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NASA wants to review Boeing’s Starliner work after setbacks

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NASA and Boeing are still investigating the first software error — which caused the craft to fire some of its thrusters too late and burn too much fuel — and are now trying to better understand the second glitch. These multiple issues warrant a deeper review, according to Hill. “The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing’s verification processes. Further, with confidence at risk for a spacecraft that is intended to carry humans in space, the panel recommends an even broader Boeing assessment of, and corrective actions in, Boeing’s [systems engineering and integration] processes and verification testing.” Boeing says that it has accepted the suggestion and will coordinate with NASA, as well as take a $410 million charge against its earnings to help pay for a second unmanned test flight. The two organizations will decide on whether or not to actually conduct this second test by the end of February.

NASA was planning to use Boeing’s Starliner in a manned mission in December 2020, but it’s likely that the timeline has shifted in light of the pending review. It also wouldn’t be surprising if the ongoing concerns with the company’s 737 MAX impacted NASA’s decision to look deeper into the contractor’s practices. How these issues will affect Boeing as a company remain to be seen.

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Indie dungeon-crawler ‘Below’ is coming to PS4 this spring

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At the same time, Capy will add a new “explore” mode to the game that will let you experience Below‘s beautiful and atmospheric world without putting up with its sometimes crushing and tedious difficulty. You can see the full list of tweaks on Capy’s website, but having played the game, most of the changes make a lot of sense. For instance, explore mode removes one-hit deaths.

Capy says explore mode came out of listening to feedback from fans. “As time passed, one thing became resoundingly clear: people loved the brooding tone and melancholic atmosphere of the Isle, and we wanted to provide a way for players to experience that world without necessarily having to overcome the brutal test of endurance required to fully experience the world of Below,” the studio writes on its website.

If you’ve already played Below and enjoyed its excellent musical score, there’s one more bit of good news. Volume III of the game’s official soundtrack is now available to download. Indie Game: The Movie and Swords and Sworcery composer Jim Guthrie wrote the soundtrack. In some ways, it’s the best part of Below, and well worth checking out, even on its own.

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Chrome will start protecting users from insecure downloads in April

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April’s release will only warn users when they try to download insecure executables — such as .exe files — since they pose the most risk for introducing malware into a system. Chrome will alert users to less dangerous types of insecure downloads on a rolling basis — archive, text and image files will trigger warnings in future releases. By the end of the year, Chrome will do away with the warnings and outright block insecure downloads from websites that are otherwise using HTTPS.

The mobile versions of Chrome will receive the same updates, but they’ll be one version behind the desktop versions of the browser. According to a Chromium blog post, mobile apps have better protection against malicious downloads, and the delay will give developers more time to concentrate on helping desktop users avoid malware.

While these updates may be frustrating — lots of warnings are bound to pop up — Chrome users will have a much safer browsing experience. Less tech-savvy users may benefit the most, as they often can’t spot fishy downloads. In other words, we may be able to spend less time removing malware and viruses from our friends’ and relatives’ computers once these new versions of Chrome roll out.

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The best cellular GPS tracker

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Why you should trust me

I’ve been reviewing gadgets and accessories since 2011, and I’ve been at Wirecutter since 2014. During that time I’ve covered similar categories including Bluetooth trackers and pet trackers, so I know what to look for from this kind of device.

Who this is for

A cellular GPS tracker is like a Tile-style Bluetooth tracker but far more powerful. Instead of relying on Bluetooth wireless, which needs a direct connection to your device and has a top range of 400 feet (and typically far less), these trackers use a combination of cellular signal and GPS so that you can locate them from nearly anywhere, as long as they’re within range of cellular service. Whereas a Bluetooth tracker may be a good choice for finding your keys or your wallet around the house or in the office, a cellular GPS tracker is more versatile. If you have a sitter taking care of your child, for example, you could toss one in your kid’s backpack so you can see that the sitter picked them up safely. These trackers have value if you go hiking, biking, or snowboarding and want a guardian angel keeping tabs on your stuff, or you can chuck one in your bag at the lodge so you receive an alert if it moves. Or you might put one in your car when you go to a music festival and park in a big field, and need to navigate back to it when the show is over. Bluetooth trackers aren’t very useful in any of those cases, dedicated kid trackers are meant to be used every day (we hope to address those in the future), and satellite is overkill. There are also pet-centric trackers that we didn’t include in this guide.

Greater capability comes at a higher cost. Compared with a Bluetooth tracker, these trackers are more expensive to buy and require monthly service charges, and their batteries run dry and need recharging in just a few days rather than years.

