Watch Blue Origin’s fifth crewed New Shepard launch at 9AM ET

After delaying the planned launch from May 20th due to an issue with backup systems, Blue Origin is finally ready to send New Shepard on its next journey to the edge of space. The NS-21 mission is New Shepard’s 21st flight and its fifth with passengers on board. It takes place today at 9AM ET and you can watch it live below. The stream will start an hour before launch.

The passengers include electrical engineer and former NASA test lead Katya Echazarreta, who will become the first Mexican-born woman and youngest American woman to fly to space. She’s making the trip as part of Space for Humanity’s sponsored Citizen Astronaut Program. 

Civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha, meanwhile, will become the second Brazilian to reach space. The other passengers are business jet pilot Hamish Harding, co-founder of private equity firm Insight Equity Victor Vescovo, Dream Variation Ventures co-founder Jaison Robinson and investor Evan Dick, who was part of the NS-19 mission in December.

Blue Origin’s first crewed flight took place last July, with founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark and, at the time, the youngest and oldest people to travel above the Kármán line on board. William Shatner became the oldest person to reach space on the second crewed mission. Subsequent flights took place in December and March.

Amazon’s consumer chief Dave Clark is departing the company

Dave Clark, who headed Amazon’s worldwide consumer operations, announced he is resigning after 23 years at the company. The former Kentucky warehouse manager was in charge of overseeing the company’s retail business as well as its warehouse and shipping operations, which expanded due to the pandemic. Clark tweeted the announcement today along with an email sent to his team, writing that he had discussed “transitioning out of Amazon” for some time with family and those close to him. Clark was promoted to his current role only last year, following the departure of longer-serving executive Jeff Wilke.

Clark’s resignation comes as the company is dealing with its first quarterly loss in seven years, a unionization push and more warehouse space than it needs. Clark was in charge of the company’s logistic operations, which he expanded as demand soared during the pandemic. The company reported in April that excess warehouse space would contribute to $10 billion in excess costs for the first half of 2022.

The executive regularly defended Amazon’s warehouse operations, even amid criticism of its unsafe working conditions. After John Oliver investigated Amazon warehouses in an episode of Last Week Tonight, Clark tweeted that Oliver was “wrong on Amazon” and that the company was “proud of the safe, quality work environment” of its facilities.

Clark’s resignation will be effective in July, according to a regulatory filing by Amazon. So far a successor has not been named.

5G voice calls arrive for some T-Mobile customers in Salt Lake City and Portland

Telecoms have been slow to hop on the 5G bandwagon — your smartphone normally relies on 4G or LTE for old-fashioned phone calls. But T-Mobile is venturing forward by launching its commercial Voice over 5G service today in limited areas of Portland and …

Hyundai says it’s the first to pilot a large autonomous ship across the ocean

Autonomous ships just took a small but important step forward. Hyundai’s Avikus subsidiary says it has completed the world’s first autonomous navigation of a large ship across the ocean. The Prism Courage (pictured) left Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico on May 1st, and used Avikus’ AI-powered HiNAS 2.0 system to steer the vessel for half of its roughly 12,427-mile journey to the Boryeong LNG Terminal in South Korea’s western Chungcheong Province. The Level 2 self-steering tech was good enough to account for other ships, the weather and differing wave heights.

The autonomy spared the crew some work, of course, but it may also have helped the planet. Avikus claims HiNAS’ optimal route planning improved the Prism Courage’s fuel efficiency by about seven percent, and reduced emissions by five percent.

As you might have guessed, the feat didn’t quite usher in an era of zero-crew shipping. The other half of the trip still required human navigation, and most of the route was in the open sea. It would have been tougher for an autonomous system to control the entire voyage, particularly in ports where docking and packed waterways would pose additional challenges.

Avikus plans to commercialize HiNAS 2.0 by the end of the year. And even if fully AI-driven shipping is nowhere on the horizon, the company hopes its Level 2 autonomy will mitigate crew shortages, improve safety and reduce the environmental impact of seaborne transportation. The firm also expects to bring this navigation to leisure boats, not just giant merchant ships. Your next pleasure ride aboard a cabin cruiser or yacht might not always require someone at the helm.

