Facebook employees will be working from home at least until the end of the year. The company has pushed back its plans to bring US employees back to the office due to concerns about rising COVID cases due to the delta variant. The company had said earlier this summer that it planned to reopen US offices at 50 percent capacity by September. But that timeline has now been pushed back to January as cases have risen.

“Data, not dates, is what drives our approach for returning to the office,” the company said in a statement to CNBC. “Given the recent health data showing rising Covid cases based on the delta variant, our teams in the U.S. will not be required to go back to the office until January 2022. We expect this to be the case for some countries outside of the US, as well. We continue to monitor the situation and work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s safety.”

Facebook made headlines in early 2020 for being among the first to close its offices, well before many areas instituted their own lockdowns policies. The company has also said that it will require its US employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Whenever it does re-open, it’s likely that work will look and feel much different to many employees. The company has said it will embrace remote work going forward, with Mark Zuckerberg saying that as much as 50 percent of the company’s workforce could remote in the next 5-10 years.

It looks like HomePod and HomePod mini will soon have support for spatial audio and lossless audio via Apple Music. The HomePod 15 beta 5 includes options that enable lossless and Dolby Atmos playback.

Not all beta users will see the toggles, according to 9to5Mac. If you're running the latest iOS 15 and HomePod betas, you can check whether they're active by accessing the home options menu in the Home app, tapping your profile, then Media and Apple Music.

Earlier this year, Apple said it would bring Apple Music lossless streaming to HomePod and HomePod mini through a software update, but it didn't provide a timeline. Now, it seems the speakers will be able to stream lossless music soon (unless the option's already life for you in the beta).

Apple is expected to roll out its latest operating systems broadly within the next couple of months. When it does, you'll be able to pair a second HomePod mini to Apple TV for stereo audio.

Amazon has reportedly scrapped a policy that claimed ownership rights to any games that employees created outside of work. Under the previous rules, the company required employees to using Amazon products while working on personal projects and to distribute those games on its storefronts.

Those policies are longer in place, according to Bloomberg. In an email to staff seen by the publication, Amazon Game Studios head Mike Frazzini said the company was dropping the rules immediately. "These policies were originally put in place over a decade ago when we had a lot less information and experience than we do today, and as a result, the policies were written quite broadly," Frazzini wrote. Engadget has contacted Amazon for comment.

Amazon received a backlash over the rules after an engineer who interviewed at the company disclosed the Amazon Personal Games policy. The rules granted Amazon “a royalty free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, transferable license” to the intellectual property of games its employees made off the clock. The policy was decried as "draconian" by some developers when a now-deleted tweet from the engineer gained traction.

However, Amazon isn't the only company to have enacted such a policy. Google has also been accused of claiming ownership of employees' own external projects.

When the Galaxy Z Flip 3 goes on sale later this month, you’ll be able to buy it from Google Fi, marking the first time the MVNO has sold a foldable device. Moreover, if you decide to pre-order the clamshell phone from the search giant, you can get a $400 bill credit.

If you’re new to the carrier, you’ll need to port your number to Fi from your current wireless provider. As part of the promotion, you can also get a $150 credit from Samsung, which you can use on its website, provided you order the foldable before its August 27th release date and then register your purchase through the Samsung Shop app before the end of September 26th. The credit is valid until November 9th. You can find the full details of the deal on Google’s website.

When Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Flip 3 at its Unpacked event on Wednesday, it said it was ready to make foldables mainstream. With a more affordable $1,000 price tag, the company certainly has a chance to make that happen. It also doesn’t hurt to have aggressive promotions like the one Google is offering through Fi.

Microsoft is updating some of the apps that come preloaded with Windows 11. To start, you’ll find a new version of the Snipping Tool that borrows a handful of features from Microsoft’s Snip & Sketch app. Press the “Win,” “Shift” and “S” keys on your keyboard simultaneously to activate the software and then select the part of your screen you want to capture. Once you’ve snapped a screenshot, you’ll find various tools that allow you to edit and annotate the image. With Windows 11, the Snipping Tool also finally includes a dark mode, and you can set it independent of your system theme.

