When it announced the Android 12L beta in October, Google promised the software for larger screens would be ready early this year. It’s not here just yet, but the company still expects it to land in 2022. And while we don’t have device specifics, we could see existing devices like the Galaxy Z Fold, Z Flip and Surface Duo pick up the new interface, adding features like home and lock screens optimized for larger displays. 

Engadget

Android has long faced criticism for still being an unintuitive system for tablets, leading to a dearth in real competition for Apple's iPads — Samsung’s efforts aside. But hey, at least with Android 12L, Google is trying to make it better. Are you an unloved Android tablet user who's intrigued? We tested the Android 12L beta here.

— Mat Smith

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• After Apple’s big March event, watch our post-match analysis here!

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• AI discovery could advance the treatment of spinal cord injuries

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• How Telegram found itself at the heart of the Ukrainian conflict

• Ubisoft and Take-Two are the latest game companies to halt sales in Russia

• UAE's Hope probe tracked a massive dust storm across Mars

• Apple TV+ is now available on Comcast Xfinity

• Engadget Deals: Sony's best ANC headphones are up to 46 percent off right now

Samsung confirms hackers compromised its systems and stole Galaxy source code

South American hacking group Lapsus$ previously claimed responsibility.

Samsung confirmed yesterday some of its data was stolen during a cyberattack over the weekend. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company admitted "some source code relating to the operation of Galaxy devices" was taken, but customer and employee credentials were not impacted. Although Samsung has not revealed the actors behind the compromise, South American hacking group Lapsus$ has claimed responsibility. The organization shared a 190GB torrent file that reportedly includes bootloader source code for all of Samsung's recent devices, as well as code related to biometric authentication and on-device encryption for Galaxy devices.

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Kia's 2022 Sorento plug-in is no Telluride

But it's still a posh SUV.

KIA

Kia's 2022 Sorento plug-in hybrid (PHEV) is a capable mid-size SUV with some hybrid pep, three rows of seats and a slightly ho-hum aesthetic. It suffers a little from comparisons to the Telluride, Kia's larger and far more fashionable family SUV. The Sorento is decidedly more basic, but with plenty of charm. Devindra Hardawar test drove it for a bit.

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Cities turn to tech to keep sewers free of fatbergs

These pipe-blocking globs can outweigh an elephant.

It’s a little early to go into too much detail on fatbergs, but once you’ve had your coffee and are fully awake, this is an intriguing insight into how cities are fighting the issue, exacerbated by the boom in wet wipes over the years. Weapons to tackle them include high-pressure water cannons, remote-operated cameras and even sonar tech.

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'God of War' might also get a TV series adaptation

‘The Last of Us’ is already on its way.

SIE

Amazon Studios and Sony’s PlayStation Productions unit are in talks to produce a live-action TV series adaptation of God of War, according to Deadline. The outlet reports that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, best known for their work on The Expanse and Children of Men, are involved in the project.

In case you’re not keeping count, Sony’s recently established PlayStation Productions unit is already working with HBO to produce a TV series based on Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. It’s also working on a Ghost of Tsushima movie and a Twisted Metal series that will stream on Peacock. There was also that Uncharted movie. Ahem.

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Anyone can be harassed online, but it's an inevitability for activists and journalists covering contentious topics and challenging their country's authorities — especially if they're women. Google's Jigsaw unit has released the open source code for a web app called Harassment Manager that can help them review, sort and export the toxic comments they get on social media. Developers can build on the code to create their own version of the tool, but Jigsaw does have implementation partners, including Thomson Reuters Foundation that's rolling out a functional web app for its journalists in June.

In its current form, Harassment Manager works on Twitter, which teamed up with Jigsaw for the project. It uses the unit's Perspective API to detect comments that are most likely to be harmful and allows users to easily document and hide those responses, as well as to mute or block the accounts harassing them. Jigsaw has been training Perspective to detect online harassment since at least 2017 by feeding it comments identified as toxic by human reviewers. 

As The Verge reports, Perspective gives Harassment Manager the power to check the messages a user gets and to sort them into high, possible and unknown levels of harmfulness. The user can then process them in batches instead of dealing with them one by one, and they can blur toxic messages if they don't want to read them.

According to Jigsaw's research, 70 percent of female journalists receive threats online, and more than 40 percent of them stopped reporting their story as a result. The unit is hoping that the code can give developers what they need to be able to create a tool to protect people who "deal with disproportionately high toxicity online," especially "female journalists, activists, politicians and other public figures." Jigsaw says open sourcing the tool is just a step towards helping people who constantly deal with online harassment. It will continue working with NGOs in the journalism and human rights space to figure out how Harassment Manager's technology can help keep their communities safe.

