OnStar expands emergency response and roadside assistance to motorcyclists

General Motors has been putting its OnStar in-vehicle safety and security suite into its vehicles since 1997 with the system having undergone numerous evolutions, upgrades and expansions in the last quarter century. Soon its roadside assistance and crash monitoring services will be available to two-wheeled motorists and homebodies as well, the company announced on Thursday.

As part of a modernizing redesign OnStar is making its Guardian crash monitoring and roadside assistance features available to motorcyclists. The service will rely on the accelerometer and other sensors in the rider’s cellphone to determine if a crash has occurred (rather than using the vehicle’s sensor suite as would happen in an automobile wreck) but otherwise is identical to the existing triage and response process. The roadside assistance will include jump starts, gas deliveries and flatbed tows.

The company is also expanding its Alexa integration, which GM began testing last year with select OnStar subscribers. Like having a red telephone to 911, this service will immediately connect members “to an OnStar Emergency Certified Advisor” through their Alexa-connected device, “in scenarios where Members need to call for help hands-free and time is of the essence.” Today, that Alexa skill is available to every US OnStar subscriber.

US files its first criminal charges over insider trading of cryptocurrency

American authorities are continuing to crack down against insider trading of digital assets. The New York Timesreports that federal prosecutors in New York City have charged three people with wire fraud relating to an insider trading scheme for cryptocurrency, including former Coinbase exchange employee Ishan Wahi. This is the first time officials have levelled charges relating to insider trading of digital currency, according to Southern District of New York attorney Damian Williams.

As with a companion civil case from the Securities and Exchange Commission, prosecutors allege Wahi shared confidential information about future asset listings with his brother Nikhil Wahi and his brother’s friend Sammer Ramani. The data, shared between “at least” June 2021 and April 2022, helped Nikhil and his friend buy assets before the listing boosted their value. The two would then sell their assets for a profit. The purchases of 25 or more assets netted a profit of more than $1.1 million, according to the SEC.

Coinbase started an internal investigation in April in response to a Twitter post about unusual trading activity. Ishan Wahi booked a flight to India right before Coinbase was set to interview him, but he and his brother were arrested in Seattle this morning. Ramani is still at large and believed to be in India, the SEC said.

Wahi’s lawyers maintained their client’s innocence, and said he would “vigorously” defend against the charges. Ramani and the attorney for Wahi’s brother haven’t commented on the charges. Coinbase said it had turned over information to the Justice Department and had fired Wahi as part of a “zero tolerance” policy for this behavior.

This is far from the largest crypto case. Lending firm BlockFi recently paid $100 million to settle securities violations, while Telegram had to return $1.2 billion to investors for its own violations on top of paying $18.5 million. However, the charges are intended more to send a warning. The government wants to make clear that fraud is illegal whether it’s “on the blockchain or on Wall Street,” as Williams explained to The Times. This is as much about discouraging would-be crooks as it is punishment for the defenders.

TikTok now lets you turn on captions for any video

You no longer have to wait for a TikTok star to enable captions before you can use them. As part of a string of updates, TikTok has added auto-generated captions you can switch on for any video. This will help if you have hearing issues, or simply want to catch every word of a clip in a noisy environment.

The social network has also added translations for captions and text stickers. And if you’re unsure of what’s happening, video descriptions are also available. The initial language support includes English, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

The additions are a recognition that TikTok’s emphasis on video can be limiting for people with audiovisual issues. To some extent, they also empower communities for people with disabilities — creators can make clips knowing more people will understand what’s being said.

GOP attorneys general warn Google not to suppress anti-abortion centers in search results

Seventeen Republican attorneys general have urged Google not to limit the appearance of anti-abortion centers in search results. They made the demand a month after Democratic lawmakers asked the company to refrain from directing people who are looking up information on pregnancy terminations to such centers. The Republican AGs suggested that if Google obliges the request from the other side of the aisle, they may investigate the company and undertake legal action. “If you fail to resist this political pressure, we will act swiftly to protect American consumers from this dangerous axis of corporate and government power,” they wrote in a letter to Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Many of the so-called crisis pregnancy centers in question have religious affiliations, as the Associated Press notes. Some centers have been accused of providing misleading information about abortion and contraception. Following a leak of a draft opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ensured the right to abortion nationwide (a move that the court took in late June), Democrats in the House and Senate introduced a bill that seeks to “crack down on false advertising that crisis pregnancy centers employ to dissuade patients from getting the reproductive care they need, including abortion care.”

“Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don’t provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women’s health and undermines the integrity of Google’s search results,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their June 17th letter. They cited statistics indicating that a tenth of Google searches for terms like “abortion clinics near me” and “abortion pill” included results for anti-abortion centers.

The Republican AGs took issue with the Democrats’ missive. They noted that crisis pregnancy centers often provide services like free ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, sexually transmitted disease testing and parenting classes. “These pregnancy centers serve women, no matter who they are or what they believe,” they wrote. “These attacks threaten not only those affiliated with the centers, but also the mothers in desperate need of the assistance the centers provide.”

The AGs noted Planned Parenthood has acknowledged that crisis pregnancy centers “have religious missions” and “are faith-based organizations that oppose abortion.” They claimed ceding to the Democrats’ request would “[reek] of religious discrimination.”

They went on to state that if Google complies with “this inappropriate demand to bias your search results against crisis pregnancy centers,” their offices would investigate the company for possible violations of antitrust and religious discrimination laws. The AGs would also “consider whether additional legislation — such as nondiscrimination rules under common carriage statutes — is necessary to protect consumers and markets.” They gave Google 14 days to respond.

Engadget has contacted Google for comment. Google previously said it will delete abortion clinic visits from users’ location histories. Meanwhile, YouTube today started removing videos with unsafe instructions on how to self-administer an abortion.

Ubisoft delays ‘Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’ to 2023… 2024

We hope you weren’t expecting to play Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora before the next movie arrives. Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have delayed the Avatar game to 2023 or 2024. The developers pinned the setback on “ongoing constraints” affecting game production across the industry. Ubisoft said it was still “committed” to creating a next-gen game and saw James Cameron’s franchise as a “multi-year opportunity.”

Other projects are facing delays or even cancellations. Axios‘ Stephen Totilo noted that Ubisoft has cancelled its battle royale brawler Ghost Recon Frontline and Splinter Cell VR. The company also dropped two unannounced games, and has pushed back a lower-profile “premium” game from a 2022-2023 release window to 2023-2024.

The decisions come as Ubisoft tries to turn around its fortunes. While it did see “better than expected” sales from the Assassin’s Creed series and Rainbow Six Siege in the first quarter, its net bookings dipped 10 percent compared to a year earlier. Ubisoft’s business isn’t booming, and the delays for games like Frontiers of Pandora only increase the pressure to cut costs.

Google Pixel 6a review: The tiny Pixel phone I’ve been hoping for

Google’s midrange A phones have quickly become some of the most anticipated launches each year. Like its predecessors, the Pixel 6a is a sub-$500 handset that offers excellent cameras, performance and battery life. This year’s model moves the series ov…

Android is ready to automatically switch device audio on Pixel Buds Pro

Android audio switching is finally a practical reality — provided you have the right earbuds. Google has started rolling out the automatic toggle to Android devices paired with the Pixel Buds Pro. If your phone or tablet supports Bluetooth multipoint connections, Android will intelligently switch sound from one product to the other using a priority system. You’ll switch from your tablet’s audio to your phone for an incoming call, for instance, but you won’t have to worry about incoming notifications. You can always switch back through a notification if the OS made a mistake.

The feature will expand to JBL and Sony headphones sometime in the “coming weeks,” Google said. The functionality will also reach non-Android platforms in the future, although the company didn’t provide an exact timeframe. You can enable switching by using Fast Pair to connect your headphones and link them to your Google account.

The concept isn’t unique. Apple devices paired with AirPods have offered audio switching since 2020, and Sony has offered a similar approach. It’s a welcome addition if you want to use one set of Bluetooth earbuds for all of your Android gear, though, and Google’s technology won’t restrict you to any one headphone manufacturer.

