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OnePlus 10 Pro peek reveals lots of Oppo software DNA


OnePlus 10 Pro peek reveals lots of Oppo software DNA

Curious about what it's like to use the OnePlus 10 Pro? So is everyone else outside of China since the phone launched there on Jan. 10 and the company hasn't yet given an international release date. But a new video showing off the flagship phone reveals it's essentially running Oppo software.

YouTuber Marques Brownlee got his hands on a OnePlus 10 Pro model from China and demonstrated that it appears to have entirely replaced all traces of OnePlus' signature OxygenOS Android skin with Oppo's ColorOS.

Read more: The best phones to buy in 2022

This doesn't necessarily mean the version of OnePlus 10 Pro that'll be sold outside China won't have OxygenOS, Brownlee noted. But replacing software entirely is very different than the "fusion" of operating systems that OnePlus CEO Pete Lau described last September that would bring the best of both OxygenOS and ColorOS to the next generation of OnePlus phones.

Fans and media have been in the dark since the phone's launch earlier in January, which only revealed the OnePlus 10 Pro's specs and new design. Per Brownlee's video, the phone's hardware is exactly as advertised: It seems to have the same lenses as the OnePlus 9 Pro in a redesigned camera block housing, though it does have a new 150-degree ultrawide mode within the photo app, among other tweaks. 

In addition, the in-screen fingerprint sensor, which was awkwardly low on the OnePlus 9 Pro, has been moved up on the display to be easier to reach with your thumb. The phone also has a new type of display, an LTPO 2, which has the same 120Hz maximum refresh rate but now goes down to a 1Hz, which is lower than the 9 Pro's minimum 10Hz, meaning lower potential power drain. 

It seems we were right to be excited over the 10 Pro's 5,000mAh battery, the largest yet on a OnePlus flagship phone, as Brownlee found it lasted longer than the brand's older phones. The 80-watt charging is also as speedy as expected, though you'll need to buy a proprietary Oppo wireless charger to reach the phone's 50-watt maximum wireless charging speeds. 

OnePlus veterans may be thrown off by the charger included in the box, which isn't OnePlus' WarpCharge but the SuperVOOC charger block typically packed with Oppo phones. The latter has a USB-A plug instead of the USB-C ports used by most modern chargers, so if you lose the included cable, you may need to unearth older cables long ago consigned to your desk drawer. 

OnePlus didn't respond to a request for comment.


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Facebook plans to break out its VR, AR business


Facebook plans to break out its VR, AR business

Facebook didn't get a new name as widely expected, but the social network did unveil a new reporting structure. On Monday, the social media giant said it would begin reporting results as two businesses: its core family of social networking apps and its Facebook Reality Labs, which houses its augmented and virtual reality efforts.

Under the new structure, which will take effect for the company's fourth-quarter earnings, Facebook will provide revenue and operating profit for its Family of Apps and Facebook Reality Labs businesses. Family of Apps includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and other services, the social network said in a statement. Facebook Reality Labs will include augmented and virtual reality hardware, software and content.

CEO  Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that he sees the metaverse, an online social hub where avatars can meet, as central to Facebook's future. The company, which made the announcement as it reported mixed third-quarter earnings results, committed to spending $10 billion on Facebook Reality Labs this year and more in the future. 

The revamped structure followed reports that Facebook would change its name, speculation that comes as the company grapples with damning whistleblower allegations that it prioritizes profits over safety. Over the past several days, a group of news outlets has published a series of stories that suggest the company knows about the harm its platforms cause to the mental health of teenagers, democracy and developing countries such as India. The series, known as the Facebook Papers, are based on thousands of documents gathered by Frances Haugen, a former product manager, who has testified before both Congress and Parliament about the social media company. The stories follow a similar project by The Wall Street Journal that was also based on documents leaked by Haugen.

In his first public remarks since the Facebook Papers stories, Zuckerberg said he saw the reports as a "coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture" of the social network. The company, he said, is trying to balance free expression with reducing harmful content and privacy. More than 40,000 people work on safety and security and the company is on track to spend more than $5 billion on these efforts this year, he said. 

"The reality is these questions are not primarily about our business, but about balancing different difficult social values," Zuckerberg said. 

The leaked documents have prompted heightened scrutiny by lawmakers, who are looking at legislation to hold companies like Facebook more accountable. Facebook's Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis testified before a Senate subcommittee that the company has been focusing on how to update children's privacy regulation and other laws. 

Haugen, who first revealed herself as the Facebook whistleblower in October, has said she saw conflicts of interests between Facebook's business objectives and user safety during her time at the company. Facebook has said its internal research is being mischaracterized.

The social network unveiled its reporting structure change as it released its third-quarter earnings. The company reported $29.01 billion in third-quarter revenue, slightly below Wall Street's expectations of $29.6 billion. Facebook earned $3.22 per share, surpassing estimates of $3.18 from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Facebook had 2.91 billion monthly active users, up 6% from the same period last year.

Facebook said it expects the coronavirus pandemic and Apple's privacy changes to hurt its ads business. Apple's App Tracking Transparency requires users to give apps permission to track their internet activity and has impacted ad targeting more heavily than many companies expected. Last week, Snap saw its stock plunge by roughly a quarter after missing revenue estimates and warning of slower growth.

Facebook said it expects its fourth-quarter revenue to be between $31.5 billion and $34 billion, which is in line with estimates of $34.8 billion. The company's stock is up 4% to $342.60 per share in after-hours trading. 


