Android phone location data is about to get a lot more accurate

In the coming months, Android phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platforms will be able to measure location data to within one meter (approximately three feet). Qualcomm will use long-term collaborator Trimble’s RTX GNSS correction services platform to let Android smartphone makers, service providers and app developers harness more accurate location info.

Trimble claims it and Qualcomm will improve Android location accuracy by five times compared with current capabilities. The tech, which will be available in the second quarter of this year, will enable features like lane-level guidance for car navigation systems, Trimble said. It might also help users find their ride-sharing driver more easily and designate more precise destinations.

It’s unclear whether existing phones will be able to use more precise location data with this tech. Engadget has contacted Trimble and Qualcomm for clarification.

The prospect of more accurate location data naturally raises questions about privacy. However, you’ll still be able to switch off location tracking system wide and for individual apps and delete your location history from the Android OS.

Microsoft and Okta are investigating potential attacks by the Lapsus$ hacking group

Microsoft and identity authentication company Okta are both investigating potential attacks that may have been carried out by the South American hacking group Lapsus$. The collective claims to have stolen source code for Bing, Cortana and internal Microsoft projects from a server.

Lapsus$ released a torrent on Monday that’s said to contain 37GB of source code for around 250 projects, according to BleepingComputer. The group claims the data includes 90 percent of Bing’s source code and 45 percent of Cortana and Bing Maps code. Other affected projects seem to include websites, mobile apps and web-based infrastructure.

The leaks reportedly contain internal emails and documentation related to published mobile apps. The torrent is not believed to include code for desktop software such as Windows or Microsoft Office. 

““We are aware of the claims and are investigating,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget.

The same group has also targeted Okta, though the company says it has not yet found evidence of a new breach following an incident in January.

“In late January 2022, Okta detected an attempt to compromise the account of a third party customer support engineer working for one of our subprocessors,” an Okta spokesperson told Engadget. “The matter was investigated and contained by the subprocessor. We believe the screenshots shared online are connected to this January event. Based on our investigation to date, there is no evidence of ongoing malicious activity beyond the activity detected in January.”

Lapsus$ posted screenshots of what it claimed was Okta’s internal systems. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the hackers claimed not to have accessed or obtained data on Okta itself and were focused on the company’s customers, which include Cloudflare, Grubhub, Peloton, Sonos, T-Mobile and Engadget parent Yahoo.

The hacking group has attacked other high-profile targets in recent weeks, including NVIDIA, Samsung and Ubisoft. NVIDIA confirmed that hackers obtained company data in February, while Lapsus$ claimed to have leaked 190GB of Samsung data.

Update 3/22 8:45AM ET: Added Microsoft’s statement.

Citizen may test an on-demand private security service in Chicago

Citizen will reportedly test an on-demand private security service in Chicago as part of a partnership with Securitas. The crime alert app and security company may offer a check-in service (in which agents could follow up with the victim of a crime to make sure they’re OK) and scheduled private security, according to Motherboard.

The app previously tested a rapid-response security service (not unlike a private police force) in Los Angeles with Citizen-branded cars. Security agents responded to calls from Citizen employees. Motherboard‘s sources suggested the response time was fairly slow, which may have led to the company taking a different approach in Chicago.

Citizen provides push alerts to users based on incident reports it puts together from police scanners. It also runs a $20 per month subscription service that connects users with agents who can direct emergency services to their location and notify contacts if it’s not safe for them to call 911 directly.

The move suggests Citizen is still interested in offering private security despite its questionable history and stating it wouldn’t run its own on-demand force (though it didn’t rule out partnerships). Apple and Google removed a previous version of the app, which was called Vigilante, from their stores for encouraging vigilantism. 

Last year, it was reported that Citizen’s CEO offered users a $30,000 bounty for tracking down an alleged arson suspect, but the app identified the wrong person as the culprit. Police apprehended the man but quickly released him for a lack of evidence. They later arrested another suspect in connection with the wildfires.

Match has a new dating app for single parents

Today is National Single Parents Day and Match has unveiled a new app designed to help such folks find love. The aim of Stir is to help single parents meet, chat with and date folks who also have kids.

Match says there are around 20 million single parents in the US who are often underserved by many dating apps. After you answer questions on personality and values, Stir will show you potential matches.