Instagram isn't just waving goodbye to its IGTV app. As TechCrunchreports, social media consultant Matt Navarra and various Twitter users (including KenSchillinger and WFBrother) have all noticed that Instagram's dedicated Boomerang and Hyperlapse apps have disappeared from the Apple and Google app stores. Boomerang was still available for Android on Google Play through a direct link as of this writing, but searches no longer produce results.

In a statement to Engadget, parent brand Meta said Instagram pulled the software to "better focus [its] efforts on the main app." Apptopia data suggests Instagram pulled Boomerang and Hyperlapse from app stores after March 1st. Boomerang (the only one of the two available on both Android and iOS) was still relatively popular, according to Apptopia, with an average of 26,000 downloads per day before it left. Layout is still available if you want to create collages.

The removal isn't exactly surprising. The launches of Hyperlapse in 2014 and Boomerang in 2015 offered stabilized timelapse and looping videos at a time when Instagram tried to keep its app relatively lean, particularly given the lesser performance of some phones at the time. In 2022, however, Instagram is content to include a flurry of features as it fends off rivals, ranging from Snapchat-like Stories through to TikTok-style Reels. Boomerang and Hyperlapse are now just camera options. Toss in faster smartphones and there's little need for standalone apps revolving around single features.

The departures also make sense in the context of IGTV's exit. At the time, Instagram said it wanted to improve the video experience for both creators and viewers. This latest move is just an extension of the earlier strategy — it wants to save you from juggling apps just to produce a clip.

When it announced the Android 12L beta in October, Google promised the software for larger screens would be ready early this year. Today, the company is officially introducing Android 12L, which it's describing as "an update to Android 12 with features that will make tablets and foldables simpler and easier to use." In a blog post sharing the news, Android's vice president of engineering said 12L is coming later this year, "with planned updates from Samsung, Lenovo and Microsoft." But the company did not get more specific about timing than that.

That could mean devices like the Galaxy Z Fold, Z Flip and Surface Duo would be getting the new interface, which is supposed to bring features like home and lock screens optimized for larger displays. There will also be a two-column notification shade, a new taskbar for easier multitasking and other tweaks that make better use of the greater space on tablets and foldables. 

As senior writer Sam Rutherford pointed out when he tested the Android 12L beta, though some of these additions are compelling, some, like the taskbar, have limitations. It can only contain five apps at once, for example, despite having plenty of room on either side for more icons. Based on a screenshot Google shared with today's news, though, there are six icons on the taskbar, so that might be something the company has changed before 12L's public release. 

Google

Android has long faced criticism for being an unintuitive system for tablets, leading to a dearth in real competition for Apple's iPads. Though we can't say for certain yet whether 12L will make Android tablets substantively better, at least Google is trying to make it better so non-Apple users might have options to consider in future.

While the Pixel 6 had a rocky finish to 2021 after its December software patch was pushed back to January, Google is looking to get back on track with the release of its 10th feature update for the company's line of phones.

Rolling out today on the Pixel 3a to the Pixel 5 followed by another wave of updates for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this month, Google's newest feature drop includes new stickers for messaging in Gboard, Live Sharing in Google Duo, expanded support for Live Caption and Live Translation and more. 

Google

For mobile photography enthusiasts, Google is adding support for Night Sight directly in Snapchat. That means you'll no longer need to switch between camera apps when trying to capture pics in low-light environments. 

Meanwhile, Pixel phones are also getting the ability to share their screen with others during video calls in Google Duo similar to Apple's SharePlay in iOS 15. Previously, Live Sharing was an exclusive feature first introduced on Samsung's Galaxy S22 phones, but now Google is opening up that functionality to Pixel devices as well.

Google

For messaging, Gboard has gotten an update allowing it to convert text (English only for now) into custom stickers on the fly, so your chats will look a bit more lively. Alternatively, for those who cannot or prefer not to speak during phone calls, the Pixel's Live Caption feature will let you type a response that will be converted from text to speech for the recipient. 

On the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, Live Translate is also getting an upgrade allowing you to activate Interpreter mode in three new languages: French, Spanish, and Italian. Furthermore, Google's latest flagship phone will be able to automatically detect Spanish in videos and other media, allowing you to translate audio into English, French, Italian, German and Japanese (beta).  