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How Gardening Can Help With Climate Change Anxiety


How Gardening Can Help With Climate Change Anxiety

Editor's note, April 22, 2022: This commentary originally ran in April 2020. We're rerunning it today in honor of Earth Day. Original story follows.


A beet shoot nuzzles free of the earth in much the same way a chick presses through its soft shell, dislodging near-weightless debris with all the gentle might it can muster. Beet shoots don't emerge face first, though, as do chicks. Neither do pea shoots or arugula sprouts, for that matter. Instead, there extends from the soil a pink loop, a tiny flamingo's neck, before the head lifts gingerly and finds its bearings.

They back into the world.

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I discovered this fact last week, at first with uncertainty. I watched a single shoot expose its stem in my garden and wondered if it was disoriented or deformed. But a day later, a dozen more peeked from the soil in rows like loose stitches, as it seems all beets do. Then I felt more certain of what I was observing, of its design.

We humans are slow to acclimate to new revelations. As early cases of the coronavirus emerged, it spread until undeniable consequences jarred us into action. The same progression exists for climate change, though fear and denial still have hold of us.

There is an alternative; something beyond death can move us to act. And when it comes to facing the threat of climate change -- a threat more dire even than the pandemic sweeping the world -- the titans of technology can play a part, but only a part. The rest will be up to us. And a simple garden and a hopeful imagination, I have found, are good places to start.

Close-up of soil
David Priest/CNET

The previous resident in our house maintained a garden in the backyard, but removed all his materials, leaving a handful of gaping holes in the dirt where posts had stood. We filled in a few of these holes, but one of them we simply covered with a brick-red stepping stone. Each day, I lift the stone to find a tiny glittering cavern of slugs, worms, roly polies, centipedes and spiders.

My children press forward, holding twigs and gently prodding around the hole to inspire motion -- the retraction of a worm into the mud or the panicked scuttle of an uncovered pillbug.

Such wondrous encounters with the natural world set my imagination on course as a child, and similar ones have shaped American imaginations for centuries, from Thoreau and Whitman through Rachel Carson and Loren Eiseley, to Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry. In fact, our science writers and lyricists have cross-pollinated for generations. There's a breathlessness, for instance, to how the aging ecological journalist Charles Bowden interrupts an essay on death to exclaim, "I must tell you about this flower, Selenicereus plerantus."

Naturalists such as these fostered an intimacy with nature that we in 2020 have largely lost. Indeed, they often wrote of its erosion in their own times. Eiseley, for instance, predicted this shift in 1957: "The modern world does not lend itself to contemplation … We are used to being hurled headlong by plane and motor from one natural marvel to another, upon commercialized vacations." Sixty-three years later, his passing anxiety is our unyielding reality. Even more than our landscapes, our imaginations have been deforested.

I don't mean an indeterminable or mystical something when I use the term imagination: No, imagination is the tool we use to envision our future, individual and collective. When we think of nature primarily as a resource to be consumed, we leave little space for its flourishing in our imagined futures. And humans are frighteningly talented at making what we envision into reality.

Two children looking at grass
David Priest/CNET

Traipsing through forests and rock-hopping across Broad River after dry seasons are my two most vivid memories of growing up in South Carolina. They take place in general time -- the six years I spent in the Palmetto State feel to me like one long summer -- and they are the center of a larger mosaic of memory fragments: coaxing lizards' mouths open and clamping them on our ears like earrings, jumping to catch swatches of Spanish moss draped like gray-lavender snow from great tree limbs.

Guilt occasionally creeps up on me when I consider my childrens' largely suburban upbringing. Sure, we've lived in the Ozarks and Kentucky, visited caves and state parks, but it's always been an event -- never the wandering in a backyard that unfolds into forest. Crawdads will likely never snap at my childrens' curious fingers; pet garter snakes or squirrels will never share their rooms. 

But simply encountering nature isn't the point. As marine biologist and famed environmentalist Rachel Carson wrote, "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." Through our encounters, we develop a relationship with our environment, and relationship inspires care and protection.

I cannot replicate my childhood for my children, but I can encourage a healthy relationship with nature. On a practical level, for instance, it's hard to watch tiny sprouts fight for survival and not cheerthem on. On a larger scale, it's hard to stay idle when we see theenvironment ravaged by climate change.

My wife and I rehearse our relationship with our garden aloud: a 19-cent banana can feed one of our children, its peel can infuse water with potassium and other minerals, which help fertilize our vegetables, and after a week of soaking, the peel can feed worms that create fertilizer for next season's garden. We hope for the future, when we own our home instead of renting: a modest yard of grass can be converted into wild space, creating more shelter and food for animals and increasing conversion of carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Our relationship with nature shouldn't be limited to our private lives, either. I saw a cartoon circulating online a few weeks ago, in which a man sits staring horrified at a computer screen, saying, "My God ... those meetings really could all have been emails."

It's a funny joke, but it belies the darker reality that all of our face-to-face time is facilitated by carbon-spewing machines and buildings.

It's time to look forward, to ask seriously to what extent our economy writ large can be maintained without contributing quite so enthusiastically to our planet's destruction. Though millions of Americans are out of work because of the pandemic, many companies have seen little change in their profits when shifting their workforce home. Perhaps for such companies, work-from-home structures could, should, become a new norm. Perhaps families could, should, change their travel expectations for vacations. Perhaps individuals could, should, think differently about their day-to-day gasoline and food consumption.

