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SiriusXM uses RapidSOS to send 911 detailed crash data

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SiriusXM and emergency tech company RapidSOS are partnering to provide first responders more data in the event of a car crash, the companies announced today. SiriusXM technology that connects drivers to speak with 911 dispatchers is already part of 10 million cars in North America, according to a statement. With RapidSOS, 911 dispatchers will now get critical crash information without having to speak with vehicle occupants.

Uber, Waze and other companies have also partnered with RapidSOS to share customers’ locations and crash data with 911 dispatchers. Under the SiriusXM/RapidSOS partnership, first responders will receive customers’ locations as well as a description of the vehicle, whether airbags were deployed, crash impact data, the number of people in the vehicle and contact information of occupants. RapidSOS users with linked accounts can also choose to share important medical information. All data will be sent “securely and with user consent,” according to the statement. 

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Google asks FCC for 6Ghz spectrum for ‘confidential’ broadband testing

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Google has asked the FCC for permission to conduct secret wireless broad tests using the 6GHz spectrum in multiple cities across the US, according to a document spotted by Business Insider. It wants to run “experimental propagation testing in the 6GHz band” to see if the frequencies can provide “reliable broadband connections,” the redacted application states. That could point to future internet services using the spectrum, possibly under its new Fiber WebPass banner.

Google wanted information in the public document redacted, saying that “if subject to public disclosure, would cause significant commercial, economic, and competitive harm.” It made the application for multiple cities in 17 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. In California, it plans to test in seven cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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Google’s Find My Device app can now locate Pixel Buds

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Second-gen Pixel Buds owners can now use Find my Device to look for their pair in case they ever get lost. According to 9to5Google, users have started seeing the Pixel Buds they connected to their account on the Find my Device app on Android and the web. So long as they’re logged in, they’ll be able to see the model of the device it was “last seen connected to,” along with the time and date. That information is displayed against a map with a pinned location of the pair.

The publication first spotted the Find my Device integration during an APK teardown in June. While it seems to have started making its way to users, Pixel Buds won’t show up in Search when doing the “find device” query yet. The Buds’ last connection information won’t show up in the “Find device” menu in the Pixel Buds app either, at least for now.

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Chrome’s ‘Fast page’ label shows which websites have quick loading times

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Google is launching a new Web Vitals metric with Chrome 85 beta — one that can tell you if a page you’re visiting won’t take forever to load. The new metric will give URLs and URLs from the same website “that have historically met or exceeded all metrics thresholds for the Core Web Vitals” a “Fast page” label. Links that earn the label have been historically fast for most users, though Chrome can also evaluate them on a host-by-host basis if they’re still new or if they’re not that popular.

The Fast page label will show up on the context menu when you long press on any link on Chrome 85 Beta for Android. It’s only just started rolling out, but you can manually switch it on by going to chrome://flags and enabling “Context menu performance info and remote hint fetching.” Google is hoping that the label can help users with slow or spotty connection by giving them the information needed to choose which page to open from all the search results they get. The tech giant says it may also experiment with labeling in other parts of the Chrome UI in the future.

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FT: Oracle joins Microsoft as a possible bidder for TikTok

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For a couple of weeks, Microsoft had been the only name publicly attached as a potential buyer for TikTok, and it has about a month left before the announced September 15th deadline to make a deal. Since then, Twitter was reported as a company in “preliminary talks” to acquire the video sharing app, and tonight Financial Times reports that Oracle has entered the race, providing TikTok owner ByteDance with a “credible” alternative to Microsoft.

According to the report, Oracle is working with investors that already have a stake in ByteDance, like General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, and is willing to purchase the app’s operations just in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Twitter’s potential as a bidder may have financial limitations and Microsoft is rumored to be interested in buying the service in countries where ByteDance might not want to sell, like India. Meanwhile, Bloomberg points out that Oracle is worth about $166 billion, and recently had $43 billion in “cash or near equivalents” which it could easily use to make a deal.

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‘The Goes Wrong Show’ gets funnier while things get worse

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Each Goes Wrong story is set in the fictional Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, a bunch of amateur actors and technicians. To fit the six-episode, half-hour format, the society has been chosen to front Play of the Week, a new anthology series for BBC One. Each week, an obscure play is taken from the archives and performed and broadcast to the nation live. And each week, the play goes wrong through a combination of incompetence and overambition.

