Kris Holt

Researchers at Cornell University have developed an earphone that uses sonar to detect the wearer’s facial expression to create an avatar of their face. The so-called “earable” system is called EarIO.

It works by bouncing sound off the wearer’s cheeks — the audio is emitted from speakers on each side of the earphone. A microphone captures the echoes, which change as the face moves and the wearer speaks. The system then uses a deep learning algorithm to turn the echoes into a replica of the person’s expression. EarIO can transmit the facial movements to a mobile device in real time and the avatar can be used in video calls.

Camera-based devices that track face movements are “large, heavy and energy-hungry, which is a big issue for wearables,” said Cheng Zhang, principal investigator of the Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interactions Lab, who co-authored a paper on EarIO. “Also importantly, they capture a lot of private information.” A sonar-based approach can bolster privacy, affordability, comfort and battery life, he said.

In initial testing, the team found the device works while wearers are sitting and walking, and factors like background chatter, wind and ambient road noise don’t impact the acoustic signaling. However, the high sensitivity of the sensing method can cause some issues. “It’s good, because it’s able to track very subtle movements, but it’s also bad because when something changes in the environment, or when your head moves slightly, we also capture that,” said co-author Ruidong Zhang, an information science doctoral student. The researchers hope to mitigate such disruptions in future models.

EarIO has some limitations as things stand. The device runs for around three hours on a single charge despite being far more energy efficient than a camera-based system the team previously used. The researchers hope to improve the battery life in the future. They also aim to make EarIO a plug-and-play device but it currently needs 32 minutes of facial data training before the first use.

Android developers who distribute apps on the Google Play store can now use third-party payment systems in many European countries. The measure applies to the European Economic Area (EEA), which comprises European Union states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. However, the policy will not apply to gaming apps, which still need to use Google Play’s own billing system for the time being.

Google is making the move after the EU’s legislative arm, the European Commission, passed the Digital Markets Act (DMA) this month. Along with the Digital Services Act, the law is designed to rein in the power of big tech by, for instance, prohibiting major platform holders from giving their own systems preferable treatment.

The DMA isn’t expected to come into effect until sometime in 2024. However, Google’s director of EU government affairs and public policy, Estelle Werth, wrote in a blog post that the company is “launching this program now to allow us to work closely with our developer partners and ensure our compliance plans serve the needs of our shared users and the broader ecosystem.”

The move partially reverses a policy that required all in-app payments to be processed through the Play Store’s billing system. Developers who opt for a different billing system won’t be able to avoid Google’s fees entirely. However, Google will lower the service fees it charges them by three percent.

Google says that 99 percent of developers qualify for a fee of 15 percent or less. The others typically pay 30 percent. The fees Google charges would drop to 12 percent (or lower) or 27 percent, respectively, if they select a third-party billing system. Developers may end up paying around the same amount in fees anyway, depending on what the alternative payment provider charges.

Developers will also “need to meet appropriate user protection requirements,” Google says. The company plans to allow gaming apps to use alternative payment systems in the EEA sometime before the DMA comes into effect.

Google has long resisted the idea of opening up the Play store to alternative payment providers in the face of pressure from multiple sides, but the EU forced its hand in this case. The company adopted a similar measure in South Korea last year after the country passed a law requiring Google and Apple to offer third-party payments.

On the same day it officially became a PlayStation studio, Bungie filed a lawsuit against a Destiny 2 player it accused of persistent cheating and making threats against its employees. The developer claimed Luca Leone violated the game’s Limited Software License Agreement (LSLA) on multiple occasions. It’s seeking $150,000 in damages and an injunction preventing Leone from “harassing, stalking or otherwise engaging in unwanted or unsolicited contact with Bungie, its employees or Destiny 2 players,” as Kotaku reports.

Bungie said it banned Leone multiple times for using Destiny 2 cheat software while streaming on Twitch. In an attempt to evade the ban, Leone created 13 accounts, each of which constituted a fresh breach of the LSLA, according to the filing. The studio claimed Leone violated the LSLA on other fronts, including by selling Destiny 2 accounts that contain emblems, or non-transferable badges that players can earn. Bungie says these “are prized by many players, especially collectors.”

In addition, Bungie claims that Leone has made threats regarding the studio and its employees. According to the suit, Leone tweeted “about his desire to ‘burn down’ Bungie’s office building and [wrote] that specific Bungie employees were ‘not safe’ given Leone’s intent to move into their neighborhood.”

In May, an image of Destiny 2 community manager Dylan Gafner’s employee badge appeared on a Twitter account that’s said to belong to Leone. “I just realized I’ll be moving to a place that’s 30 minutes away from dmg,” Leone allegedly wrote, followed by “he is not safe.” Bungie notes that “dmg” likely refers to Gafner, who uses the Twitter handle @dmg04.

Leone’s purported Twitter account has since been locked. His reported Twitch channel features no content other than a bio reading “[23-year-old] Bungie playtester from Los Angeles.” Engadget has contacted Leone for comment.

The filing follows a number of instances of harassment against game developers. Forbes’ Paul Tassi wrote that Destiny 2 sandbox design lead Kevin Yanes has all but left Twitter. Players reportedly reacted with fury to Yanes saying an item from the original Destiny will not return. “I dream of a day where videogame developers (from any studio) can openly discuss their work without being harassed,” Gafner wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

A few weeks ago, Sony Santa Monica developers received threats and unsolicited photos of genitalia for not revealing the God of War: Ragnarök release date when the studio was reportedly planning to. Sony Santa Monica announced the release timing just a few days later.