Google

Other changes to language support on the Pixel 6 include the ability to transcribe Italian and Spanish in the Recorder app, along with new support for Assistant Quick Phrases in Spanish, French and Italian. 

The Pixel's At a Glance feature is also getting an update thanks to new widgets that will display the battery levels of connected Bluetooth devices like wireless earbuds. Google says the feature will also surface helpful info such as alarm reminders, safety check countdowns, and even earthquake alerts more frequently on the phone's home and lock screens when appropriate.

Finally, Google is adding a new line of curated wallpapers celebrating Internation Women's Day from artist Manjit Thapp, while older Pixel phones (from the 3a and up) are also getting support for Direct My Call and Wait Time.

Google is determined to claim the browser performance crown, and not just on its own platform. The company claims Chrome 99 is significantly faster on macOS and Android, with some particularly large gains on Macs. Thanks to a speed-focused "build optimization technique" and refined graphics processing, Chrome is reportedly 7 percent faster overall than Safari, with 15 percent faster graphics — it even outperforms Safari in Apple's own Speedometer benchmark on an M1 Max-equipped MacBook Pro, according to Google.

The internet pioneer added that Chrome is nearly 43 percent faster than it was when the first M1 Macs arrived in late 2020. One of the largest improvements came in late 2021, when Google introduced a new JavaScript compiler that offered particularly strong benefits for Apple Silicon.

Android users should see a meaningful upgrade, too. Chrome on Google's mobile OS is 15 percent faster (in aggregated real-world data) thanks to optimized navigation that includes prioritizing "critical" interface moments. Performance isn't directly comparable between this and Safari on iOS, of course, but it could still make a noticeable difference if you thrive on the mobile web.

The claimed speed-ups won't always translate to your own experience. We also wouldn't be surprised if Apple has a response before too long. There's a historical back-and-forth as Apple and Google tweak their browser code to beat each other and win users. In that sense, the Chrome speed boost might be useful simply to spur competition.

Samsung confirmed Monday that some of its data was stolen as part of a cyberattack that was first reported over the weekend. In a statement to Bloomberg, the Korean electronics giant revealed that a security breach saw "some source code relating to the operation of Galaxy devices" taken but customer and employee credentials were not impacted.

Although Samsung has not revealed the actors behind the compromise, South American hacking group Lapsus$ has claimed responsibility. The organization shared a 190GB torrent file that reportedly includes bootloader source code for all of Samsung's recent devices, as well as code related to the biometric authentication and on-device encryption for Galaxy phones and tablets. Attackers may have also gained access to confidential data related to Qualcomm.

The admission comes less than a week after the same group said it obtained around 1TB of data, including schematics and source code, from chip giant NVIDIA. The company said it became aware of the attack on February 23rd, after which time Lapsus$ had demanded a ransom paid in cryptocurrency to prevent NVIDIA’s files from becoming public. When NVIDIA failed to respond, source code for the company's DLSS technology and information related to as many as six unannounced graphics cards was shared online.

"Currently, we do not anticipate any impact to our business or customers. We have implemented measures to prevent further such incidents and will continue to serve our customers without disruption," Samsung later confirmed in its statement. It is not known whether Lapsus$ issued the same cryptocurrency demands to Samsung, but we've contacted the company for clarification. 

Apple is holding its first virtual event of the year on March 8th, and to be honest, I’ve heard rumors about this date for weeks. And don’t get me started on the leaky product selection expected to debut tomorrow at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT / 6 PM GMT.

Engadget

The first major announcement is likely to be a new iPhone SE, Apple’s cheapest iPhone, packing 5G. Will it catch up, design-wise, with the rest of the iPhone family? We’re not sure, but it could still have a home button, if that’s what you’re hoping for. That might be the only throwback — we expect it to have the same A15 Bionic chip as the iPhone 13 lineup.

It’s also time for a new iPad Air, currently the oldest iPad in Apple’s lineup. Although, it’s not that old, really; it was completely redesigned back in 2020.

That’s not all we’re likely to see, however. A report yesterday suggested we could also get a new external display from Apple. Check out our full preview right here.

— Mat Smith

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• Halo Infinite's campaign co-op won't land with season two

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• Hitting the Books: How Mildred Dresselhaus' research proved we had graphite all wrong

Netflix stops streaming in Russia

The company had previously halted production on several projects in the country.

