The best PC games for 2023

So how do you categorize a beast like gaming on the PC? With decades of titles to pluck from (and the first port of call for most indie titles, too), there’s so much to choose from. Gaming on your PC adds the benefits of (nearly always flawless) backwa…

The EQS SUV is the height of Mercedes EV luxury

Mercedes isn’t tip-toeing into electrification. The automaker put together an aggressive plan and it shows no sign of slowing down. That’s why every few months it seems like there’s another Mercedes-Benz EV being announced.In all this removal of gas-po…

Twitter Blue perks now include higher ranking replies and 60-minute video uploads

Twitter Blue has enabled new perks for subscribers including “prioritized rankings in conversations” and video uploads up to 60 minutes in length, according to an updated feature list spotted by TechCrunch. Both features were promised by Elon Musk last month when he said Blue subscribers who pay $8 per month would get “priority in replies, mentions & search” and the ability to post long videos. 

Reply priority is now in effect, with the support page stating that “this feature prioritizes your replies on Tweets that you interact with.” That seems to be the case on severaltweets I looked at, with Twitter Blue subscribers (many with few followers) appearing as the top replies. It’s not clear if users paying $8 per month will always appear at the top in replies, or whether or factors are also used.

Twitter support said earlier that priority rankings will “help lower the visibility of scams, spam and bots.” However, some users have expressed concern that the new system will lower the experience for non-paying users, or that paid priority might help spammers, trolls and others amplify their messages. 

The new video rules will boost length from 10 minutes and 512MB to 60 minutes and 2GB at up to 1080p resolution, though only on the web — the 10-minute rule still applies to Android and iOS users. Twitter also notes that it may “modify or adapt your original video for distribution, syndication, publication or broadcast by us and our partners” or change the bitrate/resolution depending on a viewer’s internet speeds. 

Musk said that Twitter will eventually pay creators for uploaded videos, noting that it might even exceed the 55 percent cut that YouTube offers. However, it hasn’t said whether that will be done with ads or other means. It’s also not clear how it may address piracy issues, given that much of its moderation team has been let go or quit. 

The Morning After: YouTube is the new home of NFL Sunday Ticket

YouTube is ready for some more football. The streaming service has snagged the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket package, which offers access to out-of-market games that air on Fox and CBS each Sunday. DirecTV, the current home of Sunday Ticket, has held the rights since 1994, but the bundle will move to Google’s streaming service next season. YouTube and the NFL didn’t announce the terms of the deal, but according to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube will pay $2 billion per year in a seven-year pact – around $500 million more per season than DirecTV is paying.

Having exclusive rights to a bundle with many out-of-market NFL games should draw even more users to YouTube. Live sport coverage is turning into the next battleground for streaming. Amazon Prime Video has an 11-year deal to stream Thursday Night Football games that started this season. Meanwhile, Apple is pushing further into live sports as well, with a 10-year deal to stream every Major League Soccer game via Apple TV starting in 2023.

– Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

The best shows to binge-watch over the holidays in 2022

Catch up on some of these excellent shows.

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Apple

2021 was a bit of a reset for the entertainment industry, with more of us returning to theaters and plenty of must-watch TV shows hitting streaming networks. If you’ve gotten used to catching up on everything on your couch, don’t worry — there’s still plenty to watch over the holidays. We’ve covered HBO Max, Disney Plus, Netflix and the rest.

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How to permanently delete all your Facebook and Meta-owned accounts

Breaking up with Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp can be complicated.

‘Tis the season to be done with social media. For Facebook, Instagram and other Meta-run services, deleting an account entirely isn’t necessarily straightforward, either, with no single centralized way to delete all your Meta-associated accounts. We run through how to download all your data and digitally clean up after yourself, just in case you need something fun to do over the holidays.

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The Lastpass hack was worse than the company first reported

Because of course it was.

