Pokémon Go’s Remote Raid Passes will no longer appear in cheap weekly bundles

If you want to continue raiding remotely on Pokémon Go, you’ll have to get used to paying full price for passes. Niantic has announced that going forward, it’s no longer selling them as part of its weekly one Pokécoin bundle like it’s been doing the past couple of years. The company introduced its cheap weekly bundle offering in the early days of the pandemic when COVID restrictions prohibited people from going out. Shortly after that, it launched Remote Raid Passes, allowing people to play shared raids in their area without having to leave their homes and having to congregate in groups. 

Niantic used to regularly include Remote Raid Passes in its one Pokécoin bundles, but now it’ll cost you 100 Pokécoins for a single pass. To earn coins, you’ll have to take down or defend a gym, or to pay real money for them. Pokémon Go live game director Michael Steranka told Polygon that the company is hoping to “shift the balance back towards the fun of raiding together in-person again.” Niantic has even increased the rewards for in-person raids in an effort to entice you to go out with your friends and play the game like you used to. 

In addition, the company has revealed that it’s adding new social features to the game in the coming months. Niantic has been testing community features on a standalone application for Ingress players over the past few months, allowing them to communicate with each other for raids and other purposes and to find communities in-app. The developer is expected to reveal more details about the capability’s arrival on Pokémon Go at its Lightship conference next week.

520 「掛念你」心思小禮物推介

5 月 20 日的諧音是「我愛你」，所以在網路也被當作情人節看待，有意慶祝的朋友也要來花心思買些小禮物吧。這次 Engadget 便為各位帶來幾款實用的掛繩產品，把電子產品和伴侶的心都牢牢掛在身上，時常都「掛念」對方。…

Canada joins Five Eyes allies in banning Huawei and ZTE 5G telecom gear

Canada is banning 4G and 5G telecom equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, joining its “Five Eyes” allies in doing so. The decision follows a three-year review that was delayed by political tensions with China after Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US warrant. 

“Our government will always protect the safety and security of Canadians and will take any actions necessary to safeguard our critical telecommunications infrastructure,” said Canada’s innovation minister, François-Philippe Champagne, in a press release.

“We’re disappointed but not surprised. We’re surprised it took the government so long to make a decision,” Huawei spokesperson Alykhan Velshi told The Guardian. “We see this as a political decision, one born of political pressure primarily from the United States.”

Two of Canada’s largest wireless providers, Bell and Telus, switched to Ericsson and Nokia equipment in 2020 to build their next-generation 5G networks. However, both operators have some Huawei 5G equipment in place as part of so-called non-standalone 5G networks integrated with previous 4G networks. Those 4G networks were also built using Huawei equipment. Huawei has sold over $700 million in equipment to Canadian operators since 2018, mostly to Bell and Telus. 

Both operators reportedly approached the federal government in the past to ask about compensation from taxpayers for potential removal Huawei or ZTE gear. The CEO of a smaller Northern operator, Iristel, previously said that a requirement to remove existing equipment would be “catastrophic.” 

However, Champagne said that operators will be required to remove any Huawei or ZTE gear at their own expense. Existing 5G equipment must be removed or terminated by June 28, 2024 and any 4G equipment by December 31, 2027, according to the policy statement.

Canada’s Five Eyes intelligence allies, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, have already banned Huawei and ZTE wireless equipment. Canada has faced growing pressure to do the same, over fears it could compromise the security of all five nations, given that China’s laws require state companies to cooperate with intelligence services. 

Microsoft reportedly censors searches for politically sensitive Chinese personalities

You may find it hard to search for people considered politically sensitive in China if you’re using Bing — even if you’re in the United States. The Citizen Lab, a research lab based at the University of Toronton’s Munk School, has analyzed Bing’s autosuggestion system and found that names of Chinese party leaders and dissidents don’t automatically show up like they usually would when you start typing. They’re apparently the second largest category of names censored by autosuggest, next to names related to pornography and eroticism.

The lab found that the censorship applies to names typed in Chinese characters and in English letters. Plus, it affects not just Bing, but also the Windows Start menu search and DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing’s autosuggestion system. Perhaps more importantly, it applies to various regions in the world, including China, the US and Canada. Some of the most prominent examples of names Microsoft won’t autocomplete are President Xi Jinping, human rights activist Liu Xiaobo and the Tank Man, which is the nickname for the unidentified Chinese man who famously stood in front of the tanks leaving Tiananmen Square.

Last year, Microsoft caught flak after reports came out that it blocked searches for Tank Man in countries that include the US, France and Singapore. Microsoft attributed it to an “accidental human error” when it addressed the issue. Citizen Lab’s senior research associate Jeffrey Knockel called censorship rules bleeding from one part of the world into another a “danger” when internet platforms have users around the world, The Wall Street Journal reports. He added: “If Microsoft had never engaged in Chinese censorship operations in the first place, there would be no way for them to spill into other regions.”