Tracking devices necessarily raise issues of privacy and security, and these devices in particular, which are small and work anywhere a cell signal exists, could be used by nefarious people to track others. While federal laws on GPS tracking are still ambiguous, state laws vary, and it is generally illegal, not to mention unethical, to track another person without their consent. If you plan to use a tracker to keep tabs on another person, get their permission first.

How we picked and tested

The cellular GPS tracker category is young and in flux. After researching the limited field of competitors available through cellular carriers and independent manufacturers, we identified the most important criteria, which we used to narrow down the list of models we were interested in testing.

  • No onerous carrier contracts: All of these trackers connect to a cellular network through a carrier, just as a cell phone does, but some require you to already have service with that provider. Our ideal tracker is carrier-agnostic, and we don’t recommend that anyone change their carrier simply to use a cellular GPS tracker.
  • A good cellular network: A good cellular network means that your tracker is more likely to have service when you try to find it. We tested only those trackers whose labeling or specs made it clear what network they use, and we gave preference to those on larger carriers such as Verizon and AT&T.
  • Battery life of five-plus days: Unlike Bluetooth trackers, which can run for one to three years before the battery or the tracker itself needs to be replaced, cellular GPS trackers provide only a few days of use per charge, but they are rechargeable. Most trackers advertise at least five days of battery life—anything less than that is just too little to be reliable.
  • Geofencing capabilities: Cellular GPS trackers are useful because they can show you where something or someone is, but also because they can alert you when that something or someone is not where they’re supposed to be. The tracker you choose should have a geofence feature, which allows you to set a digital border; when the tracker enters or leaves that area, you get an alert on your phone.
  • Live tracking: If the person or things you’re tracking aren’t where you expected them to be, seeing where they’re going can be important. Live tracking allows you to see the path they’re taking on a smartphone app (note that live tracking drains the battery at a faster rate).
  • Ring options: Ideally, your phone can find your tracker, and your tracker can find your phone. We prefer a tracker that has a built-in speaker that you can ring from the app as well as a button to trigger an alert on your phone, but none of the top contenders have both features.
  • IP67 or higher waterproof rating: Almost every tracker out there offers some degree of weatherproofing, so there’s no reason to choose one that doesn’t. The “6” in the IP67 rating represents the highest level of protection from dust, and the “7” indicates that the tracker will survive under 1 meter of water.
  • Price: Although it can be hard to put a dollar figure on the security that tracking can provide, there is a point of diminishing returns. The top three models in our research all cost less than $150 during their first year (that’s the price of the hardware as well as the service plan, which some trackers include for free for a period). Anything higher than that is more than you should be paying, especially since none of the more expensive models promise any additional features or accuracy.

Once we narrowed down our picks to the top two options, we put them to the test, looking to confirm all the promised attributes, evaluate the GPS accuracy, and assess the app performance. I played around with both trackers for a few days before handing the logins off to my editor, stationed in Brooklyn, as I began a trek around nearby Queens and Manhattan. I walked from my apartment to the train, which I then took to the New York Times building in Times Square. (The New York Times is Wirecutter’s parent company.) After wandering around for a few congested blocks, I hopped back on the train, this time to Wirecutter’s Long Island City office. Along the way, my editor confirmed my location in both trackers’ apps at every stop and turned on their live-tracking features to test for accuracy.

Our pick: Samsung SmartThings Tracker (AT&T)

GPS tracker

Photo: Michael Murtaugh

Samsung’s SmartThings Tracker (AT&T) is accurate, updates quickly, has about a week’s worth of battery life, and offers the best combination of features among an imperfect group of competitors. Notably, anyone can use the SmartThings Tracker, as Samsung doesn’t require you to have a phone service plan with any specific cellular carrier—a common issue for the other test models we considered. (A Verizon-based version of the Tracker is also available, but it doesn’t come with a free year of cell service like the AT&T model does.) No tracker we know of has features so valuable that it would be worth jumping to a different cell service provider. The SmartThings Tracker uses AT&T’s cellular service for data; judging from our experience, AT&T has a very good network, so there should be few areas where you don’t have service.

The most important thing a tracker can do is tell you where it is, and the SmartThings Tracker does that well. When you go through the app to view the map, you see the tracker’s location, with a circle around it showing the accuracy range (while the center of the circle may not be exactly where the tracker is, the tracker does fall somewhere within the area of the circle). From there, you have several options. You can see where the tracker has been, or you can turn on live tracking, which constantly updates the tracker’s location, as it moves, for a customizable period before turning off; you can select 10 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, three hours, or five hours, and the more often it updates, the shorter its battery life will be.