Netflix has suspended its streaming service in Russia: “Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” a spokesperson for Netflix told CNBC. Over the weekend, even more companies have pulled services or product sales from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Activision Blizzard and Epic have both halted game sales, TikTok has suspended parts of its service in the country and PayPal has frozen payments and services, too. But it’s gone both ways: Before the weekend, Russia cut access to Facebook and Twitter for its citizens.

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Brandon Sanderson's secret novels break Pebble's Kickstarter crowdfunding record

The campaign has already made over $20.4 million.

After half a decade, a new Kickstarter campaign has finally eclipsed Pebble's crowdfunding record. Fantasy auth…well-established fantasy author Brandon Sanderson set up a campaign to raise $1 million in 30 days to fund four secret books he intends to release next year. It didn't take 30 days to blow past that goal, though — it took only 35 minutes. The author told The New York Times that one of his objectives for launching this project is to see what it would be like to challenge Amazon. It dominates the printed book and ebook market and apparently accounts for 80 percent of Sanderson's sales.

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Nintendo's Switch is about to hit its prime

Just maybe not its 'Metroid Prime.'

Nintendo

As the Switch reaches five years old, are its best times behind it? No, quite the opposite. This year is shaping up to be the biggest for Nintendo’s hybrid hit console. The company has new Pokémon, new Zelda and new Bayonetta games inbound, not to mention Switch Sports, a new Xenoblade title and a whole lot more planned for 2022.

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Hackers may have obtained 190GB of sensitive data from Samsung

The company says it's assessing the situation.

Some of Samsung’s confidential data has reportedly leaked due to a suspected cyberattack. On Friday, South American hacking group Lapsus$ uploaded a trove of data it claims came from the smartphone manufacturer. The collective says it obtained code related to highly sensitive features, like biometric authentication and on-device encryption, as well confidential data from Qualcomm. If the contents of the leak are accurate, they could cause significant damage to Samsung.

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With both immersive sound and powerful active noise cancellation (ANC), Sony's WH-1000XM4 are some of the most desirable wireless headphones out there — but at $350, they're pretty expensive. If you've been looking for a deal, you can now pick up a pair at Amazon for $278, or a solid 21 percent ($72 off the regular price. And if that's still too much, Sony's mid-range and budget ANC wireless headphones are also on sale. 

The WH-1000XM4 attained an exceptional 94 score in our Engadget review for good reason. They offer great sound quality with punchy bass, plus ANC that blocks out noise better than other wireless headphones we've tested. They also offer multi-device connectivity and Speak-to-Chat, which automatically pauses audio when you talk, along with Sony's 360 Reality Audio that offers a similar surround-sound experience to Dolby Atmos. You'll get around 30 hours on a charge and you can eke another five hours from a quick 10-minute charge.

Sony

Sony's mid-range WH-XB910N headphones (above) are also on sale at Amazon for $148, near their all-time low price. They're obviously not quite up to the level of the much more expensive WH-1000XM4, particularly with the ANC, but they still deliver excellent sound quality and look great. You get clear mids and highs, powerful bass and Sony's 360 Reality Audio surround sound. Other features include "Precise Voice Pickup" that amplifies your voice on calls, on-board controls, an ambient sound mode and 30-hour battery life.

Finally, if you're looking for a budget ANC model, Amazon has another good deal on Sony's WH-CH710N model. They're now available for $98 or a solid 46 percent off the regular $180 price. They earned a best alternative spot in our buyer's guide last year, thanks to the very good sound quality with decent range and clarity. They also feature ANC that can automatically adjust cancellation based on the level of ambient noise, an ambient sound mode and 35 hours of battery life.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

If you’re not excited about Apple’s upcoming Peek Performance keynote, you’re not the only one. According to most reports, the company will announce new iPhone SE and iPad Air models at the event. It’s not the most exciting stuff. But according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple could have a surprise up its sleeve that would make Tuesday considerably more interesting. In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman writes he “wouldn’t rule out” Apple previewing a next-generation display at the event.

He reports the company completed development on a new monitor “months ago,” and had originally planned to release it “soon after” the launch of last year’s MacBook Pro. Given there have been reports suggesting Apple will announce a new high-end Mac mini at the event, a matching display doesn’t sound out of the realm of possibility. To that point, Apple has reportedly been working on two new monitors for the past few years. A report from 9to5Mac published earlier in the week shed light on a possible 7K successor to the Pro Display XDR that will feature an A13 processor to offload some processing tasks. The monitor Gurman references would appear to be a more affordable model that would succeed the company’s long discontinued Thunderbolt Display.