Once you find someone you have a spark with, you’ll be able to arrange a date. Match is aware that single parents might find it hard to coordinate their schedules and find a time that works for both of them. The app has a feature called Stir Time, which allows you to display your available “me time.” Hopefully, that will line up with your prospective date’s calendar. Stir Time schedules can be displayed on your profile.

“Having kids shouldn’t be a dealbreaker when dating,” Match Group’s Dinh Thi Bui said in a statement. “We’re dedicated to giving single parents a dating experience where they are celebrated and feel like they can be themselves. With that, our hope is that they can truly focus on having a personal life beyond navigating parenthood.”

Stir is available on the App Store and the Google Play Store.

Fortnite’s new season drops building from its main mode

Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 2 is underway and this time around Epic has temporarily ditched one of the game’s core mechanics: building. Your harvesting tool will still destroy objects, but you won’t receive any wood, stone or metal to create a temporary base or instantly build a barrier to protect yourself from enemy fire.

Fortnite removes building
Epic Games

Building will still be available in competitive, creative and Save the World modes — it’s only gone in casual queues for now. It seems that restoring builds will be a key part of this season’s storyline (at least in the early going).

To make up for the lack of building (and last season’s excellent web shooters being removed), Epic Games has added some more movement mechanics. The default run is now faster, and you’ll be able to sprint even more quickly for short bursts. If you sprint at or slide into a door, you’ll bust it open. Also new is the ability to mantle onto ledges that are just a little too high to land on with your feet.

In addition, players now have an overshield on top of their health and regular shield, giving them 50 extra shield points. When an enemy attacks, your overshield will be depleted first. Unlike health and shields, your overshield will recharge by itself.

Many, many other battle royales have popped up in the wake of PUBG. Building was one of the key features that helped Epic set Fortnite apart and make it one of the most popular games on the planet. Disabling builds for now gives Epic a chance to gauge player reactions, possibly with an eye on offering a permanent build-free mode.

Elsewhere, an Armored Battle Bus is on the way to Resistance-occupied points of interest, while there are blimps packed with loot at Imagined Order-controlled sites. As is typically the case, Epic has vaulted some weapons and items while adding new ones and unvaulting some others. It refreshed the map with some new areas too.

Until April 3rd, Epic and Xbox are donating all their proceeds from Fortnite to Ukraine relief efforts. That includes sales of V-Bucks, gifted Battle Passes and Fortnite Crew subscriptions.

Amazon has a big sale on Razer gaming peripherals and accessories

Several Razer peripherals are on sale on Amazon, including the Kishi gaming controller for iOS and Android. The Android version is $50 off at $40. It’s best to make sure the “for Android” option is selected — the Xbox-branded variant is also on sale, but it’s $55. The iOS model has been discounted as well, but the savings are much more modest. The price has dropped from $100 to $80.

Buy Razer Gaming Inputs and Accessories at Amazon

The Razer Kishi is a great option for playing games on the go without having to resort to touch controls or a Bluetooth controller. It works with many games that run natively on your device as well as cloud gaming services like Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The controller plugs into your phone’s USB-C or Lightning port and holds it in place. There’s passthrough charging support, so you can keep your device’s battery topped up while you play.

Elsewhere, Razer’s BlackWidow V3 mechanical keyboard is on sale. At $60, it’s $40 off the regular price. The peripheral has Razer’s clicky green switches and fully programmable keys, but since it’s a tenkeyless model, it doesn’t have a number pad at the side.

You can also save on the Razer Viper Ultimate, which is currently $70, almost half off the usual price of $130. The ambidextrous wireless mouse has a battery life of up to 70 hours, low-latency HyperSpeed tech, a 20,000+ DPI optical sensor, Razer’s optical switches and eight programmable buttons. We picked it as our favorite gaming mouse for everyday use.

Buy Razer Gaming Inputs and Accessories at Amazon

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Brazil reverses its Telegram ban after just two days

A judge on Brazil’s Supreme Court has reversed a ban on Telegram, two days after blocking the messaging app for ignoring orders. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the company missed the court’s emails.

“We complied with an earlier court decision in late February and responded with a suggestion to send future takedown requests to a dedicated email address,” Durov wrote on Telegram on Friday. “Unfortunately, our response must have been lost, because the Court used the old general-purpose email address in further attempts to reach us. As a result, we missed its decision in early March that contained a follow-up takedown request. Luckily, we have now found and processed it, delivering another report to the Court today.”