GPS tracker

The SmartThings app opens to a splash screen (left) you have to tap through before arriving at the map (center). You can also track historical paths to see where the tracker has been (right).

Samsung advertises four to five days per charge on average, up to 10 days depending on how you use it, before the battery needs to be recharged. In our testing, the results were closer to that lower range. A push alert on your phone lets you know when the tracker’s battery is getting low and it needs to be plugged in.

GPS tracker

In the SmartThings app, you can set up to five geofenced zones and control how often the location updates.

The SmartThings Tracker also supports geofencing, allowing you to set up to five geographic zones, each with a minimum 700-foot radius. You can choose to receive notifications when the tracker enters that location, exits it, or both. For example, you might set your home as a zone so that you receive an alert when your kid gets home from school. I found the geofencing to work properly, although I traveled a few city blocks before I received the notification that I had left my apartment or the Wirecutter office (by comparison, the Verizon tracker sent an alert a block or two sooner).

Samsung’s SmartThings Tracker measures 1¾ inches square and ½ inch thick; it’s roughly the size of two Tile Pro trackers stacked. Frankly, it’s pretty boring looking, a simple white box with a single LED light, a button on the top, and a Micro-USB charging port on the bottom. This standard charging port means that if you lose the cables that come with the SmartThings Tracker you can easily find a replacement, or you might already have one lying around. Double-pressing the button on the tracker allows you to instantly send its location to the phone app, though there’s no way to ring your phone from the tracker or vice versa, as you can with a Tile (see Flaws but not dealbreakers). The SmartThings Tracker has an IP68 rating, which means it is resistant to damage from dust or water. A small fabric loop is included so you can attach the tracker to a bag or keychain.

GPS tracker

Hitting the button on the side of the Samsung SmartThings Tracker sends an instant location update, which you can view in the SmartThings mobile app. Photo: Michael Murtaugh

Samsung offers the first year of AT&T service for free, making the SmartThings Tracker the least expensive to own and use over the course of its first year than anything else in this category. When that time is up, you can pay either $5 a month or $50 a year for continued service. That’s about average compared with what other companies charge.

The SmartThings Tracker is also available on the Verizon network, whether or not you’re already a Verizon customer, but the initial cost of ownership is higher because you have to pay for service for the first year. If you are a Verizon customer already, we think you should choose the Verizon Smart Locator, which provides slightly faster alerts and is more accurate.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

We found Samsung’s app to be less intuitive and more annoying than Verizon’s. For instance, because the SmartThings app is what you need to use to control all of Samsung’s smart-home gear, it opens to a splash screen that you have to tap through, rather than taking you directly to the tracker map as the Verizon app does. In our tests, the Verizon app also tended to be more precise, and it updated the location at a faster rate.

It would be better if the SmartThings Tracker could ring your phone and vice versa, making it a full replacement for a Tile.

Also great: Verizon Smart Locator

GPS tracker

Photo: Michael Murtaugh

If you’re already a Verizon Wireless customer, we recommend Verizon’s Smart Locator. In our tests, compared with the SmartThings Tracker, its range was more accurate, its location reports updated a bit faster, and its alerts came faster when we left our preset geofence. But you can use the Smart Locator only if you have a Verizon cell phone plan, and we don’t think it’s worthwhile for anyone to change their cell phone plan just to get this GPS tracker.

Opening the Verizon Smart Locator app takes you right into the map, making it faster to find the tracker’s location than with the Samsung model. From there, you can easily access live tracking and location history. Digging into the settings a bit, you have the option to set location alerts via geofence, as well as a tracking schedule. For example, you might choose to have the Smart Locator check every five minutes between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays, when you expect your child to be getting home from school.

GPS tracker

Verizon’s Smart Locator app opens right to the map, allows you to set a tracking schedule, and offers location-based alerts.

Rather than display a large radius, the Verizon tracker pinpoints its location in the app much more tightly than the SmartThings Tracker, the key reason you might choose this model over our top pick if you’re a Verizon customer. In our tests, instead of showing a range of a few buildings or even blocks, it showed us the location marked within a few feet.

The Smart Locator’s hardware is very similar to that of the SmartThings Tracker, which is to say, very plain. It’s a simple gray oval, bisected laterally, with a clicky segment on the bottom half. Rather than using a standard charging connector, it requires a less-convenient proprietary magnetic charger that isn’t as easily replaceable as the Samsung’s Micro-USB cable and can more readily disconnect. A built-in keychain loop sits at the top of the device.