Microsoft

Microsoft is also updating the Mail and Calendar apps in Windows 11. You’ll notice they now feature rounded corners “and other adjustments” that should help make them feel more like a natural extension of the operating system.

Last but certainly not least, the humble calculator app has received some love from Microsoft. It too now includes a dark mode you can set independent of Windows. The company has also rewritten the software in C# in hopes of more people contributing to its development over on GitHub.

According to Dave Grochocki, a senior program manager lead for Windows inbox apps, Microsoft plans to release “even more updates to the apps that come in Windows 11.” Look for previews of those to arrive before the company releases Windows 11 later this year. In the meantime, you can test the newly updated apps if you’re in the Windows Insider Dev Channel.

Last week, Apple previewed a number of updates meant to beef up child safety features on its devices. Among them: a new technology that can scan the photos on users’ devices in order to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Though the change was widely praised by some lawmakers and child safety advocates, it prompted immediate pushback from many security and privacy experts, who say the update amounts to Apple walking back its commitment to putting user privacy above all else.

Apple has disputed that characterization, saying that its approach balances both privacy and the need to do more to protect children by preventing some of the most abhorrent content from spreading more widely.

What did Apple announce?

Apple announced three separate updates, all of which fall under the umbrella of “child safety.” The most significant — and the one that’s gotten the bulk of the attention — is a feature that will scan iCloud Photos for known CSAM. The feature, which is built into iCloud Photos, compares a user’s photos against a database of previously identified material. If a certain number of those images is detected, it triggers a review process. If the images are verified by human reviewers, Apple will suspend that iCloud account and report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Apple also previewed new “communication safety” features for the Messages app. That update enables the Messages app to detect when sexually explicit photos are sent or received by children. Importantly, this feature is only available for children who are part of a family account, and it’s up to parents to opt in.

Apple

If parents do opt into the feature, they will be alerted if a child under the age of 13 views one of these photos. For children older than 13, the Messages app will show a warning upon receiving an explicit image, but won’t alert their parents. Though the feature is part of the Messages app, and separate from the CSAM detection, Apple has noted that the feature could still play a role in stopping child exploitation, as it could disrupt predatory messages.

Finally, Apple is updating Siri and its search capabilities so that it can “intervene” in queries about CSAM. If someone asks how to report abuse material, for example, Siri will provide links to resources to do so. If it detects that someone might be searching for CSAM, it will display a warning and surface resources to provide help.

When is this happening and can you opt out?

The changes will be part of iOS 15, which will roll out later this year. Users can effectively opt out by disabling iCloud Photos (instructions for doing so can be found here). However, anyone disabling iCloud Photos should keep in mind that it could affect your ability to access photos across multiple devices.

So how does this image scanning work?

Apple is far from the only company that scans photos to look for CSAM. Apple’s approach to doing so, however, is unique. The CSAM detection relies on a database of known material, maintained by NCMEC and other safety organizations. These images are “hashed” (Apple’s official name for this is NeuralHash) — a process that converts images to a numerical code that allows them to be identified, even if they are modified in some way, such as cropping or making other visual edits. As previously mentioned, CSAM detection only functions if iCloud Photos is enabled. What’s notable about Apple’s approach is that rather than matching the images once they’ve been sent to the cloud — as most cloud platforms do — Apple has moved that process to users’ devices.

Apple

Here’s how it works: Hashes of the known CSAM are stored on the device, and on-device photos are compared to those hashes. The iOS device then generates an encrypted “safety voucher” that’s sent to iCloud along with the image. If a device reaches a certain threshold of CSAM, Apple can decrypt the safety vouchers and conduct a manual review of those images. Apple isn’t saying what the threshold is, but has made clear a single image wouldn’t result in any action.

Apple also published a detailed technical explanation of the process here.

Why is this so controversial?

Privacy advocates and security researchers have raised a number of concerns. One os these is that this feels like a major reversal for Apple, which five years ago refused the FBI’s request to unlock a phone and has put up billboards stating “what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” To many, the fact that Apple created a system that can proactively check your images for illegal material and refer them to law enforcement, feels like a betrayal of that promise.

In a statement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called it “a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.” Likewise, Facebook — which has spent years taking heat from Apple over its privacy missteps — has taken issue with the iPhone maker’s approach to CSAM. WhatsApp chief, Will Cathcart, described it as “an Apple built and operated surveillance system.”

