Tuesday’s top tech news: The law comes for Bankman-Fried

Apple’s 10th-gen iPad is a bit of an enigma, a mix of newer design and technology with older features and limitations. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the accessory situation, where the 10th-gen iPad uses Apple’s older Pencil instead of the model used with the iPad Air, iPad Mini, and iPad Pro and the bafflingly expensive and limited Magic Keyboard Folio.

Fortunately, where there are frustrations, there are opportunities, and Logitech has swooped in to grab them. The company has released a Crayon stylus and Combo Touch keyboard case for the 10th-gen iPad that manage to do a better job than Apple’s devices while costing considerably less money to boot.

The US government says it was fraud from the jump. The complaint made public today by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has some hair-raising details — and if it’s right, Sam Bankman-Fried hasn’t been telling the truth for quite some time. According to the complaint, Bankman-Fried operated Alameda Research and FTX as a common enterprise, for instance. This complaint is civil.

In a press conference today, US attorney Damian Williams characterized Alameda Research and FTX as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”

watchOS 9.2 started rolling out today along with the iOS 16.2 update, and with it comes two new running features: Automatic Track Detection and Race Routes. The former uses Apple Maps and GPS to detect the exact lane of a track you’re running on, while the latter lets you race against your past self on your favorite routes. Additionally, the Apple Watch Ultra can now get up to 17 hours in Low Power Mode during multisport activities.

Automatic Track Detection can tell whenever you arrive at any standard 400-meter outdoor track. Runners will be prompted to select the lane at the start of an Outdoor Run workout. (If you have to run to the track itself, you’ll be prompted during the workout after arriving.) During track workouts, you’ll also be able to receive lap alerts. If the watch isn’t able to detect the track for whatever reason, users can manually submit that information later in the Fitness app.

PlayStation’s new 2022 Wrap-Up is available now, giving you a look at things like your personal playtime and some accomplishments from the broader PlayStation community.

The recap is broken into four main sections: total playtime, top games, trophies earned, and PlayStation Plus. Within each section, not only will you see your own stats but also community statistics for some of PlayStation’s biggest games of the year, including Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök. The recap also reveals that players were absolute terrors in Stray, with 1 billion meows and 12 million “things ruined.” (I admit to contributing significantly to those numbers.)

Apple is planning to let users install alternative app stores on iOS, according to a report from Bloomberg. The shift would be a remarkable change from the company, which has famously only allowed iPhone and iPad users to download apps from the App Store.

The plans are reportedly being spurred on by the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is meant to enact “rules for digital gatekeepers to ensure open markets” when its restrictions become a requirement in 2024, according to a press release.

The esoteric indie title Kentucky Route Zero will be available Tuesday on iOS and Android as part of Netflix’s suite of mobile games. The narrative-focused game seems like one that will lend itself well to a mobile format, and after a more than six-month wait since publisher Annapurna Interactive said Kentucky Route Zero would be coming to phones, you can now get lost in its weird world from the smartphone in your pocket.

Kentucky Route Zero, from developer Cardboard Computer, is difficult to describe. It’s not so much a game as a magical realism story that you experience in an interactive form. I played it for the first time when the game’s final episode released after years of development, and I’ve never tried anything like it before or since. My colleague Andrew Webster sums it all up well, and if it helps, this trailer of the “TV edition” for consoles gives you some idea of what you’re in for.

Apple’s latest iOS 16.2 update is now rolling out and includes a number of new and improved features for iPhone users. iPhone 14 Pro owners will benefit from improved always-on display settings, which let users turn off the mode’s wallpaper and notifications if they’re distracting. Other new features include end-to-end iCloud encryption, the Apple Music Sing karaoke mode, and much more.

End-to-end iCloud encryption is being branded as Advanced Data Protection in iOS 16.2 and means data like Notes, iCloud backups, and Photos are now protected with end-to-end encryption. The protection covers 23 “data categories” now, up from 14, and includes device backups, messages backups, iCloud Drive, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Safari bookmarks, Siri Shortcuts, Voice Memos, and Wallet Passes.

Netflix is getting a little experimental in the new year. The streaming service will be releasing its latest crime anthology, Kaleidoscope, on January 1st — and the latest trailer shows off just how intense of a heist it really is, with a few billion dollars on the line.

