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Elon Musk's chainsaw has been swinging through the federal government over the last few weeks, with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chopping down budgets and excising staff at a number of agencies. Among those affected is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is said to be losing about 10 percent of its relatively small headcount through buyouts and firings. According to The Washington Post, between 70 and 80 people are departing the agency, which is responsible for road safety in the US. Those ex-employees are said to have worked in a number of areas, such as safety grant funding and crash test dummies. The DOGE cull also impacted three people from a very small team that was working on the safety of autonomous vehicles, such as those from Alphabets Waymo, Amazons Zoox and hey, look at that! Elon Musk's Tesla. It's probably just a coincidence that an organization headed by the same person who is CEO of a prominent company that's working on self-driving cars has cut federal employees that are evaluating the safety of such technology. Probably. If the question is, will this affect the federal governments ability to understand the safety case behind Teslas vehicles, then yes, it will, one of the fired engineers told The Post. The amount of people in the federal government who are able to understand this adequately is very small. Now its almost nonexistent. The NHTSA expanded from around 600 workers to 800 or so during the Biden administration. The autonomous vehicle oversight team was formed as part of that growth. Since several of its seven or so members were new to the federal government, their employment status was at risk due to a DOGE initiative to cull probationary employees from the federal workforce, as The Post notes. Other agencies that have been impacted include the Federal Aviation Administration, which last week cut around 400 probationary employees. Musk and President Donald Trump pledged in an interview this week that the former, who has been designated as a "special government employee," wouldn't be involved in decisions that would mark a conflict of interest with his businesses. The NHTSA has issued numerous recalls for Tesla vehicles over the years (including a recall of more than 2 million vehicles to fix Autopilot safety controls). In April 2024, the agency released the results of an investigation into 14 deaths linked to driver misuse of the company's Autopilot feature. Last month, Musk said that Tesla will roll out a paid autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin this June.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/elon-musks-doge-reportedly-cuts-staff-at-agency-that-regulates-elon-musks-tesla-173618858.html?src=rss
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Apple users in the UK can no longer access one of the company's most powerful data protection tools, as first reported by Bloomberg. The feature, Advanced Data Protection (ADP), allows iPhone users to add optional end-to-end encryption to a variety of iCloud data. The move comes amid an ongoing dispute between Apple and the UK over a government order that would require the company to build a backdoor to allow British security officials to access the encrypted data of users globally. "ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices," Apple told Engadget. "We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy." Mathew Smith / Engadget "Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users," a notification explains when users go to enable the feature on their iPhone, iPad or Mac following Apple's decision. If you live in the UK and have ADP enabled, you will need to manually disable the encryption to keep your iCloud account. Apple told Engadget it will provide customers with a grace period to comply, though the company has yet to say how much time it will give. The company added it would share additional guidance in the future. Due to the nature of end-to-end encryption, Apple cannot automatically disable ADP on behalf of its users. Apple's decision to disable ADP in the UK does not mean the company is removing end-to-end encryption for many of the other services it offers in the country. When it comes to iMessage, passwords, health data and more, those are still protected by end-to-end encryption by default. "Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before," Apple said. "Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom. As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will." News of the UK's backdoor request broke last week when The Washington Post reported that government officials issued a "technical capability notice" to the company under the country's Investigatory Powers Act. Last year, the UK government made changes to the law to "ensure the intelligence services and law enforcement have the powers they need to keep pace with a range of evolving threats from terrorists, hostile state actors, child abusers and criminal gangs." The order reportedly demands Apple give security officials the capability to view all of a user's fully encrypted material whenever the government wants and wherever the target is located.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/apple-disables-iclouds-advanced-data-protection-feature-in-the-uk-173016447.html?src=rss
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Coinbase says that the SEC has agreed to end an enforcement case that accused it of illegally running an unregistered securities exchange. This could signal a major change in how the US government will enforce the crypto market now that Trump is in office. The lawsuit, which was filed during the Biden administration, has long-been considered an attempt to bring the crypto industry under the same investor-protection rules that govern stocks and other securities. Coinbase had been fighting the lawsuit on the grounds that it didnt run a securities company, likening the commodities it sells to baseball cards. That appeal will soon be moot, assuming the SEC officially votes to dismiss the suit. This should happen next week. Its a great day for Coinbase and for crypto, Paul Grewal, Coinbases chief legal officer, told The Wall Street Journal. We were committed to defending it to the gates of hell, for as long as it took and for as much money as it took. Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong went on CNBCs Squawk Box and said that the company will not be paying a fine of any kind. He also said the agreement to end the case marks a huge day for Coinbase and that it will cause a domino effect for the rest of the industry. He also blamed the original suit on a small group of activists in this prior administration. https://t.co/0iY0E7Mc9q pic.twitter.com/hVsGpnpNZd Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) February 21, 2025 This move doesnt come as a huge surprise, given President Trumps recent embrace of crypto. He even has his own digital coin. To that end, the SEC has already started to break up the special enforcement unit that was devoted to investigating crypto organizations. Coinbase and its rivals spent millions of dollars throughout the last election cycle to help elect crypto-friendly lawmakers. It looks like that investment is paying off. Acting SEC Chairman Mark Uyeda recently said that the organization would now deploy enforcement resources judiciously when investigating crypto companies. He also said that a new task force would be moving away from the commission's previous approach toward the crypto market. Republican House and Senate lawmakers are working on legislation that would reclassify cryptocurrencies as commodities, according to The Wall Street Journal. This change would likely hand oversght of crypto assets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is a much smaller agency than the SEC. The CFTC is actually smaller than ever right now, given that the Trump administration laid off a bunch of employees earlier this week. The crypto market is certainly responding favorably to all of this news. Coinbases stock price is up, and the same goes for Robinhood. Rival market Binance even restored fiat deposits and withdrawals this week, which were suspended in 2023 after the SEC sued the company for violations of securities laws.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/coinbase-says-trumps-sec-has-ended-its-enforcement-case-against-the-crypto-company-171331785.html?src=rss