Durov added that Telegram will appoint a representative in Brazil and set up a framework so it can address requests more promptly. According to The New York Times, Telegram complied with the court’s demands by taking down classified information posted on President Jair Bolsonaro’s channel and deleting the accounts of a Bolsonaro supporter who was allegedly spreading misinformation. The court then reversed the ban.

Telegram reacted so swiftly that the ban (which was imposed by a judge who is running multiple investigations into Bolsonaro and his allies for spreading misinformation) was never actually in effect. The court order gave Apple, Google, ISPs and phone providers five days to block the app.

Durov and his team made some other changes to the app in Brazil in the hope of avoiding another ban. Officials are said to be concerned about misinformation in the lead up to the general election in October. As such, Telegram will start promoting verified information and labeling posts containing falsehoods.

It will also monitor the 100 most popular channels in the country. Telegram says those account for 95 percent of views of public posts. The company has typically taken a hands-off approach to content moderation. The far-right Bolsonaro has used it as a means of communication with his 1.2 million followers after the likes of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube took a firmer stance against misinformation.

Brazil has become a key market for Telegram. According to data from Sensor Tower, Brazilians have installed Telegram more than 84 million times. Between January 1st and March 17th (the day before the court issued the ban), Brazilian iOS and Android users downloaded the app an estimated 4.9 million times.

Humble Bundle unveils Stand with Ukraine charity game bundle

Humble Bundle has put together a charity game bundle with all proceeds going to humanitarian crisis relief efforts in Ukraine. For a minimum donation of $40, you can pick up more than 120 games, books, apps, game asset packs and other goodies worth a total of over $2,500 through the Stand with Ukraine bundle.

The bundle includes Back 4 Blood, Metro Exodus, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Max Payne 3, Sunset Overdrive, PGA Tour 2K21, Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons and Superhot. You’ll also get rulebooks for Pathfinder and Warhammer, one year of access to GameMaker Studio 2 Creator and a volume of the first six issues of graphic novel series The Boys (which Amazon turned into a Prime Video show).

Creators on Itch.io also rallied to put together a bundle of almost 1,000 games, books, magazines, comics and game dev tools. The Bundle for Ukraine raised $6.3 million from almost 450,000 contributors.

Humble Bundle last week stopped sales in Belarus and Russia, which invaded Ukraine last month. Other notable companies in the gaming space have stopped selling games or shut down services in Russia (and in many cases Belarus). Those include Niantic with Pokémon Go, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Bungie, Ubisoft, Take-Two, CD Projekt Red, EA, Activision Blizzard and Epic.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can claim 30 days of free access to Paramount+

Nine years after it first emerged a live-action Halo TV series was in the works, the show is only a few days away from premiering on Paramount+. To celebrate its debut, Microsoft is giving Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers a free 30-day trial to the streaming service via Perks.

The offer will be available on March 23rd, the day before Halo arrives. There’s a catch, though. Given that only one installment of the nine-episode season is scheduled to drop each week, you might need to subscribe to Paramount+ to watch the entire season (unless you activate the offer a bit later). Paramount+ costs $5 per month with ads or $10 per month to go commercial free and gain access to a feed from your local live CBS station.

Earlier this week, Paramount+ released the final trailer for the show, which has a separate plot from the games and is already renewed for a second season. Along with some story beats, the two-minute clip shows an Elite with an Energy Sword and several shots of Master Chief in action.

Twitter is testing a way to create audio clips in Spaces

Some Twitter Spaces hosts are now able to create clips from recorded discussions as part of a test. A small number of hosts on iOS have access to the feature for now, though some Android and web users will be able to try it in the near future.

Hosts will be able to clip up to 30 seconds of audio. They can, of course, tweet out that snippet. All iOS users can check out the clips.

All hosts have been able to record their Spaces since January. Being able to tweet small snippets of their discussions could let them give other Twitter users some insight into what their Spaces are all about, and perhaps expand their audiences.

Clubhouse has offered its own clipping feature since September. Users of that platform have been able to clip shareable 30-second chunks of audio from public rooms.

Twitter might be missing a trick by only allowing hosts to clip audio from Spaces. All Twitch and YouTube users can clip highlights, meaning that viewers can help draw attention to a creator with snippets of their videos. However, given that Twitter’s only testing its clipping tool for now, it could open up the feature to listeners in the future.