Such changes seemed unrealistic six months ago -- and adopting them long-term will certainly reshape our economic structures -- but this crisis has at least demonstrated our capacity for change, given the proper motivation.

Small plants in a garden
David Priest/CNET

Perhaps the most difficult part of gardening is its dailiness. I'm trying and still failing to instill in myself the habit of getting up early while the soil is damp and rooting out weeds that seem to lay fresh claim to my vulnerable sprouts during the short hours I sleep.

The weeding makes me nervous, despite its necessity. Weed and sprout root systems commingle, and more than one promising turnip has been lost to the errant spade. I find myself feeling inordinately protective of the young things, in part because their recent debuts came after weeks of my disbelief that they would gestate at all.

I remind myself: Weeding catches what threatens to choke the future before it can bud.

The three worst enemies of hopeful imagination are denial, nihilism and romanticism. The first is perhaps the hardest to beat back in others -- sound models have yet to convince many people that climate change is real -- but it's easy enough to uproot in ourselves.

Even those of us who acknowledge the science behind climate change often act in ways incongruous with that knowledge. It's not surprising: Our desire, not our cognition, drives most of our behavior in life. We consumers, as much as complex industries or faceless governments, have landed humanity in its current predicament -- not by pragmatism, but by dreams. My dreams, for instance -- of children, food and a comfortable house -- have resulted in a minivan, a large canister of waste every week and an energy- and water-inefficient home. Those dreams cannot be disentangled from their environmental externalities. The question is whether we will continue to deny reality so we can maintain more pleasant dreams, or whether we will wake.

Another weed to be pulled -- and one popular with a growing community of disillusioned millennials online -- is nihilism. The incessant jokes about being in the "wrong timeline" on Reddit or the "fuck 2019/2020" trends on Twitter: these subcultures prefer the easy quip about an indifferent universe to the vulnerable reach for hope or beauty. They see our anomalousness as evidence of cosmic indifference, rather than as an immeasurable gift.

The internet's embrace of such pessimism is like the bullied child discovering self-deprecation. It's an indirect solution, doing the bully's job for them, and leaves the deeper problem unaddressed. 

The most difficult weed to uproot is romanticism, though, in part because it can so closely resemble healthy and hopeful thinking. I often reminisce about racing frogs in the backyard as a child, but I rarely think of the peanut butter sandwiches my school supplied when we couldn't afford lunches, my father's frantic tapping on the Kaypro between publications or my mother's harried pleas for her children's quiet while she researched for her master's degree thesis. My parents were desperate to escape a lifestyle for which I still feel intense nostalgia.

Romanticism defangs reality. It gives us the illusion of relationship -- with memories or nature -- while still maintaining our distance from the contemporary, the actual. Such rosy feelings stand in stark contrast with nature writer Annie Dillard's work, in which she wonders in real time at a giant water bug slurping a frog's liquified insides from its skin, leaving it "formless as a pricked balloon." Similarly, when poet Wendell Berry found himself staring at a dead calf in a pasture, writing, "May all dead things lie down in me/ and be at peace, as in the ground," he was likely only a short distance from his Kentucky home.

For nature to change us, we must experience it not simply in a distant memory or on a rare trip to a manicured park, but as now and near, beautiful to behold and all its own. When ants in our backyard spontaneously sprouted wings a few weeks ago, I was just as in awe of nature as I was annoyed that I kept getting bugs in my mouth while gardening.

All of these responses -- of denial, nihilism and romanticism -- emerge from a familiar fear.

"What we fear, really fear," wrote Charles Bowden in 2009, "is not some other nation conquering our plains and mountains and deserts, no, no, what we fear is that someone or something will do to us exactly what we have done to the buffalo."

He was right, as this pandemic has demonstrated. But fear is not final.

Marilynne Robinson, in her Pulitzer-prize winning novel Gilead, writes (as though in direct response), "Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave -- that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm."

Without hope for a better future, how can we nurture the courage to fight for it?

A person potting plants in small pots
David Priest/CNET

The failure of my garden is not, as I expect, the fava beans or snow peas, but rather the potatoes. A month into gardening, I dig up one of the potato chunklets I planted to find it rotted. I'm not sure if the allotted corner of the garden has too much clay, or if the roots from a nearby tree interfered with the tubers' growth, but this square of soil alone is barren.

Our early responses to climate change have likewise been imperfect, dying before even taking root. But there is hope to be found in the thinkers of the past and our own visions for the future -- if we seek encounters and relationships with nature and diligently uproot the mentalities that threaten such hopeful imagination.

Of course, the way forward will look different for each of us: an income-insecure family might not be able to afford more sustainable food sources; an apartment-dweller might not have access to green space for gardening. I've been in such circumstances, and I won't presume to offer the best methods of conservation for every reader.

But for many, a simple garden in your backyard -- or even on your windowsill -- can lead, as it has for my family, to change. And small changes like composting or growing more aware of our consumptive tendencies prepare us for the larger scale changes that ought to follow.

I hope we can prepare for climate change better than we did for COVID-19. But in the meantime, I must tell you about this vegetable, Beta vulgaris, the simple beet, which like a human can back from what appears to be barren land into an uncertain future -- and thrive nonetheless.


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Google Updates In-App Billing Rules to Allow Rival Payment Services


Google Updates In-App Billing Rules to Allow Rival Payment Services

Google is updating its rules to allow app developers to use rival payments systems in place of the company's homegrown Google Play billing system in Europe. The change, announced Tuesday in a blog post, will help Google ensure it's abiding by incoming EU tech laws, which will demand that tech giants operate on a fair and level playing field.