YouTube pulls videos with information on unsafe abortion methods

YouTube says it will remove content that offers instructions on unsafe abortion methods, as well as false claims about abortion safety. Such content violates the platform’s medical misinformation policies. YouTube says it will start taking down those videos today and ramp up its efforts in the coming weeks.

Additionally, YouTube is adding an information panel under abortion-related videos and above associated search results. The panel includes context and information from local and global health authorities, the service said.

“Like all of our policies on health/medical topics, we rely on published guidance from health authorities,” a tweet from the YouTube Insider Twitter account reads. “We prioritize connecting people to content from authoritative sources on health topics, and we continuously review our policies & products as real world events unfold.”

YouTube is taking the step after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ensured the right to abortion in the country. Several states immediately moved to ban abortions after the court’s decision in late June. 

The platform banned COVID-19 misinformation following the onset of the pandemic. By August 2021, it had taken down more than a million videos with dangerous COVID-19 misinformation. The following month, the platform banned content with vaccine misinformation.

Twitch creators can share their banned user lists

Twitch is rolling out a new safety option for streamers. They’ll be able to share the list of users they have banned with other creators. The tool could help to keep serial harassers at bay, Twitch suggests, particularly those who target creators who are members of marginalized communities. The Shared Ban Info function builds on the Suspicious User Controls system Twitch debuted in December. 

To share a list of banned users with another streamer, a creator will need to send them a request from the Shared Ban Info section of the moderation settings. When you request ban information from another streamer and they accept, you’ll share the same information from your channel with them. At the outset, creators can have up to 30 of these connections.

You can set a default action for how to treat flagged users that another channel has banned. Those users can be monitored, meaning they can post in your chat but all of their messages will be flagged for you and your moderators to look at. There’s an option to restrict flagged users by default — their chat messages will only be visible to a streamer and their mods.

Otherwise, streamers can ban these flagged users or mark them as trusted, so they can post chat messages without any limitations. In any case, the first time a flagged user posts in your chat, their message will have a red border and you can see which channel has banned them.

A Twitch spokesperson said the platform was “excited about this tool as it’s a first step in empowering not just individual streamers to make personalized moderation decisions, but communities as a whole.” They added that, “while Shared Ban Info is just the latest customizable tool in the arsenal we offer creators, it adds a new level of scalability by expanding the impact of individuals’ moderation decisions, and ultimately helping community members help each other — something they already do organically in a myriad of ways in Twitch’s uniquely engaged environment, every single day.”

Similar efforts to stamp out bad actors have emerged on other platforms. Twitter, for instance, used to allow users to share a list of the accounts they have blocked, but the feature is no longer available. Third-party services that support Twitter block lists are available, however,

Twitch announced the Shared Ban Info feature at TwitchCon Amsterdam this past weekend. The company also said it will grant creators more control over who can raid them. A raid involves a creator automatically sending all of their viewers to another channel when they end their stream. However, the feature has been used to harass marginalized creators.

Amazon’s Rivian-made electric vans are now delivering in some US cities

Don’t be surprised if one of Rivian’s electric vans delivers your next Amazon order. Amazon has revealed that Rivian’s custom-made EVs are now delivering packages across the US. You’ll find them in numerous cities that include Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle and St. Louis. The company expects the vans to serve over 100 cities by the end of 2022, and still hopes to field 100,000 vehicles by 2030.

Amazon’s rollout hasn’t gone as smoothly as originally expected. It first started testing Rivian’s van in Los Angeles early last year, and hoped to use them in as many as 16 cities by the end of 2021. The expansion was relatively slow, however, with San Francisco as the most notable addition.

The Rivian cargo carrier is meant to help Amazon reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, but it also represents a technological upgrade. The bespoke vans are focused on safety, with greater visibility and a host of driver aids that include automatic emergency braking and highway assistance. They unsurprisingly make use of Alexa to help drivers check the weather and otherwise improve their rides.

The deployment could be important the finances of both companies. Amazon had a 20 percent stake in Rivian as of late 2021 — it stands to benefit when its automotive partner does. It’s also no secret that Rivian is cutting costs to pursue sustainable growth. It needs as much business as it can get, and a wider Amazon rollout could help its bottom line.