FTC says victims of crypto scams have lost more than $1 billion since 2021

The world of crypto continues to draw scam artists and fraud. People have reported losing a combined total of over $1 billion due to crypto scams since the beginning of 2021, according to an FTC report released today. From January 2021 through March of this year, more than 46,000 individuals filed a crypto-related fraud report with the agency. The median individual reported loss in these reports was $2,600.

Perhaps ironically, the most common coins used in scams are also the most widely used, as well as a top stablecoin. A total of 70 percent of scams used Bitcoin as the payment method, followed by Tether (10 percent) and Ether (9 percent). Ether is the prime currency of choice for NFTs, a relatively new crypto market where fraudsters and hackers have thrived.

Crypto investment scams were the most common type of scam reported to the FTC, accounting for an estimated $575 million in losses. Normally these scams target amateur investors by promising them large returns in exchange for an initial investment.

“Investment scammers claim they can quickly and easily get huge returns for investors. But those crypto ‘investments’ go straight to a scammer’s wallet,” wrote the FTC’s Emma Fletcher in a blog post.

Romance scams also account for a large slice of reported scams, totaling $185 million in losses. Many of these scammers reach individuals by social media or dating apps. A type of dating app scam known as “pig slaughtering” — where criminals build a fake relationship with a victim in order to con them into investing in crypto — has become more common, reported CoinTelegraph.

It’s important to note that the FTC report is only a small snapshot of how much crypto fraud has truly occurred, since the agency is relying on direct reports submitted by victims. An FTC paper estimated that less than five percent of fraud victims reported it to a government entity, and likely an even smaller number report to the FTC. As crypto becomes more popular, the number of scams have also increased. Blockchain platform Chainanalysis estimated that illicit addresses received over $14 billion in crypto last year, nearly twice the amount in 2020.

Samsung app hints at a Galaxy Watch 5 Pro

Samsung might tweak its Galaxy Watch strategy the next time around. 9to5Google and The Verge report the company’s latest beta Health app listed both a Galaxy Watch 5 and, unusually, a Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. There’s no mention of a Galaxy Watch 5 Classic. While the listings don’t necessarily spell the end of the sporty-looking Classic design, they do suggest Samsung is rethinking its high-end smartwatch.

Just what the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro would look like isn’t clear. Well-known tipster Ice Universe has hinted Samsung might drop the rotating bezel, and that the wristwear might use a light-but-strong titanium case and scratch-resistant sapphire glass. While those could add to the price, they could also give the new timepiece a more upscale look even as they improve its durability.

The Pro is expected to run Wear OS like its predecessor. Although there’s no rumored release date, the Galaxy Watch 4 arrived last August. We wouldn’t be shocked to see the Watch 5 family arrive in a similar timeframe. If so, the Pixel Watch might not be your only choice for a posh Google-powered smartwatch in late summer.

Mozilla made a Firefox plugin for offline translation

Mozilla has created a translation plugin for Firefox that works offline. Firefox Translations will need to download some files the first time you convert text in a specific language. However, it will be able to use your system’s resources to handle the translation, rather than sending the information to a data center for cloud processing.

The plugin emerged as a result of Mozilla’s work with the European Union-funded Project Bergamot. Others involved include the University of Edinburgh, Charles University, University of Sheffield and University of Tartu. The goal was to develop neural machine tools to help Mozilla create an offline translation option. “The engines, language models and in-page translation algorithms would need to reside and be executed entirely in the user’s computer, so none of the data would be sent to the cloud, making it entirely private,” Mozilla said.

One of the big limitations of the plugin as things stand is that it can only handle translations between English and 12 other languages, according to TechCrunch. For now, Firefox Translations supports Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian Bokmal and Nynorsk, Persian, Portuguese and Russian.

Mozilla and its partners on the project have created a training pipeline through which volunteers can assist out by helping train new models so more languages can be added. They’re looking for feedback on existing models too, so Firefox Translations is very much a work in progress.

For the time being, though, the plugin can’t hold a candle to the 133 languages that Google Translate supports. Apple and Google both have mobile apps that can handle offline translations as well.

On the surface, it’s a little odd that a browser, which is by definition used to access the web, would need an offline translation option. But translating text on your device and avoiding the need to transfer it to and from a data center could be a boon for privacy and security.