Whereas in the past, app developers were bound to using Google Play's billing system, now they can use an alternative system in the EU only. Developers choosing this option will see a 3% reduction in service fees paid to Google, which the company estimates will ddrop the majority of developer fees down to around 12%. 

The rules will only apply to non-gaming apps for now, but Google expects to expand the policy to include gaming apps.

Google's policy change has been instigated by the introduction of a package of new digital laws that will govern how tech platforms big and small operate in Europe. It will likely be the first of several changes made by tech giants to ensure their houses are in order before the laws come into effect later this year.

The package consists of two pieces of legislation: the Digital Services Act, which protects the rights of internet users, and the Digital Markets Act, which is designed to create fair and open competition in the digital realm. Together the pair of laws propose a set of new rules for all digital services, including social media and online marketplaces. Large tech companies failing to comply with them could be charged up to 10% of their annual global revenue.

"Although the DMA does not take effect for some time, we are 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," said Estelle Werth, Google's director for EU government affairs and public policy, in the company's blog post. "As always, we'll continue to listen to developers' feedback and continue to invest to help them thrive on Google Play."


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How Ukraine Raised Over $55M in Crypto to Help Resist Russia


How Ukraine Raised Over $55M in Crypto to Help Resist Russia

This story is part of War in Ukraine, CNET's coverage of events there and of the wider effects on the world.

As Russia launched an invasion into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Vitaliy Raskalov found himself 6,700 miles from home. When I spoke with the Kyiv-born photographer over Telegram on Sunday evening, he was in Mexico City, busily coordinating a shipment of bulletproof vests to his homeland. All of it will be paid for with cryptocurrency. 

Over the past six months, Raskalov has been selling a collection of his photographs as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, on OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for such wares. Since the war began last week, all of the proceeds from the set, which consists of shots taken atop skyscrapers and other wincingly tall structures, are being donated to Ukraine's resistance. 

"I'm out of the country, I'm not able to take weapons and defend my country," Raskalov said, "but at the same time I'm able to collect money, to raise money, to help." He said he'd so far raised about 4 ether, or just over $10,000, which he says is going toward equipment like helmets, flashlights and those bulletproof vests. 

Ukraine is one of the world's biggest adopters of cryptocurrency, ranking behind only Vietnam, India and Pakistan, according to Chainalysis. Elliptic, another crypto data firm, says that donations to groups countering Russian aggression skyrocketed in the second half of last year, with over $550,000 worth of cryptocurrencies raised in 2021 compared to $6,000 in 2020. 

Since Russia began military operations in Ukraine last week, $55.7 million has been raised, according to Elliptic data. 

Much of that is courtesy of donations made directly to the Ukrainian government. Three days after Russia's invasion, Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted out wallet addresses into which people could directly donate bitcoin, ether and tether, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Ukraine's official Twitter account posted the same addresses. Over $47 million has since been donated to these wallets, says Elliptic. The success could change fundraising, both in Ukraine and abroad.

"In the last four days I'm simply shocked," Raskalov said. "I'm so happy with that. At the same time, I'm so upset. A small NFT community and Twitter raised more than $10 million. Most of the countries of the European Union didn't do anything." 

The European Union says it plans to send 500 million euros ($550 million) in aid.

Apart from direct donations to the Ukrainian government, millions more have been raised by NGOs and initiatives similar to Raskalov's. Notable is UkraineDAO (a decentralized autonomous organization is a group where token owners can vote on how funds are spent), which, backed by Russian punk rock group PussyRiot, raised over $3 million in ether -- and then another $6.75 million via the auctioning of a Ukrainian flag sold as an NFT.

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Raskalov sells photographs taken atop skyscrapers and other frighteningly large structures as NFTs, with proceeds going toward Ukraine's resistance effort. 

OpenSea/Raskalov

NFTs for peace

Seeing all of these cryptocurrency fundraisers, 23-year-old NFT trader Andrew Wang on Feb. 24 tweeted out a thought to his 140,000 followers: What if an NFT collection was created to raise funds?

"We have all these tools. We have crypto, we have communities, we have art, we have smart contracts," a sleep-deprived Wang said to me via Zoom on Sunday. (A smart contract is one that automatically executes when certain criteria are met. Most NFT transactions take place using one.) "Instead of just raising crypto, what if we brought artists together, wrote a smart contract and deployed it to raise ether?"

The result is Reli3f, a group of Wang, five other organizers and developers and 37 artists who contributed NFT art. The 3 in the name is a reference to Web3, a term that describes an internet in which blockchain technologies like crypto and NFTs are deeply integrated. Many of the project's contributing artists are Ukrainian, including Raskalov, who supplied a photograph he took of Kyiv. Wang described Reli3f as an experiment, but that description belies how quickly it achieved success. 

Wang sent the tweet out on the 24th on February, and a group chat filled with interested organizers was quickly formed. In the 24 hours that followed, 37 artists had agreed to contribute one piece each. The collection launched that night, consisting of 200 copies of 37 different NFTs, each of which sold for 0.05 ether, or $130. It immediately sold out, raising 371 ether, or $980,000, in 30 seconds. On Sunday night, in the hours before he spoke to me, Wang and the team went about distributing those funds. Reli3f sent three organizations 61 ether ($160,000) each: military support group Come Back Alive, local media vetted by the Kyiv Independent publication and medical assistance charity Hospitallers.