More specifically, there are real concerns that once such a system is created, Apple could be pressured — either by law enforcement or governments — to look for other types of material. While CSAM detection is only going to be in the US to start, Apple has suggested it could eventually expand to other countries and work with other organizations. It’s not difficult to imagine scenarios where Apple could be pressured to start looking for other types of content that’s illegal in some countries. The company’s concessions in China — where Apple reportedly “ceded control” of its data centers to the Chinese government — are cited as proof that the company isn’t immune to the demands of less-democratic governments.

There are other questions too. Like whether it's possible for someone to abuse this process by maliciously getting CSAM onto someone’s device in order to trigger them losing access to their iCloud account. Or whether there could be a false positive, or some other scenario that results in someone being incorrectly flagged by the company’s algorithms.

What does Apple say about this?

Apple has strongly denied that it’s degrading privacy or walking back its previous commitments. The company published a second document in which it tries to address many of these claims.

On the issue of false positives, Apple has repeatedly emphasized that it is only comparing users’ photos against a collection of known child exploitation material, so images of, say, your own children won’t trigger a report. Additionally, Apple has said that the odds of a false positive is around one in a trillion when you factor in the fact that a certain number of images must be detected in order to even trigger a review. Crucially, though, Apple is basically saying we just have to take their word on that. As Facebook’s former security chief Alex Stamos and security researcher Matthew Green wrote in a joint New York Times op-ed, Apple hasn’t provided outside researchers with much visibility into how all this actually works.

Apple further says that its manual review, which relies on human reviewers, would be able to detect if CSAM was on a device as the result of some kind of malicious attack.

When it comes to pressure from governments or law enforcement agencies, the company has basically said that it would refuse to cooperate with such requests. “We have faced demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users before, and have steadfastly refused those demands,” it writes. “We will continue to refuse them in the future. Let us be clear, this technology is limited to detecting CSAM stored in iCloud and we will not accede to any government’s request to expand it.” Although, once again, we kind of just have to take Apple at its word here.

If it’s so controversial, why is Apple doing it?

The short answer is because the company thinks this is finding the right balance between increasing child safety and protecting privacy. CSAM is illegal and, in the US, companies are obligated to report it when they find it. As a result, CSAM detection features have been baked into popular services for years. But unlike other companies, Apple hasn’t checked for CSAM in users’ photos, largely due to its stance on privacy. Unsurprisingly, this has been a major source of frustration for child safety organizations and law enforcement.

To put this in perspective, in 2019 Facebook reported 65 million instances of CSAM on its platform, according to The New York Times. Google reported 3.5 million photos and videos, while Twitter and Snap reported “more than 100,000,” Apple, on the other hand, reported 3,000 photos.

That’s not because child predators don’t use Apple services, but because Apple hasn’t been nearly as aggressive as some other platforms in looking for this material, and its privacy features have made it difficult to do so. What’s changed now is that Apple says it’s come up with a technical means of detecting collections of known CSAM in iCloud Photos libraries that still respects users’ privacy. Obviously, there’s a lot of disagreement over the details and whether any kind of detection system can truly be “private.” But Apple has calculated that the tradeoff is worth it. “If you’re storing a collection of CSAM material, yes, this is bad for you,” Apple’s head of privacy toldThe New York Times. “But for the rest of you, this is no different.”

We learned all the way back in December that the terrific Spelunky and Spelunky 2 were coming to Nintendo Switch sometime this summer, and the wait's almost over — at least in a few regions. The two games will hit the eShop in North America, Europe and Australia on August 26th, adding another pair of indie gems to the Switch library.

Spelunky supports local multiplayer, and Spelunky 2 adds online play to the mix. Although there are distinct areas in both platformers — each with their own enemies, lethal traps and rules — the levels are procedurally generated, so things are always going to be a bit different on each run.

It's hardly the first time Spelunky, a stone-cold classic, has landed on a handheld console. It was released on PS Vita (and PlayStation 3) all the way back in 2013, a year after the remake of the 2008 original debuted on PC and Xbox 360. The sequel, however, has only been available on PC, PlayStation 4 and PS5 until now.