This isn’t the first time Bungie has targeted players with legal action. Just last month, it sued someone who allegedly uploaded music from the Destiny 2 soundtrack for filing fake DMCA notices against content creators.

Crunchyroll is changing prices for users in nearly 100 countries and territories, but not in the way you’d probably expect. Instead of increasing the cost of monthly subscription plans, Crunchyroll is lowering them to offer users “even more value.” The move could help the anime-focused streaming service attract more subscribers too.

In the UK, the Mega Fan plan (which allows for offline viewing and up to four simultaneous streams) now costs £6 per month instead of £8. The lower-tier Fan plan is £5, down from £6.50. Users in India will see a far more significant price decrease. Instead of $10 USD per month for a Mega Fan subscription, they’ll pay 99 rupees, which converts to around $1.25. Meanwhile, users in Brazil will save around 37.5 percent each month and those in the United Arab Emirates will pay nearly 50 percent less on a monthly basis.

Crunchyroll’s announcement includes a full list of countries and territories where it is lowering prices, including European, Caribbean, South American, African and Middle Eastern regions. There are some notable omissions, including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 

Sony bought Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2021 and folded content from Funimation into it earlier this year. Given that Crunchyroll is the go-to streaming service for anime fans, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see Sony bump up the monthly fees. Instead, it’s making Crunchyroll more competitive against the likes of Netflix and Hulu, each of which have anime offerings but have increasedprices over the last year.

EA will release the 12th expansion pack for The Sims 4 on July 28th. Starting on the same day, all players (including those who don’t buy the High School Years DLC) will be able to change their Sims’ sexual orientation, as part of the developers’ efforts to bolster LGBTQIA+ representation in the game.

“Between this update and the recent pronouns update, we’re taking several strides forward into being a game that respects and celebrates the nuance and color of everyday life,” a Sims 4 lead designer known as SimGuruJessica wrote in the announcement. Developer Maxis worked with GLAAD and the It Gets Better Project “to ensure that we’ve captured the widest possible range of viewpoints on how to approach this feature in a manner that respects and elevates the community.”

There are several attraction settings for each Sim, which you can adjust via the ellipsis menu under the gender selection option on the Create A Sim screen. You can determine whether your Sim is attracted to men or women (or neither), if your Sim’s orientation can change during gameplay and which genders they can “WooHoo” (i.e. have sex) with. Players can alter these settings at any time.

You can have an asexual Sim who’s romantically interested in other Sims and an aromantic Sim who is happy to WooHoo other characters but won’t enter into a relationship with them. Casual sex is a new feature in The Sims 4, since WooHoo has always been locked behind the romance mechanic. Young adult and older Sims will be able to ask close friends to hop in the sack as WooHoo partners. A rejected invitation could lead to an awkward interaction, though.

“I want to again acknowledge that these topics are complex and full of nuance,” SimGuruJessica wrote. “We consider this a version 1.0, and are absolutely looking forward to seeing what further tools we might add to allow players to tell a broader range of stories.”

While players can change their Sims’ pronouns, the romance and WooHoo options are gender binary for now due to how the game was created. “Mechanically, non-binary Sims don’t yet exist in [The Sims 4],” SimGuruJessica noted. “While we made great progress in representing non-binary Sims with the pronouns update, we acknowledge that pronouns are not the same thing as gender identities. We recognize that we still have a ways to go in this regard.” Adding the systems needed to properly support non-binary Sims will take a little more time, but Maxis is working on it.

Same-sex relationships have been present in the series since the very first game (an E3 demo in 1999 famously depicted two women kissing). Still, these new settings will enable players to have more control over the stories they want to tell. Maxis has been working to improve representation in The Sims 4 on other fronts. In 2020, the team added more than 100 skin tones and sliders to customize them.

TikTok’s global chief security officer (CSO) will step down from that position and shift into a strategic advisory role. Roland Cloutier’s change in duties follows concerns about how the company is handling US user data. TikTok recently admitted that employees outside of the country were able to access that information, although “robust cybersecurity controls and authorization” from its US security team were required.

Cloutier will be an adviser on the business impact of TikTok’s security and trust programs. TikTok’s head of security risk, vendor and client assurance, Kim Albarella, will take over as the chief of the company’s worldwide security teams on an interim basis.

“Part of our evolving approach has been to minimize concerns about the security of user data in the US, including the creation of a new department to manage US user data for TikTok,” CEO Shou Zi Chew wrote in a memo to TikTok staff. “This is an important investment in our data protection practices, and it also changes the scope of the global chief security officer role. With this in mind, Roland has decided to step back from his day-to-day operations as global CSO, effective September 2nd.”

A TikTok spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal Cloutier wasn’t overseeing the new team that manages US user data. That department reports to Chew directly. Cloutier’s departure wasn’t related to lawmakers’ concerns over US data security, the spokesperson said, and the shift had been in the works for a couple of months.

Last month, BuzzFeed News reported that China-based engineers at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance accessed non-public data on US TikTok users on multiple occasions between at least last September and January. TikTok said it’s now storing all US users’ data on Oracle cloud servers located in the country and that it was working to remove such private data from its own servers. In a letter to a group of Republican senators this month, Chew wrote that the company is focused on removing “any doubt about the security of US user data.”