"We are looking into ways of doing this again, and doing it better," Wang said. "What we did was an experiment, and the more you experiment the better you get at it."

After the funds were deployed, Reli3f created a Twitter thread including links to the transactions, which could be vetted for legitimacy. The smart contract drawn up by the team was also up for scrutiny. Wang hopes the transparency that blockchains afford will be used to improve charity in the future. 

"I think of Web3 as neutral. It's about tools, and you can use tools for good and for bad," he said, explaining that he hopes Reli3f can stand as an example of the former. "We want to say, this is part and parcel of Web3. We put all of the transaction hashes in that thread, explained to people why we got certain numbers, and we put that plain to see. You can see where the money goes." 

The extra benefit of using cryptocurrency, Wang said, is avoiding bank transfer limits that have been put in place. Several banks in Ukraine, particularly in the east, have put restrictions on how much money citizens can withdraw or move around. The National Bank of Ukraine has a withdrawal limit of 100,000 Ukrainian hryvnia, roughly $3,350, as well as restrictions on exchanging local currency for foreign ones. 

The issue is that many organizations don't have wallets set up. After the extraordinary success of Ukraine's government in raising funds via cryptocurrency wallets, that may soon change. 

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Some of the NFTs that appear on Reli3f's OpenSea page. After the public sale, royalties from OpenSea buys will go toward fundraising for Ukraine's resistance. 

OpenSea/Reli3f

Crypto, for good and for ill

The use of cryptocurrency in Ukraine is evidence of the technology's benefits: It's a spontaneous, international fundraising effort where large sums of money, unencumbered by weighty bureaucracies, have been transferred to local organizations quickly. Yet downsides are apparent, too. 

Bitcoin's and ether's ability to bypass institutional restrictions can be used on both sides. The US and EU have levied sweeping sanctions against Russian financial institutions, exports and key figures in both industry and government. Squeeze the economy, the hope goes, and President Vladimir Putin will be forced to the negotiation table. Some worry that the effect will be dulled by cryptocurrencies, which can often circumvent such restrictions.

"Russia is digging deep into cryptocurrencies to trade with international partners and evade sanctions," wrote Robert Huish, Dalhousie University's associate professor in international development studies, in a recent essay. Huish notes that Siberia is a hub for cryptocurrency mining, which gives Russia a reliable internal supply.

Apart from systemic abuse of the anonymity inherent in cryptocurrencies, there's also been the expected array of scams. Phony wallet addresses claiming to be for charities have been circulated. A warning had to be issued on Twitter after several OpenSea collections imitating Reli3f popped up on OpenSea. 

Still, Raskalov is optimistic -- and about more than just cryptocurrency. "When we win the war, when we start to build our country again, cryptocurrency is going to be one of our biggest sources of income."   


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Amazon Fire TV Cyber Monday deals that are still available: Stick 4K Max hits $35, $40 off Fire TV Cube


Amazon Fire TV Cyber Monday deals that are still available: Stick 4K Max hits $35, $40 off Fire TV Cube

This story is part of Gift Guide, our year-round collection of the best gift ideas.

Amazon's Fire TV devices let you stream most major streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max and its own Prime Video. Like its chief rival Roku, Fire TV is a popular and affordable way to stream TV shows and movies, and it's available on plug-and-play devices like the Fire TV Stick and Cube, as well as on televisions from Toshiba, Insignia and Amazon itself. The Fire TV platform works with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and -- unlike Roku -- you can even install VPNs on Fire TV devices, which increase viewing options that are otherwise region-locked. 

Along with Prime Day, the holiday season is generally the best time to buy Fire TV devices. There are still plenty of Cyber Monday deals that are still available. We're compiling the best offers we see here.

Cyber Monday deals that are still available on Fire TV Devices

Want to upgrade an older TV with the latest Fire TV streaming options? Now is a great time. A Fire TV Stick will give your TV an Alexa-powered streaming makeover, and the 4K version is now selling for as little as $25. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Cube are marked down to their lowest prices ever, and the Fire TV Recast DVR is back to its all-time low.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K debuted in 2018 at $50 and today it's at an all-time low of $25. While that's a great price, we think that the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max (see below) is a worthwhile upgrade, especially considering that it's now only $10 more expensive than this older version. On the other hand if you want to pay as little as possible for 4K streaming, the non-Max stick is still a great deal.

Read our Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K review.

Sarah Tew/CNET

If you're looking for a speedy device, look no further than the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max. The Max loads 4K content apps almost immediately, and navigating around the system is swift and smooth. Even better, the Max supports Wi-Fi 6 and nearly all the latest playback standards, including Dolby Vision. The downside to the Max is its Fire TV platform -- we like Roku better -- and the fact that ads are featured prominently throughout. 

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is the best Fire Stick on the market and now is down to an all-time low of $35, slightly more expensive than original Fire TV Stick 4K. For those looking for the best streaming experience Amazon has to offer, it might be worth spending the extra $10 to pick up the Max.

Read our Fire TV Stick 4K Max review.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The Amazon Fire TV Cube combines a Fire TV Stick with an Alexa speaker to create an all-in-one device to control your TV with your voice. It lets you control power, input switching and volume on your TV, sound bar or AV receiver using only voice commands. You can also use your voice to change channels on a cable box. Although it's not for everyone, the Cube could be a good choice for those who love controlling their TV with their voice. The Fire TV Cube debuted in 2018 for $120, but is now at an all-time low of $80 this holiday season.

Read our Fire TV Cube review.

