, they write.

Additionally, Congress should “empower the Federal Trade Commission to draft and enforce an industry code of conduct,” and “provide research funding” for alternative business models for social media platforms. The researchers also raise several changes that Facebook and other platforms could implement directly, including adjusting their internal algorithms to further de-emphasize polarizing content, and make these changes more transparent to the public. The platforms should also “double the number of human content moderators” and make them all full employees, in order to make decisions more consistent.

By this point, Sennheiser is no stranger to true wireless earbuds. The company has several models under its belt, and the current lineup spans from basic and affordable to premium and pricey. Today, Sennheiser is introducing its latest earbuds with the CX Plus True Wireless. This newest entry offers active noise cancellation (ANC), ambient sound and the ability to customize both the on-board controls and the EQ. It also costs less than the company's previous ANC model, the Momentum True Wireless 2. 

The CX Plus has a similar design to the CX and CX 400BT true wireless earbuds Sennheiser currently sells. The outer touch panel is a rounded rectangle compared to the circular exterior of the Momentum buds. On-board touch controls give you everything you need to play music, take calls and use a voice assistant without reaching for your phone. As the name implies, the CX Plus has features that aren't on the CX True Wireless. That includes a Smart Pause feature, which is basically just automatic pausing when you remove an earbud from your ear, but Sennheiser has given it a fancy name. Smart Pause was previously reserved for the pricier Momentum True Wireless 2.

Sennheiser

Another key addition for the CX Plus is ANC. The two preceding CX models only offer passive noise isolation. The CX Plus also offers ambient sound mode, or as Sennheiser calls it, Transparent Hearing. That feature was also not available on the CX series earbuds before now. Both active noise cancellation and Transparent Hearing were only on the Momentum True Wireless 2. The company's Bass Boost preset from some previous models and the IPX4 splash-proof rating from the CX True Wireless both made the leap to the CX Plus. 

In terms of sound quality, Sennheiser says the CX Plus offers "audiophile technology" in "everyday" earbuds thanks to its TrueResponse transducer. The acoustic setup was built for much more expensive earphones and designed for "high-fidelity stereo sound" that offers "deep basses, natural mids and clear, detailed treble." The company has a solid track record when it comes to sound, but we'll still need to check those claims ourselves to make sure they hold up this time around. Sennhesier is promising up to 24 hours of total listening time: eight hours on the buds with two additional charges in the case. 

The CX Plus will be available September 28th in black and white color options for $179.95

Instagram is working on a tool that could give people more control over its famously obtuse feed algorithm. Mobile developer Alessandro Paluzzi recently shared screenshots of an in-development feature called Favorites. Those images suggest the tool will allow you to add friends, family members and creators to a list of accounts you want the software to prioritize when you’re scrolling through your feed.

Since Instagram switched from a chronological feed to an algorithmic one back in 2016, people have consistently complained the app doesn’t do an adequate job of showing them the images and videos they want to see the most. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tried to speak to those concerns recently when he wrote a blog post about how the platform's various algorithms work. Currently, the feed algorithm tends to look at the popularity of a post, in addition to your recent activity and history of interacting with someone, when deciding how to prioritize the content it shows you.

It’s unclear if Favorites will become an official feature within Instagram. A spokesperson for Instagram told Engadget the company is currently testing the tool internally but offered no further details on when we might see an external test, if at all.

One day before its next major event, Apple has released iOS 14.8, iPadOS 14.8, watchOS 7.6.2 and macOS Big Sur 11.6. All four are minor updates that don’t add new features to their respective operating systems but include important security fixes. As such, Apple recommends all users download them as soon as they can.

Depending on the update, it addresses as many as two issues. One relates to the CoreGraphics framework in iOS, iPadOS and macOS, while the other stems from Apple’s WebKit browser engine. In both instances, the company says it’s aware of at least one report where the vulnerabilities may have been actively exploited to execute arbitrary code.

On an iPhone or iPad, you can manually check for iOS 14.8 and iPadOS 14.8 by opening the Settings app on your device, tapping “General” and then “Software Update.” On macOS, meanwhile, open the System Preferences menu and then click on “Software Update.”

Facebook has for years used a little known VIP program that’s enabled millions of high-profile users to skirt its rules, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, the program, called “XCheck” or “cross check” was created in order to avoid “PR fires,” the public backlash that occurs when Facebook made a mistake affecting a high profile user’s account. The cross check program meant that if one of these accounts broke its rules, the violation was sent to a separate team so that it could be reviewed by Facebook employees, rather than its non-employee moderators who typically review rule-breaking content.

Facebook had previously disclosed the existence of cross check, which had also been reported on by other outlets. But The Wall Street Journal report revealed that “most of the content flagged by the XCheck system faced no subsequent review.” This effectively allowed celebrities, politicians and other high profile users to break rules without consequences.

