UK police fail to use facial recognition ethically and legally, study finds

Use of live facial recognition (LFR) by UK police forces “fail[s] to meet the minimum ethical and legal standards,” according to a study from the University of Cambridge. After analyzing LFR use by the Metropolitan (Met) and South Wales police, researc…

Hitting the Books: AI could help shrink America’s gender wage gap

Women have faced gender-based discrimination in the workforce throughout history, denied employment in all but a handful of subservient roles, regularly ignored for promotions and pay raises — and rarely ever compensated at the same rates as their male…

The Wire retracts reporting on Meta citing ‘certain discrepancies’

After nearly three weeks of escalating rhetoric, The Wire is retracting its reporting on Meta. On Sunday, the nonprofit publication said it had discovered “certain discrepancies” with the material that had informed its reporting on the social media gia…

Apple’s App Store will display more ads starting next week

The next time you want to download an app on your iPhone, prepare to see more ads. Starting on October 25th, Apple will begin rolling out two additional ad categories to the App Store, according to an email seen by MacRumors. In all countries outside C…

Snapchat lets subscribers choose when their stories expire

Snap has introduced a number of features for its Snapchat+ subscription app, including a new “Story Expiration” feature, along with custom notification sounds, camera borders and more. The Story feature looks useful, and appears designed to tempt hardc…

The bizarre saga of Meta, The Wire and their fight over Indian content moderation

When a journalist at The Wire, an independent Indian publication, published a story on October 6th about a meme page’s claim that their Instagram post had been wrongfully removed, it hardly seemed like the kind of story that would draw much attention. …

Comcast raises speeds for most of its Xfinity internet plans

Comcast’s recent speed upgrades now extend beyond the high end. The cable giant is increasing speeds for most of its Xfinity tiers across the US. The entry-level Performance Starter (aka Connect) plan is bumping up from 50Mbps to 75Mbps, while the biggest relative gains come to regular Performance (Connect More) customers climbing from 100Mbps to 200Mbps. Performance Pro/Fast service is increasing from 300Mbps to 400Mbps, while Blast/Superfast users will get 800Mbps instead of the previous 600Mbps. And you no longer need Comcast’s absolute best plans to cross the gigabit threshold — Extreme Pro and Ultrafast (now Gigabit) customers have upgraded from 900Mbps to 1Gbps.

The flagship Gigabit Extra/x2 plan still peaks at 1.2Gbps for many customers. Comcast is in the midst of deploying 2Gbps service to more states, and in some cases offers 6Gbps access. The telecom hopes to cover over 50 million homes and offices with 2Gbps by the end of 2025, and plans to offer “10G” and next-gen DOCSIS 4.0 service in the future.

These upgrades aren’t dramatic in most cases, but they could make a difference at the lower end by enabling higher-quality streaming and better service for multi-person households. The challenge, of course, is that rivals aren’t sitting idle. AT&T is deploying 2Gbps and 5Gbps fiber to dozens of urban areas, and Google Fiber will soon provide 8Gbps service on top of restarting expansion. Comcast may be more competitive, but it won’t always have the fastest options.

The entry-level increase might also irk regulators. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel recently proposed raising the definition of broadband to 100Mbps. A Performance Starter or Connect customer would fall short of that new goal. If that baseline takes effect, Comcast would have to increase speeds again to satisfy the Commission and help fulfill goals of improving internet access for rural and low-income Americans.

Microsoft’s Surface Studio 2+ gets 11th-gen Intel chips and RTX 3060 graphics

It’s been four years since we got the Surface Studio 2, the much-improved followup to Microsoft’s ever-so-flexible all-in-one desktop. Surely, the company has something special in store for the next version, right? Well, yes and no. The Surface Studio 2+ is indeed significantly faster than before, thanks to Intel’s H35 11th-gen CPU and NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 graphics.

But we’ve also spent most of this year being impressed by Intel’s terrific 12th-gen hybrid chips, which deliver vastly better performance than 11th-gen CPUs. (Just imagine how much more intriguing the Studio 2+ would be with a 16-core 12th-gen HX CPU.) You’d think a computer starting at $4,300 would have the fastest hardware available? No wonder it’s not called the Surface Studio 3.

Surface Studio 2+
Microsoft

If you’ve been following our coverage of the Studio line, the Studio 2+ will sound pretty familiar. It has the same 28-inch PixelSense screen, a flexible hinge that can be effortlessly pushed down to an easel-like angle, and it packs in all of its hardware in a desktop-friendly base. Following the trend we’ve seen with all of Microsoft’s Surface hardware this year, there aren’t any exterior design changes at all. But hey, at least we’ve finally got Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and Dolby Vision HDR.

Microsoft claims the Core i7-11370H CPU in the Surface Studio 2+ is 50 percent faster than the Studio 2, as well as five times faster than the original 2017 modeled. Coupled with the RTX 3060, which is twice as fast as the GTX 1060 in the Studio 2, this new desktop will definitely be a fast performer. But the hardware geek in me can’t help but wonder why Microsoft couldn’t make Intel’s 12th-gen chips work. They’re technically more efficient, and it’s not as if there wasn’t enough time to prepare for new hardware.

Surface Studio 2+
Microsoft

I’m sure the Studio 2+ will satisfy general buyers who are willing to pony up big bucks for a uniquely flexible desktop. But I can’t think of recommending Intel’s 11th-gen chips in any other computer today, unless you’re snagging it with a serious discount. For such a premium, they’re practically a dealbreaker.

At least the Studio 2+ is well equipped otherwise, shipping with 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB SSD. (It sure would be nice to see some SSD expansion slots, though). But take note, if you want it to ship with Microsoft’s Surface Pen, Keyboard and Mouse, you’ll have to spend an extra $300. (That makes it a $4,500 computer with last year’s Intel chip! The horror!)

You can pre-order the Surface Studio 2+ today, and it’ll be available in select markets on October 25th.

Follow along with the rest of our news from Microsoft’s 2022 Surface event.

Blizzard is giving away freebies to ‘Overwatch 2’ players to apologize for its rocky launch

Blizzard previously admitted that Overwatch 2’s launch, which was spoiled by a bunch of bugs, DDoS attacks and other issues, has not met players of the company’s expectations. While the company has made a lot of progress to make the game playable — a lot of players couldn’t even log in at first — its work is far from done. Now, the developer is trying to make it up to fans by giving out freebies and running events. It will hold several Double Match XP weekends to give players the chance to rack up points and rank up. Blizzard will announce specific dates for the events soon. 

It will also give players who log in from October 25th until the time Season One ends a Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm. Both items will automatically be added to people’s collection when they log in within that window of time. In its announcement, Blizzard said that it will deploy more stability updates, starting with another patch scheduled for release this week. It also said that it’s monitoring the game closely for any more issues and bugs that emerge. 

The developer keeps a public list of known issues on its forum, but players are finding more that it has yet to acknowledge. Users are reporting problems regarding specific characters in the game, such as Mei, whose ice wall has been behaving inconsistently, according to Kotaku. Blizzard even had to pull two heroes out of the game completely to address a few bugs in the ability kits.