Ry Crist/CNET

The Fire TV Recast is a DVR for cord-cutters that records the free, over-the air TV you can get in most areas of the country by putting up an antenna. The Amazon Fire TV Recast antenna DVR doesn't charge any monthly fees, the setup is easy and out of home streaming to your phone works well. The downside is that you'll need a Fire TV device attached to your TV, and can only watch on two devices at once. The two tuner, 500GB version of the Fire TV Recast originally went on sale in 2018 for $230, but it is now back down to an all-time low of $130.

Read our Amazon Fire TV Recast review.

Expired deals

Amazon

After licensing its Fire TV operating system to third-party manufacturers like Toshiba and Insignia, Amazon began producing its own series of Fire TV models in 2021. The entry-level 4-Series features full access to Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, via remote control. It also has 4K resolution and supports HDR video in HDR10 and HLG formats, and the 65- and 75-inch models have slimmer bezels and support Dolby Vision too. We haven't reviewed this model yet, but it will be getting AirPlay support later this year. 

Go big! Right now the 50-inch 4-series is $40 cheaper than the 43-inch. The 55-incher (see below) costs an additional $50.

Amazon

The Omni Series is a step up from the entry-level 4-Series and features a fully hands-free TV with built-in microphones. Just ask to turn on the TV, and find, launch and control content with Alexa. Like the 4-Series, It has 4K resolution and supports HDR video in HDR10 and HLG formats, and the 65-inch and 75-inch models support Dolby Vision.Additionally, Fire TV Omni is the first smart TV with built-in Zoom, which will launch later this year. If you're interested in this feature, be sure to note that the necessary USB webcam accessory is sold separately. 

We haven't reviewed the Fire TV Omni yet, but it lacks full-array local dimming, quantum dot color and the latest gaming features, which means that the picture quality will most likely not be as good as the similarly-priced TCL 5-Series Roku TV or the Vizio M7Q series.


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Best Smart Home and Appliance Deals of Prime Day 2022


Best Smart Home and Appliance Deals of Prime Day 2022

This story is part of Amazon Prime Day, CNET's guide to everything you need to know and how to find the best deals.

Amazon's annual Prime Day sale is still live here on Wednesday, and the discounts are flying fast. That includes some fresh deals on smart home gadgets and home appliances, some of which bring them to the lowest prices we've ever seen. Meanwhile, competitors like Best Buy and Target are counter-programming Amazon and dialing up some pretty decent deals of their own.

That means it's a great time to keep an eye out for good sales on tech for the home, and that's exactly what we're doing here at CNET. We'll update this post regularly in the coming days with the best discounts we're seeing on smart home gadgets and appliances -- for now, here are the deals most worth checking out.

Amazon

The newest Echo Dot comes in an updated spherical design, but aside from that, there wasn't too much that set it apart from previous models. That makes it an ideal "wait-for-a-sale" gadget, and right now, for Prime Day, you can pick one up for $20, which is about as inexpensive as current-gen Echo devices ever get. You can even sweeten the deal by adding in a free six-month subscription to Amazon Music, or, for an extra $5, an Amazon Smart Plug.

Don't care so much about the sphere, and just want the lowest possible price on a new Echo device? The puck-shaped, 3rd-gen Echo Dot from 2018 is still an excellent little smart speaker, and it's currently marked down to just $18, which is a buck cheaper than the all-time low.

Read the CNET review of the 3rd-gen Echo Dot smart speaker.

Arlo

Arlo's well-reviewed lineup of outdoor-ready security cameras are some of our favorites in the category, and the Arlo Essential Spotlight Cameras are among the company's most affordable. Now, for Prime Day, a 3-pack is marked down to $250, saving you $100 off the retail price.

The Arlo Essential cameras come with most of the same features we like about the more expensive Arlo Pro cameras -- namely, high-quality livestreams of whatever you're pointing them at, plus customizable alert notifications, color night vision, and other advanced features via the optional Arlo Smart cloud service, plus compatibility with Alexa and the Google Assistant, or with Apple HomeKit provided you've got a compatible Base Station or SmartHub. Just about the only thing we didn't like about these cameras when we tested them out was that Arlo stripped out the removable battery-pack design -- that means you'll need to take the whole camera inside when it's time to give it a charge (and the micro-USB charge cable Arlo provides is comically short).

That's a fair tradeoff at this price -- the Arlo Essential three-pack rarely drops below $280, and at $250, you're getting three cameras for less than you'd usually pay for two. Single cameras are marked down to $100 each, as well, and if you'd like a longer battery life, the Essential XL Cameras are on sale at a slight discount, too. Among all of the Arlo discounts, however, this Essential Camera three-pack looks like the best deal of the bunch. 

Read the CNET review of the Arlo Essential Spotlight Camera.

Ecobee

It's not the new Ecobee Premium model released this year, but the previous-gen Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control offers the same native support for built-in Alexa access, or built-in Siri access if you pair it with an Apple HomePod or HomePod Mini, and it'll integrate into Google Assistant-powered smart homes, too. It also offers most of the same impressive Ecobee features for intelligent management of your home's heating and cooling needs, plus a remote temperature sensor to help the system track temperatures throughout your house.

All of that made the Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control an Editors' Choice-winner back when we first reviewed it in 2019. The price has already come down from $250 to $220 since then, and now, for Prime Day, it's all the way down to $179 on Amazon. That's lower than any Amazon price we've ever seen it selling for, and a great deal if you want one of the most sophisticated smart thermostats on the market.