In one incident described in the report, Brazilian soccer star Neymar posted nude photos of a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. Such a post is a violation of Facebook’s rule around non-consensual nudity, and rule breakers are typically banned from the platform. But the cross check system “blocked Facebook’s moderators from removing the video,” and the post was viewed nearly 60 million times before it was eventually removed. His account faced no other consequences.

Last year alone, the cross check system enabled rule-breaking content to be viewed more than 16 billion times before being removed, according to internal Facebook documents cited by The Wall Street Journal. The report also says Facebook ‘misled’ its Oversight Board, which pressed the company on its cross check system in June when weighing in on how the company should handle Donald Trump’s “indefinite suspension.” The company told the board at the time that the system only affected “a small number” of its decisions and that it was “not feasible” to share more data.

“The Oversight Board has expressed on multiple occasions its concern about the lack of transparency in Facebook’s content moderation processes, especially relating to the company’s inconsistent management of high-profile accounts,” the Oversight Board said in a statement shared on Twitter. “The Board has repeatedly made recommendations that Facebook be far more transparent in general, including about its management of high-profile accounts, while ensuring that its policies treat all users fairly.”

Facebook told The Wall Street Journal that its reporting was based on “outdated information” and that the company has been trying to improve the cross check system. “In the end, at the center of this story is Facebook's own analysis that we need to improve the program,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone wrote in a statement. “We know our enforcement is not perfect and there are tradeoffs between speed and accuracy.”

The revelations could prompt new investigations into Facebook’s content moderation policies. Some information related to cross check has been “turned over to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to Congress by a person seeking federal whistleblower protection,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Despite a bogus press release claiming otherwise, Walmart isn't accepting litecoin for payments anytime soon. The fake release caused the price of the cryptocurrency to briefly shoot up by 20 percent before it tumbled back down.

The press release went out on newswire distribution network GlobeNewswire, which later pulled the phony announcement and issued a notice to disregard it. A Walmart spokesperson told CNBC the press release was fake and that the company asked GlobeNewswire how it was distributed in the first place.

Walmart didn't post the announcement on its own website and the press release listed an email address with a website that doesn't work. Engadget has contacted Walmart and GlobeNewswire owner Intrado for comment.

If the person who sent the fake press release had a cryptocurrency wallet bulging with litecoin, they may have made an absolute killing. There's no doubt it was a creative way to inflate the price of a cryptocurrency, but perhaps it wasn't the smartest idea. It could draw an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Zoom held its annual Zoomtoopia conference today, providing a glimpse at some of the features it’s working on bringing to its video conferencing software. There are almost too many enhancements to count, but some of the more notable ones have the potential to change how you use the service.

The first of those is an expansion of Zoom's automated closed captioning system. At the start of the year, Zoom announced it was making the feature available to all of its users by the fall of 2021. Now, the company plans to make it work in a total of 30 languages. It’s also adding live translation support for 12 languages. Both expansions will occur over the next year and come after the company bought a startup that specializes in real-time translation.

Zoom is also working on an expanded Whiteboard experience that will make the feature available on the web and outside of meetings and calls. To that end, you’ll find a separate Whiteboard tab once the experience rolls out in beta later this year. Then, sometime next year, Zoom plans to work with Facebook to bring its video conferencing software and Whiteboard feature to the company’s Horizon Workrooms to allow you to access them both in virtual reality.

Zoom is also working on several smaller but still notable features. For instance, support for end-to-end encryption is coming to Zoom Phone, which will allow you to keep phone calls you make over Zoom secure. Check out the company’s blog post to see everything it’s working on at the moment.

Tempo has rolled out Apple Watch integration for its AI-powered home gym, giving users an easy way to track their heart rate during workouts without the need for a dedicated HR monitor. Upon syncing the wearable, users can also view other data on it, including how many calories they burned during studio classes, the total volume of weights they lifted and their ranking on the leaderboard.

The company says 70 percent of its users own an iPhone, and 35 percent from that group has an Apple Watch. With that in mind, rolling out Apple integration for its product is a no-brainer. In addition to being able to view stats and data, syncing their Watch will also give users the capability to pause and resume classes, as well as to manage their workouts, without having to walk up to the smart home gym's touchscreen panel. 

Tempo launched its Studio home gym cabinet, which includes a touchscreen panel, a 3D camera track workouts, weights and other equipment, in early 2020. The pandemic brought about a need for home workout solutions as gyms around the world closed down, and Tempo was one of the companies that experienced a surge in demand. In April, the company raised $220 million in funding to be able to keep up with an increasing number of orders and give its research and development efforts a boost.

Those who already have a Tempo Studio and want to sync it with an Apple Watch will have to make sure both devices, along with their iPhone, are connected to the same WiFi network. All three have to be near each other, as well. After they've logged into their profile on the Tempo Studio and download the app for the Watch, they only need to follow the steps laid out on their iPhone.