Password manager app Lastpass announced on Thursday the most recent hack was much more damaging than initially reported. The attackers made off with users’ password vaults in some cases – that is, entire collections of encrypted personal data, if not the immediate method to unlock them. “No customer data was accessed during the August 2022 incident,” LastPass CEO Karim Toubba, explained. However, some of the app’s source code was lifted and then used to spearphish a Lastpass employee into giving up their access credentials, those keys were then used to decrypt and copy off, “some storage volumes within the cloud-based storage service.” That data could include basic customer account information like company names, billing, email and IP addresses and telephone numbers.

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Tesla reveals an angular $300 wireless phone charger

I preferred the flamethrower.

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Tesla

The latest baffling peripheral from Tesla has nothing to do with its cars – even if it’s inspired by the boxy angles of the Cybertruck. It’s a wireless charger that can juice multiple compatible devices, with a suede-ish finish and a tiny Tesla logo on the edge. It’s also $300. You could buy a new phone for that, or subscribe to Twitter Blue for over two years.

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@ElonJet returns to Twitter with a 24-hour delay on the plane’s location

Last week, Twitter banned Jack Sweeney’s @ElonJet account that tracked Elon Musk’s private jet, then unveiled a new policy against sharing live locations shortly afterward. Now, Sweeney is back with a new account called @ElonJetNexDay that still tracks Musk’s aircraft, but adds a 24-hour delay to the location, TechCrunch has reported.

It appears to be Sweeney’s effort conform to Twitter’s new rules, which state that it’s permissible to share “publicly available information after a reasonable time has elapsed, so that the individual is no longer at risk for physical harm.” The account has only been online for a short time, however, so it remains to be seen whether Twitter will see it the same way

Sweeney and his @ElonJet account have been on Musk’s radar for a while. In January, a few months before Musk announced a deal to buy Twitter, he offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account. Sweeney rejected the overture, instead asking for $50,000. As CNBC notes, @ElonJet had more than half a million followers. 

The ban came about after Elon Musk said a car carrying his son X Æ A-12 was followed by a stalker in Los Angeles. Twitter soon told Sweeney that his account “broke Twitter rules,” though didn’t specify which ones. Musk later said that “legal action” would be taken against Sweeney and “organizations who supported harm to my family.”

Sweeney’s @ElonJet tracker bot now has 67,000 followers on Mastadon and tracks jets belonging to Musk and others on Facebook and Instagram. The bans are part of a large amount of Twitter drama around Musk that recently culminated in one of Musk’s famous Twitter polls, with a decisive number of users voting that he should step down as CEO of Twitter. 

Meta settles Cambridge Analytica class-action lawsuit for $725 million

Fallout from Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal continues over four years after it was first exposed. Parent company Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit accusing Facebook of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access users’ private information, Reuters reports. 

The settlement resolves user claims that Facebook violated federal and state laws by allowing the company’s preferred vendors and partners to harvest their personal data without consent. It’s reportedly the largest ever in a US data privacy class action and the most Meta has ever paid to resolve a class-action lawsuit. 

“This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a statement. 

Meta admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which is still subject to approval by a federal judge. “Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program,” Meta said in a statement, adding that the settlement “was in the best interest of our community and shareholders.” 

Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, worked for Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaigns. It accessed the personal data of up to 87 million people by an app (thisisyourdigitallife) and used the information gathered to target individuals with personally tailored messages. The scandal was exposed by The New York Times and The Guardian in 2018, thanks in large part to whistleblower Christopher Wylie.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion fine following a Federal Trade Commission investigation and $100 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission claims. It also paid £500,000 (about $644,000) in fines to the UK, a pittance compared to what it would have paid had the GDPR been in place when the scandal occurred. 

Facebook hasn’t put Cambridge Analytica behind it yet, either. The company is still fighting a lawsuit by the Washington DC attorney general, as well as a number of state attorneys general. 

低至 38 折入手，Logitech《英雄聯盟》特別版產品

來到年末，Logitech 正於 Amazon 上推出大量電競裝備的特賣，這次再為大家精選了數款較香港本地價格便宜的產品供大家選購，當中最為亮眼的便是三款《英雄聯盟》聯乘產品都正以半價以下發售，即使比起它們原本的款式亦是十分便宜，絕對值得入手。…