If you'd like to plunder the caverns on Switch, you'll be able to pick up Spelunky for $10. Spelunky 2 will cost $20.

According to an internal company document obtained by Motherboard, Amazon plans to monitor how its employees use their keyboards and mice to prevent customer data leaks. The retailer is reportedly leaning toward licensing tools from a company called BehavioSec.

"The software does not rely on personally identifiable information or other static data," a FAQ page from BehavioSec states. Instead, the company claims it uses "behavioral biometrics" to generate a profile of how someone types and uses their computer. Its software then utilizes that profile to verify that a hacker or imposter hasn't compromised an employee's device. BehavioSec's website lists Cisco and Deutsche Telekom as "partners," suggesting Amazon wouldn't be the first company to use its software. Amazon reportedly looked at other employee monitoring solutions. However, due to "challenges around collecting keystrokes data," concluded it was best to turn to more "privacy-aware" models like BehavioSec.

In the document, Amazon claims it needs such software to combat various security threats. The company points to at least four cases where its security team identified incidents where someone posed as a service agent to obtain customer data. "We have a security gap as we don't have a reliable mechanism for verifying that users are who they claim they are," the company states in the document. 

With more of its employees working remotely due to the pandemic, it's also worried about a higher risk of "data exfiltration." Amazon points to several hypothetical scenarios it wants to protect itself against, including one where a customer service employee forgets to lock their computer, and a nosy roommate steals the company's data. By 2022, it estimates the software could help it reduce imposter takeover by 100 percent.  

"Maintaining the security and privacy of customer and employee data is among our highest priorities," Kelly Nantel, director of national media relations at Amazon, told Engadget. "While we do not share details on the technologies we use, we continually explore and test new ways to safeguard customer-related data while also respecting the privacy of our employees. And we do this while also remaining compliant with applicable privacy laws and regulations."

While Amazon's reasons for considering BehavioSec appear to be well-intentioned, the company doesn't have the best history with employee monitoring software. A recent report from CNBC found Amazon's Mentor app was far too overbearing to do its intended job effectively, and it would needlessly penalize drivers for things like going over the occasional bump on the road.

Google has banned SafeGraph, a company that captured and sold Android users' location data. Android developers who used the company's software development kit (SDK) were given seven days to remove SafeGraph's location gathering tools from their apps or face possible ejection from the Play Store, as Motherboard reported.

Some of the data SafeGraph obtained was from apps that harnessed the SDK. The apps were able to track user locations, though many people many not be aware how companies use their data. 

Google brought the hammer down on SafeGraph in early June. It's not clear if any apps are still using the SDK or if Google has taken action against developers who haven't removed SafeGuard's plug-ins. Engadget has contacted Google for comment.

With context, it's possible to find out details about individuals using location data, even when it's supposedly anonymized. Data Motherboard bought from SafeGraph showed the movement of users between points of interest. The company also sells secondary information from other companies to augment the location data, according to the report. Other datasets are said to include the names of people who own property in the US, which could reveal details about individual users.

SafeGraph reportedly sells its location data to almost anyone willing to pay for it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is said to be among SafeGraph's customers, while The New York Times used SafeGraph data for a project that showed where people were gathering after COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were loosened. The publication told Motherboard that it aggregated the location data.

In February, Google took a similar action against Predicio, which is linked to a company named Venntel. Public contracts that emerged last year showed that US Customs and Border Protection bought data from Venntel, reportedly for warrantless phone tracking. Google and Apple both banned X-Mode, another location data broker, last December. Location data brokers sometimes pay app developers to use their tracking code so they can sell the information, which is against Google's rules.

Disney’s upcoming Home Alone reboot will arrive just in time for the holidays. 20th Century Studios announced today Home Sweet Home Alone will debut on November 12th. Archie Yates, best known for his role in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, plays main character Max Mercer. The Disney+ exclusive also stars several Saturday Night Live alumni, including Kenan Thompson and Chris Parnell, as well as Devin Ratray, who played Buzz in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Home Alone is just one of several Fox franchises Disney plans to reboot in the coming years. It is also working on bringing back Cheaper by the Dozen, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Night at the Museum.