The Verizon Smart Locator’s specs are otherwise very similar to those of the Samsung tracker. It gets about five days of battery life, and it’s a little less waterproof than the Samsung model at IP67, meaning it’s rated to survive under only 1 meter of water (that’s still pretty good). You can ring the tracker from the app, something you can’t do with the SmartThings Tracker, but you can’t use the Smart Locator to ring your phone.

At this writing, Verizon includes the first year of the Smart Locator’s service for free, and after that it’s $3 a month, a couple of bucks cheaper than service for the Samsung model.

The competition

Sprint’s Tracker + Safe & Found was the only other tracker we tested for this guide, but between issues with the hardware and software and the inferior network, we don’t recommend it. At the time we began our testing, the tracker was available for use only with a Sprint account; if you don’t use Sprint as your smartphone carrier, the feature set is limited. In our tests, the app regularly logged us out and forced us to log in every time, and it wasn’t particularly intuitive to use. The hardware button on the tracker, which you use for pairing, is difficult to press. You get no live tracking, and no way to ring your phone with the tracker. This model is also relatively expensive, costing almost twice as much during the first year as the Samsung SmartThings Tracker. And finally, we don’t recommend the Sprint network—as our reviewer says, its “coverage consistently ranks fourth in surveys and tests.”

The Trax 4G North America is more expensive than the Samsung and Verizon trackers we recommend. It also has a limited battery life, lasting only two to three days.

The Pod 3 GPS Tracker is more expensive than our picks and relies on inferior 2G and 3G networks.

The Jiobit is by far the most expensive tracker we found, with an up-front cost that’s almost double the hardware and one-year service price of the SmartThings Tracker, plus a $9 to $13 charge per month depending on the length of the service plan you choose. In addition, it’s limited to 2G and 3G networks.

GeoZilla’s Tracker appears to be a generic tracker with branding slapped on it; Trackimo’s hardware looks to be identical. The tracker also has poor battery life of only two to three days and isn’t waterproof.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commissions.

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Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest is ‘Silicon Valley’ but for game devs

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It’s sharp and funny enough to keep non-gamers hooked; it actually tackles major issues facing the industry; and at times, it’s surprisingly sweet and poignant. Mythic Quest, which premieres on Apple TV+ today, is like a cross between Office Space, HBO’s Silicon Valley (RIP), and Comedy Central’s excellent series Corporate. It has everything you’d expect from a standard workplace comedy, except it just so happens to be centered on the world of video games. The show, created by Rob McElhenney (who also stars as the ego-driven creative director Ian), Megan Ganz and Charlie Day, is also in many ways the polar opposite of their work on It’s Always Sunny.

Instead of focusing on a group of losers bound by failure, Mythic Quest’s characters are all (for the most part) smart, driven people working together to make their game a success. There’s Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao), the game’s head of engineering who’s constantly being overshadowed by the cocky Ian. Brad (Danny Pudi, Community) handles the money side of things, while David (David Hornsby) is the executive producer in charge of the whole project (not that you’d know it). F. Murray Abraham brings some Oscar prestige to the show as CW Longbottom, the studio’s head writer whose sci-fi writing career clearly peaked in the ’70s. And voice-over artist Ashly Burch, who’s also on the writing staff is a resident tester who lends some real-world gaming credibility to the entire series. (She’s the star of the long-running video series Hey Ash, Watcha Playin’ and been involved with high-profile series like Horizon Zero Dawn.)

Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet on Apple TV+

We follow as they develop new tools and content expansions; try to balance their business and artistic goals; and keep annoying pre-teen streamers happy. You know, the things every studio is actually dealing with today. The first episode centers on the seemingly minor addition of a shovel. Poppy wants to use it to add a Minecraft-esque digging mechanic to the MMO, but Ian (pronounced eye-an, for some reason) thinks it’s better as another weapon for smashing skulls. As the money guy, Brad clearly sees violence as the better money-making angle. By the end of the pilot, everyone agrees to compromise a bit to get the shovel in the game.

Poppy loses most of all though — her frustration with seeing a non-violent feature co-opted by the base desires of a male-driven gaming industry is something any creative professional can identify with. How exactly do you balance your artistic desires with the need to satisfy your Montreal-based corporate overlords? That’s a running theme throughout Mythic Quest. It pops up again when the team debates adding a casino to their fantasy world — another suggestion from corporate. It’s not far removed from the struggles developers faced when deciding whether to embrace and then how to implement micro-transactions in games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Destiny 2.