While Netflix has no shortage of crime and heist shows, what makes this one interesting is how it’s structured; the show is nonlinear, designed so that you can watch the episodes — which encompass a story spanning around 25 years — in any order. “All viewers will eventually see all episodes, but the order in which they watch the episodes will affect their viewpoint on the story, the characters, and the questions and answers at the heart of the heist,” the company explains. (That said, there is one canonical finale episode.)

Instagram is announcing a suite of new features that could be big focuses for the company in 2023, including a BeReal clone called Candid Stories, the ability to post very short text “Notes,” and groups.

Candid Stories appear to mirror much of what has made BeReal popular. You’ll be able to share an image that includes a snapshot from both your front and back cameras, and you’ll be able to take a candid from a daily notification reminder. You’ll also be able to snap candids from the Stories camera or a multi-author Story.

On Tuesday, December 13th, scientists with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that they’d achieved “fusion ignition.” The Verge has an updated post on the news here.

A “scientific breakthrough” in the development of fusion energy is expected tomorrow from the Biden administration. For more than half a century, people have poured billions of dollars into nuclear fusion research, hoping to create a source of abundant, clean energy.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has proposed legislation that would ban TikTok from the US, the latest in a series of political blows to the social media platform — albeit one that seems relatively unlikely to land.

The tortuously named Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party (or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP) Act would require President Joe Biden to block all US transactions with TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. It directs Biden to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to restrict access to the service, alleging that ByteDance’s collection of American user data and its vulnerability to Chinese government pressure pose a security threat.

Qualcomm has new Wi-Fi 7-capable chipsets that are part of its new “Immersive Home Platform” — built for home networking manufacturers that are ready to integrate the upcoming IEEE 802.11BE specification into its devices.

The new Qualcomm chips are currently being sampled to companies that make home routers and mesh Wi-Fi devices and are expected to be available in the second half of 2023. Once it is, you can expect to see far more Wi-Fi 7 routers to choose from — at more affordable price points — than the current options of TP-Link’s BE900 or Deco BE-series mesh routers.

The latest trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) has just been released, offering a look at the chaos Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) encounter as they toss themselves into the multiverse.

During the trailer, the duo comes across several other spider-people, and that includes some new faces, like Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) and the Spider-Man from the Insomniac-developed PlayStation game.

For the first time, researchers have created a fusion reaction that resulted in a net energy gain. The results, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, mark a significant step on the very long road toward generating clean energy from nuclear fusion.

“Last week, lo and behold, indeed, they shot a bunch of lasers at a pellet of fuel, and more energy was released from that fusion ignition than the energy of the lasers going in,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar said at a press conference announcing the achievement in Washington, DC, today. “I just think this is such a tremendous example of what perseverance really can achieve.”

Pedro Eustache has played just about every woodwind or reed-based instrument in the world. He has amassed a collection of truly unique instruments made by nature and his very own hand, including flutes made from everything from flower pots to ostrich eggs. He owns plenty of flutes, either cobbled together from different instruments or modified to create wholly original sounds that only he can produce after decades of study that took him all over the world. His viral moment at The Game Awards, for which he is now lovingly known as Flute Guy, is not his breakthrough moment but is rather just another blessing in what he describes as a divinely ordained calling for a career that almost did not happen.

One of the first things Eustache said to me in a recent interview over Zoom, which really captured his prolific love and exacting standards for his art, was a gentle correction and an apology. He was surrounded in his home studio by his many flutes, including the bass flute that brought him his viral moment — critically not the alto flute I called it in my earlier blog about Eustache (The Verge regrets the error). 

About 12 hours after we learned authorities in the Bahamas have arrested FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the first of multiple sets of charges he’ll face. Those were quickly followed by another civil lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and, finally, criminal charges filed by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

The criminal charges were filed last Friday and unsealed today. They include eight counts that cover allegations of wire fraud against customers and those who lent money to his firms, securities fraud, and money laundering.

Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays are finally getting a feature that Google’s Nest Hubs have had for several years — gesture controls. Starting today, December 13th, you can now stop a timer by holding up your hand with your palm facing the camera on an Echo Show 8 (second gen) or Echo Show 10 (third gen).

It’s a small addition, useful if you don’t want to shout or your hands are covered in food so you don't want to tap the screen to stop the timer.