Read the CNET review of the Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Voice Control.

Ry Crist/CNET

Eero Pro 6E is the Amazon-owned home networking brand's first mesh router with support for Wi-Fi 6E, which means it can connect with other Wi-Fi 6E devices over the newly-opened, ultra-wide 6GHz band. It's the fastest, fanciest Eero system to date, and one that performed quite well when I put it through multiple rounds of tests. Plus, it supports speeds faster than a gigabit thanks to a multi-gig Ethernet WAN port, a nice piece of future-proofing.

Even at full price, I already recommend the Eero Pro 6E as an upgrade pick for homes that want to take advantage of fast, gigabit-level internet connections -- now, for Prime Day, Amazon has multiple Eero Pro 6E setups listed for hundreds off. Larger, multi-story homes might want to consider stepping up to the three-pack, which usually costs $699 but is currently on sale for $419 -- but I think that the two-pack would be more than enough for most homes (and you can always add another device later if you need it). At $299 -- or $200 off the normal price of $499 -- it's one of Prime Day's best discounts.

Read the CNET review of the Eero Pro 6E mesh router.

Amazon

The best bet for good Wi-Fi in large, multistory homes is to go with a mesh router -- and preferably one that comes with more than one satellite extender. This three-piece Eero 6 Plus system gets you there, and it's marked down to just $194 for Prime Day, saving you $105. 

The Eero 6 Plus doesn't feature Wi-Fi 6E support or a tri-band design like the Eero Pro 6E does, but it's still an excellent and capable system that makes great use of Wi-Fi 6 and a well-developed mesh to deliver fast speeds at range. You can read more about how the two systems stack up in my full rundown, but if you've got a lot of ground for your home's Wi-Fi network to cover, you're going to want to give this deal some thought. 

Read the CNET review of the Eero 6 Plus mesh router.

Chris Monroe/CNET

At $180, the battery-powered Nest Doorbell was already less expensive than key competitors like the Ring Video Doorbell 4 and the Arlo Wire-Free, and it was already marked down to $130 ahead of Prime Day. Now, through July 17, it's down even lower, to $120. That's a total of $60 off of the retail price, and one of the best prices we've seen it listed at all year.

For the money, you're getting a sophisticated smart doorbell with an attractive design, multiple color options, two-way talk, high-def resolution, a 145-degree field of view with a 3:4 aspect ratio, smart alerts, and more. During our tests, we were particularly impressed with the low latency of the video feed, which helps keeps the conversation snappy during two-way talk. You'll need to pay $6 a month for a Nest Aware subscription if you want to unlock facial recognition and a full 30 days of video storage, but you can skip that and still enjoy person detection, vehicle-, package- or animal-specific notifications, and up to three hours of free video storage.

As a Google device, the Nest Doorbell is best suited for smart homes centered around other Nest gadgets and the Google Assistant. For instance, you can sync your Nest speakers with the doorbell to sound the chime whenever someone's at the door, or call up the doorbell's video feed on your Nest Hub smart displays. The Nest Doorbell doesn't offer native support for Apple HomeKit, but it does work with Alexa, so Amazon-powered smart homes can connect the doorbell with their Echo smart speakers and smart displays, too.

Read CNET's review of the Nest Doorbell (battery-powered).

Julie Snyder/CNET

The second generation Ring Alarm home security system is pretty budget-friendly to begin with, but now, you can score that simple DIY starter kit for $120, which saves you $80. 

For the money, you're getting the Ring Alarm base station, a keypad for punching in your code, a motion sensor, a contact sensor for monitoring a door or window, and a range extender. Ring bills it as a good setup for an apartment or condo, but if your space is a little bigger, you can always add additional sensors and devices to your setup a la carte style.

Admittedly, we still have some qualms with Ring about its partnerships with police organizations, but that's more of a concern for the company's video doorbells and its other camera gadgets (and it's worth giving Ring some credit for recent moves to increase transparency about police requests for public footage in the Neighbors app). You'll want to read up on those concerns before adding any of Ring's cameras to your setup (and yep, they'll all sync up with this system as well as you'd expect), but if you're just looking for a simple and affordable layer of security for a small home or apartment, this deal is worth a look.

Read the CNET review of the Ring Alarm home security system.

Amazon

Hop on over to CNET's picks for the best smart scales to smarten up your bathroom, and you'll find the $99 Withings Body Plus listed as the best option for customizability. Not only does it allow you to personalize the main display with usual metrics like weight, body fat, BMI and more, but you can also sync it with Apple Heath or Google Fit to track things like your daily steps. The scale's readings were accurate and consistent when we tested them out, and it supports up to eight separate users, making it a good pick for large families.

For Prime Day, Amazon has the Body Plus smart scale marked down to $70, saving you about thirty bucks. That isn't the best sale we've ever seen, but it's still a few bucks lower than the usual sale price. If you've been eyeing it, now's a good time to pick it up.

Amazon

Ten bucks for a color-changing smart bulb that works well with Alexa and the Google Assistant might sound like par for the course these days -- but consider that the Wyze Bulb Color puts out 1,100 lumens of brightness at full, white light settings. That as much brightness as you'd get from a 75W incandescent bulb, whereas most color-changing smart bulbs top out at 60W levels (about 800 lumens or so). That makes this deal a worthy one if you've been looking to stock up on smart bulbs and want something extra bright.