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Federal agencies reportedly bought phone location data to track immigrants

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The WSJ reports law enforcement agencies such as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have used this data to find leads on illegal immigrants and border crossings. In one case, for example, the agency used the data to uncover an underground tunnel that ran between Mexico and a closed KFC in San Luis, Arizona. The discovery eventually led to the arrest of the restaurant’s owner on conspiracy charges — though there’s no mention of the role location data played in the case in police records.

The publication says the government bought the data from a company called Venntel, which in turn purchased it from a variety of marketing companies. In 2018, ICE bought $190,000 worth of Venntel licenses. The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged the purchase and others but stressed to The Wall Street Journal the anonymized nature of the data. It also didn’t comment on exactly how it uses the data.

The way the government is obtaining this data likely falls into a legal gray area. In the 2017 Carpenter v. United States case, the Supreme Court ruled law enforcement agencies need a warrant to obtain cellphone-tower location data. However, because the data the government is buying is available commercially (and it doesn’t include cell-site data), its lawyers say Carpenter v. United States doesn’t apply.

“This is a classic situation where creeping commercial surveillance in the private sector is now bleeding directly over into government,” Alan Butler, the general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the WSJ.

This report is the latest to underscore just how supposedly anonymized and harmless location data can be used to pinpoint people. In December, The New York Times published a report that shows how, in some circumstances, tieing a specific individual to anonymous location data is actually fairly easy.

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Netflix says it’s only obeyed nine government takedown requests

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It has done so most often in Singapore, removing five items including The Last Temptation of Christ (which is banned in the country), Brazilian comedy The Last Hangover and a trio of weed-related shows, because cannabis is illegal there. Netflix has also pulled The Bridge in New Zealand (which deems the Scandanavian series “objectionable”), Full Metal Jacket in Vietnam and Night of the Living Dead in Germany. All of the requests had been made in the last five years.

Netflix works with countries to keep titles and episodes available for users to stream, but removes an item if it can’t reach an agreement with a government and it receives a written takedown request from authorities. It considers those to be legal requests and it wants to abide by local laws.

The company laid out the requests and its compliance with them in an environmental, social and governance report, which it will publish once a year. The report also covers Netflix’s environmental impact and energy use, as well as diversity in terms of its workforce and content.

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US appeals court will not rule on repealing net neutrality laws

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In 2017, the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality laws, which were put in place in 2015 to prevent internet service providers from using blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. Internet giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Twitter sued the FCC as part of the Internet Association lobbying group. Several other companies spoke out against the repeal, and 23 attorneys general filed a challenge. In April, the Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives voted to reinstate net neutrality protections, but the Republican-controlled Senate would not consider the measure.

The US appeals court’s decision means the repeal of net neutrality laws will remain, at least for the time being. The October ruling did state that the FCC had “not shown legal authority” to ban states from implementing their own laws, and it called on the FCC to address other shortcomings in its order, like a need to examine implications for public safety.

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Motorola’s new Moto G range includes a $300 Galaxy Note alternative

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As you probably guessed, the stylus does just fine when you want to scribble or doodle something quick on this 6.4-inch screen. When you pull the pen out of its hidey-hole, a small menu pops up that offers access to an instant note-taking app, and Motorola highlighted a few additional uses for the pen, like using it to select parts of a photo you’d like to animate as a cinemagraph. Beyond that, though, the stylus experience here is as basic as it gets.

That might be most apparent when you’re deep in a frenzied note-taking session. The phone’s total lack of palm rejection means it’s a little too easy to accidentally register a touch input when your hand rests one the screen. Once that happens, the stylus won’t seem to work at all. The fix is easy enough — just move your hand a little — but that’s easier said than done for some people. (I, for one, spend a lot of time cursing my meaty palms.)

In fairness to Motorola, the stylus is clearly optional, and it just might be worth investing in this $299 model over the Moto G Power because of a few component tweaks anyway. It’ll ship with 128GB of internal storage, double what the G Power comes with. Its camera is considerably more flexible, too: You’ll spend most of your time with a 48MP main sensor that, thanks to some pixel binning, produces perfectly passable 12-megapixel photos. We didn’t get too much time to pixel peep, but I’ve certainly seen worse photos from $299 phones, and I’d definitely take this main camera over the G Power’s.

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Engadget Podcast: How tech (and humans) failed the Iowa caucus

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The logistical and technical debacle of the Iowa Democratic Caucus is exactly why we’re not hopeful about online voting in America. This week on the Engadget Podcast, Devindra and Cherlynn chat about what exactly went wrong for Iowa’s Democratic Party. The mysterious app from an unknown progressive tech firm was mostly to blame, but it was also helped by some good old fashioned human error.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Credits
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

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