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Here's a great deal on one of our favorite power banks. You can pick up the skinny Baseus Blade for $47.59 with the help of our exclusive code. That's 52 percent off the regular price of $100. The power bank is on sale for $70 on Amazon. To get the full discount, you'll need to clip the 10 percent coupon on the store page. Then, at checkout, be sure to use the code BGAEY8HX to get the full discount. The Baseus Blade is our pick for the best budget laptop power bank. Thanks to the slim form factor and light weight (it's just over a pound), it's easy to slip into a bag next to your laptop. It has a decent array of ports, with two USB-C and two USB-A slots. There's support for 100W fast charging via the USB-C ports. You can also track charging speed and time on an LED display. The power bank has a capacity of 20,000mAh, which is enough to charge a fifth-gen iPad Air 1.5 times over or a 14-inch MacBook Pro to 80 percent, per Baseus. In our testing, we found that it could top up a 16-inch MacBook Pro's battery from 10 percent to 62 percent in just over an hour. You can also use it to juice up a portable games console, such as a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. There's certainly a trade off compared with beefier power banks that have a larger capacity. But in terms of bang for your buck, the Baseus Blade isn't bad at all, especially when you factor in the convenience of the slim, 0.7-inch design. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/one-of-our-favorite-power-banks-is-52-percent-off-right-now-160430250.html?src=rss
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The most surprising thing about Moroi is its sense of humor. Moroi is a top-down, dual-stick action and puzzle game set in a dungeon of surreal horrors, where each cell contains a unique and grotesque vignette. In the first area of the map, theres a cell containing a sentient meat grinder that craves human flesh. In another, a dead man is strapped to a feeding tube thats still pumping slop into his bulbous, pulsing stomach. The next room over, you meet a talking duck with far too many human teeth in its mouth. One tooth would be too many, but this duck has a full, smiling set. And then he rips them all out for you, leaving behind a bloody, empty bill. And this moment makes me laugh out loud. The gore in Moroi is so ridiculous that it turns the corner into hilarity, tapping into the gruesome absurdity that makes b-horror movies so charming. You dont expect the duck to have human teeth, but whats even more surprising is their sudden removal and the ducks leftover, blood-smeared smile. These shocking moments of levity appear in Moroi at a rapid-fire pace, twisting the vibe from brutality to bizarreness and back until it feels like youre trapped in a Francisco Goya fever dream directed by Sam Raimi. Its pretty awesome. Moroi comes from creator Alex Stanescu and his independent studio, Violet Saint. Though hes now based in Switzerland, Stanescu is Romanian and Moroi is filled with grimdark takes on his homegrown fairy tales. The games name refers to a vampire in Romanian folklore, even. Stanescu was also inspired by David Lynch, Heironymous Bosch, H.R. Giger and Little Nightmares, with a dash of Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams for humor. But at its core, Moroi is a completely original world of creepiness, Stanescu explained during a media briefing hosted by the games publisher, Good Shepherd Entertainment. There's a big pool of things in my subconscious from which I pull, he said. General grotesquery, maybe carnival art, Bosch and early medieval art, and caricature. I always try to find my own style. Stanescu later clarified further, saying, Creepy things. Like, for example, in a puzzle, you have to vomit blood into the mouth of someone else. And you will find reality shifting in some places, like in a room you find someone else than you expect to find, and so on. Let's say dream logic. Violet Saint Its more like nightmare logic, really. Each of the cells in Moroi is connected get the severed hand from the autocannibal so the meat grinder can make bone dust, which you can then give to the creepy wizard, who turns it into salt for the witch, whos then devoured by her own potion, and so on. Eventually in the introductory level, you find a sword, break down a door and continue your quest to escape, but the prison only grows more strange. Every now and then, a voice interrupts your progress, whispering for you to find it. The creatures in the cells seem to know who you are, even though you have no memory of this place. Theres way more going on in Moroi than meets the eye. I tell a lot of it through the lore and collectibles, so those will carry a lot of storytelling, Stanescu said. The storytelling given by the characters and by the gameplay is pretty cryptic. You have to find and pay attention to what's happening. There are no branching storylines in Moroi, but your choices throughout the game will affect how it ends, according to Stanescu. He said the full experience should take about nine hours to complete, but this can be extended if you hunt down all of the secrets. Violet Saint Combat in Moroi is fast and fun, and heavy metal replaces the games moody dungeon music at the beginning of each fight, setting an appropriate tone of chaos and carnage. Dungeon guards are the main enemies and they appear in waves of five or so at a time, some with more powerful moves than others. I ended the hour-long demo with an enhanced sword and a gatling gun in my arsenal. With a sword, you have basic and heavy attacks, plus a finishing move that builds up as you deal damage. The gun doesnt require ammo but it runs on a cooldown mechanic, and it has a basic shot and a finisher. Dodge rolls round out your moveset in the early game, and the balance in these battles feels just right. On top of dodging and attacking, there are fiery cores scattered around the environments that you can explode for AOE damage but be warned, if youre too close to the boom, youll get hurt, too. The end of each battle is marked by piles of intestines and busted corpses hopefully not yours littering the cobblestones. The amount of blood-soaked surrealism, frantic combat and body horror in Morois first hour is impressive, and Im amped to discover all of the secrets in the full game, no matter how many exploded corpses I have to dig through. Or maybe even because of all the exploded corpses. Moroi is due to hit PC pretty soon early 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/moroi-preview-a-grimdark-action-game-thats-actually-pretty-funny-150009465.html?src=rss
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