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Tesla is facing a proposed class action suit over allegations that it has been speeding up odometers so its vehicles will fall out of warranty faster, according to a report by Reuters. This would make it easier for the company to get out of paying for repairs. Nyree Hinton, the plaintiff in the case, alleges that Tesla odometer readers are designed to change with energy consumption, driver behavior and mysterious predictive algorithms, and not actual mileage driven. He said that the odometer on the 2020 Model Y he bought in December 2022 had 36,772 miles on the clock at the time of purchase. Hinton alleges that the odometer went up by 72 miles each day, when he only drove around 20. He made comparisons to his other vehicles and concluded that the odometer ran, at the minimum, 15 percent fast. This caused his 50,000-mile basic warranty to expire ahead of schedule, which forced him to pay a $10,000 suspension repair bill out of pocket. "By tying warranty limits and lease mileage caps to inflated 'odometer' readings, Tesla increases repair revenue, reduces warranty obligations, and compels consumers to purchase extended warranties prematurely," the complaint said. Hinton is seeking compensatory damage for himself, but also punitive damages for all Tesla drivers in California. This encompasses over one million vehicles, according to court papers. Tesla has denied all allegations in the lawsuit. EV forums and related subreddits, however, are filled with odometer complaints involving the company. Tesla owners are seeing inflated odometer readings 20-30% higher than driving the same route with a different vehicle or compared to Google Maps trip distance.Hey @NHTSAgov you up? pic.twitter.com/Gb2LiBfZge Mike Rundle (@flyosity) April 22, 2024 Of course, this isnt the first time Tesla has been charged with fibbing about mileage data. The automaker has faced litigation that accused it of inflating vehicle driving ranges. It has also been accused of forming a secret Diversion Team that would cancel range-related service appointments.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-accused-of-messing-with-odometers-to-get-out-of-repair-bills-165625372.html?src=rss
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The European Commission (EC) reportedly delayed regulatory penalty announcements against Apple and Meta this week as it accelerates its push for a trade deal with the US. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal said the move led to concern from European Parliament lawmakers that political factors are influencing the body's regulatory decisions. The EU is said to have initially planned to announce cease-and-desist orders against Apple and Meta on Tuesday and reportedly told at least one of the companies about the timing in advance. The WSJ says the decision to postpone the announcement came shortly before EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič met with US officials in Washington on Monday, the official's first in-person talks with the US since President Donald Trump's 90-day tariff pause. On Tuesday, an EC spokesperson said technical work had been completed on the cases, but no dates had been announced. "We're currently working on the adoption of final decisions in the short term," the spokesman reportedly said. Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images The European Commission's penalties stem from the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aims to level the playing field for smaller companies competing with Big Tech behemoths. The EC probed Meta for its scheme that lets users opt out of personalized ads, for a price. Meanwhile, Apple's case relates to the company's rules that limit developers' ability to steer consumers to transactions outside the App Store. The EC opened the probes in March 2024. Under the DMA, companies could be fined up to 10 percent of their global annual revenue. However, the WSJ reports that the financial penalties would be much lower than that, and the cease-and-desist orders would be much more impactful. Earlier this month, EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera told lawmakers that the EC wouldn't meet her March deadline to issue a decision on Apple and Meta. That statement was on April 8, a day before Trump officials announced a pause on the "Liberation Day" tariffs. The WSJ reports that the regulatory decisions are still expected to advance, but it isn't clear how long their announcement will be delayed. The European Commission has previously claimed it would fight to defend its "regulatory autonomy" despite pressure from Trump and his Big Tech backers to neuter the bloc's restrictions on American businesses.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/eu-regulators-reportedly-delayed-apple-and-meta-penalty-announcements-ahead-of-us-trade-talks-164644661.html?src=rss
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Blue Prince is an incredible puzzle game. Set in a lonely mansion with impossible architecture, its layered in mysteries, conspiracies and family drama. The mansion, Mt. Holly, officially has 45 rooms, but in order to collect your inheritance, you have to find the 46th. Every day youre given a set number of steps, and you have to literally build the manor (and the game) as you go, drawing from a pool of floorplans to create a new layout with each run. This is the foundation, but it goes so much deeper: When I previewed Blue Prince in December 2024, I couldnt have imagined its complexity. Its not a game you can fully understand in a few runs; it takes 10 hours to realize what its core puzzles even are, and even longer to then piece their solutions together, room by room, step by step. Its a slow, supremely satisfying burn. The puzzles in Blue Prince are cavernous and surprising, and its thrilling to interact with the games mechanics and items. Not to mention, its all absolutely gorgeous. Dogubomb Though Blue Prince isnt marketed as a cooperative experience and it doesnt have any kind of multiplayer input, it naturally lends itself to co-op play. Mechanics matter less than the concepts on-screen, and its useful to have one person on controls and another on a notepad, jotting down clues and tracking progress. Plus, one of the best ways to get unstuck in a game like this is to talk things through, and this naturally happens when youre playing together. Blue Prince is just a really intricate puzzle, after all, and weve been doing those things in group settings for ages. This is a true of many single-player puzzle games their common theme being that theyre secretly couch co-op experiences. You could say all games are local co-op if you try hard enough, but only in puzzle games can a bystander play along without ever touching a controller, directing the action and providing critical breakthroughs simply by paying attention. Youre not going to have the same level of impact watching your friend play Assassins Creed, you know? Dogubomb Blue Prince is only the latest example of an undercover couch co-op puzzle game. My partner and I have happily played a handful of similar games together in recent years, and its gotten to the point that I now breeze right past the single-player descriptor on most puzzle titles. Heres a shortlist of my households favorites: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes The Talos Principle 2 The Sexy Brutale The Rise of the Golden Idol Return of the Obra Dinn The Witness Viewfinder Storyteller All of these games are officially single-player, but theyre as good, if not even better, when played with a loved one. On my couch, weve also enjoyed actual local co-op puzzlers like Escape Academy, so if your relationship can survive those games, it should be able to handle Lorelei, Talos or Blue Prince with ease. While were waxing poetic about the intricacies of video game sub-genres (OK fine, just one of us is), Blue Prince falls into another one of my favorite categories, which I affectionately call anti-GameFAQs puzzle games. These are designed to be impossible to capture in a traditional walkthrough guide, and while the category isnt large, it includes some of the best titles of this generation, like Tunic and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. These lean so heavily on the thing that makes video games unique as a media product player autonomy that they feel like a hostile attack on step-by-step explainers, and I absolutely love that. (These games also tend to remind me of House of Leaves, which could be another sub-genre on its own, but Ill stop here. For now.) Playing Blue Prince with my partner in 2025 reminds me of the specific lazy afternoon in the summer of 2008 when some friends and I discovered Braid on Xbox Live Arcade. We spent hours playing from my buddys dingy couch, passing the controller around, pointing at the screen and yelling out strategies, and just marveling at that little time-shifting toxic dude. Shared experiences like this generate a specific kind of warmth, and a great puzzle game can produce these moments over and over again. Even if its technically single-player.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/every-puzzle-game-is-a-couch-co-op-game-actually-163024595.html?src=rss
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