Amazon

Dash already has one model on our list of the best air fryers for your kitchen -- we loved the value, the way it looked, and the way it cooked, but also noted that it didn't come with digital controls or presets. This model, the Dash Tasti-Crisp, adds those bells and whistles back in, and right now, it's marked down to $64 for Prime Day, which is $16 less than usual.

It isn't hard to find this model on sale, but this is still a better-than-average sale price for it. If you want to give air frying a shot but you don't want to spend too much, this could be a good Prime Day pick.

Ninja

It's not terribly unusual to see Ninja's Foodi Multicookers marked down below $150 (here it was earlier this year), but this Prime Day deal brings the 8-quart, XL-sized Foodi down to that range, which might be pretty tempting if you've got a big family to feed.

So what all can the Foodi do? Aside from the ever-popular air frying mode, the Foodi works as a pressure cooker, a dehydrator, a steamer, a sauté pan, a slow cooker, a sous vide cooker, a countertop oven, a yogurt-maker, and more thanks to a multitude of different cooking settings. At $130 -- or $100 off -- it's a pretty decent time to pick it up.

Amazon

If your kitchen is decked out with black stainless steel appliances and you want a microwave that blends right in, this 1.6 cubic-foot, 1,250-watt model with inverter tech from Toshiba is one of the most powerful free-standing microwaves the company sells, and it's on sale for $34 off during Prime Day, bringing the cost down to $166. That's not quite as good a deal as the holidays last year, when it dropped to $150, but it's close enough for this microwave to merit some consideration.

Vitamix

Vitamix blenders are about as powerful and sophisticated as blenders get, and they don't come cheap. This one, the Vitamix 5200, comes with a 64-ounce. jar, variable speed control, and a seven-year warranty, and it usually retails for over $400. Now, for Prime Day, it's marked down to $300, which is a better-than-average deal for it.


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Ninja's Do-It-All Coffee Maker Is Down to $120 (Save $80)


Ninja's Do-It-All Coffee Maker Is Down to $120 (Save $80)

It can be hard to make the perfect cup of joe to fit everyone's preferences, but with a versatile coffee maker, you can please every coffee drinker in your home. 

If you've got a whole house of caffeine addicts, Ninja's CFP201 DualBrew System might be the simplest way to keep a happy home -- and it's $80 off right now, down to just $120 right now at both Amazon and Best Buy for a limited time.

The clever Ninja coffee station makes a 12-cup pot of classic drip coffee and strong brew for pouring over ice or making lattes and cappuccinos. It also brews K-Cups in case you have any flavored-coffee drinkers or hot chocolate lovers. There are K-Cups made in just about every flavor from every hot beverage producer, so this machine is bound to make at least one thing that everyone in the house likes.

You can easily program the machine to begin brewing before you wake up and then keep it warm until the pot is kicked. It also has a removable 60-ounce water reservoir for easy filling, as well as both a clean function and dishwasher-safe parts so that you can keep your unit spick and span. 

We haven't tested this model but we're generally big fans of the Ninja brand. The DualBrew system gets high marks in buyer reviews on both Amazon and Best Buy. 

Read more:  Best Coffee Subscriptions and Clubs for 2022


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Apple Is Redesigning the Home App


Apple Is Redesigning the Home App

This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET's complete coverage from and about Apple's annual developers conference.

Apple on Monday introduced a newly designed Home app at its annual WWDC developers conference to bring more efficiency and security to the app.

The Home app, which allows you to coordinate smart home devices integrated on Apple's HomeKit platform as well as control those devices with Siri, has been around in largely the same form since 2016. This redesign, though minimal in its changes, is one of the larger updates the app has seen.

Along with new security measures, the app has been reorganized, allowing for new device categories, including climate and lighting, which allow for more efficient navigation. In addition, cameras will appear on the home screen with up to four live feeds running together -- though you can swipe for more.

The new Home app comes ahead of the launch of Matter, the new integration standard that most smart home brands, Apple included, have joined this year.


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Facebook's Updated Values Include 'Meta, Metamates, Me'


Facebook's Updated Values Include 'Meta, Metamates, Me'

Facebook changed its name to Meta in October to reflect its focus on the creation of virtual spaces where people can work, play and socialize in what's known as the metaverse. Now the social media giant is revamping its values.

In a note to Facebook employees, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined six of the company's updated values. The values include move fast, focus on long-term impact, build awesome things, live in the future and be direct and respect your colleagues. The last value is "Meta, Metamates, Me," a reference to the Navy phrase "Ship, shipmate, self." 

"It's about the sense of responsibility we have for our collective success and to each other as teammates. It's about taking care of our company and each other," Zuckerberg writes in the note, which he shared publicly on Facebook on Tuesday. Facebook wrote its values in 2007. 

The social network's rebranding and the company's updated values showcase how Facebook is trying to revamp its battered image as it focuses on what Zuckerberg thinks will be the successor to the mobile internet. The social network has faced criticism from politicians, advocacy groups and others for failing to protect user privacy and combat hate speech and misinformation. Some of Meta's workers are also questioning if the company should be creating new products without fixing all the problems it already has on its social media platform, The New York Times reported in February. Meta will likely have a harder time policing offensive content such as online harassment in the metaverse, which is a problem the company is already grappling with in virtual reality. 

Meanwhile, Meta's problems are still growing.

On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Meta, accusing the company of violating the state's privacy laws by capturing biometric data on tens of millions of Texans without properly obtaining consent. A Meta spokesperson said the "claims are without merit."

On Tuesday, Facebook also announced it would start referring to its News Feed as Feed to reflect the variety of content users see on the platform. 


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