On one level, The Goes Wrong Show is about disaster, and the plucky spirit of people out of their depth trying to struggle on. There’s also the saga of the “cast’s” dueling egos as they break out of character to fight for more screen time and attention live on British TV. The show’s plots are then intricate Swiss watches of British farce as each indignity and crisis piles on to one another. Oh, and you can laugh when people get smacked in the head.

In order to be this bad, the cast have to be inch-perfect, and on your fourth or fifth re-watch you’ll start to spot how difficult making this show must have been. Each member of the cast is a pro at something or other and they frequently do their own stunts live in order to keep things moving. It helps that the production team outdo themselves with sets that go wrong in increasingly complicated ways. Being awful has never taken this much effort. 

The finest thing I can say about it is that, as a dedicated Mischief Theatre fan, I’ve watched and re-watched this series at least ten times. And not too long ago, my four-year-old daughter asked to watch it with me, and often asks to watch episodes again. She doesn’t even just laugh at the really broad bits: She’s low-key obsessed with how Henry Shields (as Cornley head Chris Bean) manages to demonstrate simmering rage without ever breaking into real anger.

— Dan Cooper, Senior Editor

*The series is posted out of order, as a scheduling snafu meant the Christmas episode aired first, when it should be last. Of course, on streaming you can watch things in any order, and episode two, helpfully titled “The Pilot (Not the Pilot)” may be a better introduction to the the show’s concept.

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New York City says it will reassess police use of facial recognition

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“Those standards need to be reassessed,” the mayor went on to say. “That’s something I will do with my team and the NYPD.”

The question came after NYPD admitted it had used facial recognition to investigate activist Derrick Ingram. Ingram had allegedly used a bullhorn during a June protest to shout into an officer’s ear. Police attempted to arrest Ingram during a failed raid. An image from the incident shows an officer holding a report from the NYPD’s Facial Identification Section, with an Instagram photo of Ingram attached. 

New York’s decision to reevaluate its use of facial recognition comes as cities across the US grapple with whether to limit the controversial technology. In June, Boston became the second city in the US to ban its local police force from using the tool. The decision came at around the same time that police wrongfully arrested a Black man in Detroit after using facial recognition software to carry out an identification. According to the ACLU, the incident was the first known wrongful arrest in the US due to misuse of the technology. 

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A ‘Firewatch’ movie is in the works, again

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In a match made in indie heaven, the independent production house behind movies like Blindspotting and Little Monsters has acquired the movie and TV rights to 2016’s Firewatch (via The Hollywood Reporter). This is the second time there’s been news of a possible Firewatch film adaption. In 2016, developer Campo Santo announced a deal with Good Universe (Last Vegas, Desperados) to make a film based on the hit indie game. However, those rights later returned to the game studio after Lionsgate acquired Good Universe in 2017. 

There aren’t many details on the project yet, but what we do know is that Campo Santo co-founders Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin will help produce it. The final product could either be a movie or TV show, according to one of the producers from production house Snoot Entertainment.

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‘Hitman 3’ will tweak its most divisive mode

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The good news is that the studio seems to have heard feedback from fans. “In Hitman 3, we’re making some changes to the Elusive Target formula that we’ll reveal at a later date,” promises IO Interactive.  

Besides Elusive Targets, Hitman 3 will feature three other gameplay modes, most of which will be familiar to players. The first, Escalations, will introduce new complications as you progress through a contract. At one stage, Agent 47 may not be able to wear a disguise, or there may be more security cameras in the level than usual. Contracts Mode, meanwhile, will allow you to pick a target, eliminate them and then challenge your friends to do the same. Lastly, Sniper Assassin will task you with taking out a target from afar. In Hitman 2, you could play this with a friend, but that won’t be the case with Hitman 3.

Separately, IO Interactive is shutting down Ghost Mode. You have until August 31st to play Hitman 2’s competitive multiplayer, at which point the studio will shut down the servers that host the mode. If you’ve been chasing the Phantom Suit cosmetic you can only unlock through Ghost Mode   

Hitman 3 will arrive on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC in January 2021.    

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