New York State passes a right-to-repair bill

New York has just passed the digital fair repair act (Assembly Bill A7006B), making it one of just a few states in the US to do so. The bill, which was introduced in April 2021, passed the senate on June 1st and passed assembly today. It’s now headed to the governor for signing (or veto), and will take effect a year after it becomes law.

The act, titled “Digital Fair Repair Act,” will require OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to “make diagnostic and repair information for digital electronic parts and equipment available to independent repair providers and consumers if such parts and repair information are also available to OEM authorized repair providers.” That means companies can no longer dictate where you can bring your devices to get them repaired by limiting the access to components or diagnostic information.

If a part is no longer available to the OEM, it will not need to make the same part available to everyone. For things that require security-related locks or authorizations, the OEM has to, “on fair and reasonable terms,” supply the tools or documentation needed to access or reset such devices “through appropriate secure release systems.”

The amended version of the bill also states that the proposed requirements will apply to “products with a value over ten dollars” and that OEMs or authorized repair providers don’t have to make available any parts, tools or documentation if the intended use is for modification of the products. It also excludes public safety communications equipment and “home appliances with digital electronics embedded within them” from the act. Given the way companies have been trending towards making smart fridges, washing machines and more, this could potentially be an enormous loophole or at the very least exclude a large number of products.

Massachusetts previously passed its own Digital Right to Repair Act, which covered parts or machines containing microprocessors. The state has recently expanded that to include connected automobiles. Meanwhile, the California state Senate introduced its own right to repair bill in February, which appears to have bipartisan support. 

Coinbase is retracting job offers amid hiring freeze

Coinbase isn’t just freezing new hires as it grapples with a rough cryptocurrency market. Protocolsays Coinbase is now rescinding some of its already-accepted job offers. The company determined that it needed to take “more stringent measures” to slow its growth and limit expansion to the most important segments. This will improve the company’s recovery from the tumultuous crypto market, Chief People Officer LJ Brock said.

Brock added that the firm would extend its hiring freeze for as long as necessary, and that the pause included “backfills” (that is, replacements) for all but the most essential roles. Coinbase is creating a talent hub to help place affected candidates and workers, and has promised to use its severance policy to soften the blow.

The company has reeled from a mix of volatile crypto prices and optimistic hiring. In its first quarter, Coinbase saw its revenue fall 27 percent year-to-year, and by half from the previous three months. Combine that with higher expenses from a 2021 hiring spree and Coinbase was faced with a $430 million loss even before a crypto price plunge earlier in May. Its stock value has also tumbled by 75 percent in the past six months.

This isn’t the only well-known technology company slowing down. Meta, Uber and others are also limiting hires and trimming costs amid market uncertainty. However, Coinbase’s moves are tied to the very nature of the tech it depends on — its business might only stabilize when crypto does.

Survival horror game ‘The Callisto Protocol’ will arrive on December 2nd

The Callisto Protocol, a survival horror game from Dead Space creator Glen Schofield has a release date. It’s coming to PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 2nd. The date was revealed in a trailer that offers a first look at the gory, atmospheric terrors the game has in store.

The trailer evokes a similar feeling of dread as the Dead Space series. Schofield says his team put a lot of work into the lighting and other elements to make The Callisto Protocol seem suitably creepy.

Players will take on the guise of Jacob Lee (played by Josh Duhamel), an inmate at a prison on Jupiter’s so-called “dead moon” of Callisto. Jacob is thrust into a fight for survival when guards and fellow inmates start mutating into monsters called Biophage. You’ll wield a gravity weapon called the GRP (which was intended for use by the prison’s guards. Schofield says you’ll be able to freeze a charging enemy or launch the creatures into environmental hazards.

The game is in development at Schofield’s Striking Distance Studio, a subsidiary of PUBG owner Krafton. Originally, The Callisto Protocol was supposed to tie into the PUBG universe, but Schofield said last month his game is now a separate entity.

You’ll get another look at The Callisto Protocol next Thursday, as the Summer Game Fest showcase will feature a gameplay demo. Meanwhile, EA is working on a remake of the original Dead Space, which is set to arrive on January 27th.