Hasta La Gadget!

Amazfit, renowned for its cost-effective yet dependable fitness wearables, is set to introduce its latest innovation, the Amazfit Helio smart ring, in the US market at a competitive price point of $299. Initially unveiled in January, the Helio smart ring outpaced Samsung’s Galaxy Ring to market. Crafted from titanium alloy and weighing less than 4g, the Helio promises both resilience and comfort.

Scheduled for release on May 15, consumers can acquire the Helio ring through various avenues, including standalone purchases on the official Amazfit website or bundled options alongside the Amazfit Cheetah Pro or Amazfit T-Rex Ultra. Notably, Amazfit advocates utilizing the Helio ring alongside their smartwatches for seamless data synchronization.

Although the initial inventory will offer limited sizing options, the company pledges to expand its range in due course. Highlighting its health-tracking capabilities, Amazfit positions the Helio ring as ideal for monitoring recovery and sleep patterns. With its proximity to the user’s pulse, the sensor delivers precise health insights, facilitating comprehensive recovery monitoring and analysis through the Zepp App.

Key health metrics provided by the Helio ring encompass sleep score, full recovery time, blood oxygen levels, sleep heart rate variability, and sleep resting heart rate — Moreover, boasting a 10ATM water resistance rating, the Helio ring ensures suitability for various sports and activities.

For those considering a bundled purchase, pairing the Helio ring with an Amazfit Cheetah Pro or T-Rex Ultra offers a discounted price of $149, with additional bundled pricing options to be disclosed by the company shortly.

Meet The Amazfit Helio, An Innovative Smart Ring Set To Debut In US At $299

, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Block appears to be squarely in the government’s sights. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York are reportedly probing extensive compliance lapses at the parent company of Square and Cash App. NBC News says a former Block employee has handed over documents to federal authorities, painting a picture of how the company failed to gather required risk-assessment information from customers and subsequently processed illegal transactions.

The documents allegedly show that Block greenlit multiple crypto transactions involving known terrorist organizations. Furthermore, Square reportedly processed thousands of transfers involving nations under economic sanctions. “From the ground up, everything in the compliance section was flawed,” the whistleblower allegedly told NBC News. “It is led by people who should not be in charge of a regulated compliance program.”

Most transactions allegedly involved credit cards, dollar transfers or Bitcoin and weren’t reported to the government as mandated by law. In addition, Block reportedly refused to “correct company processes” when notified of the breaches.

The investigation follows a separate report from NBC News in February highlighting two different whistleblowers who flagged the same issues at Block. They cited “questionable Cash App transactions with entities under sanction by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, operations known to sell personal information and credit card data for illegal purposes, and offshore gambling sites barred to U.S. citizens.”

The practice allegedly spanned multiple years. NBC News says it reviewed around 100 pages of documents from the whistleblower involving people or organizations in countries under US sanctions, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Some of them were reportedly from as recent as 2023.

Block

The whistleblower claims Block’s management was aware of the alleged offenses. “It’s my understanding from the documents that compliance lapses were known to Block leadership and the board in recent years,” Edward Siedle, a former SEC attorney representing the whistleblower, told NBC News.

The whistleblower says that, besides senior management, Block’s board was told about the compliance issues. Coincidentally or not, several board members made unexpected exits recently, including former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who resigned in February, and Sharon Rothstein, who had been on the board since 2022. Block told NBC News that they were leaving to devote more time to other activities and that their exits weren’t “a result of any disagreements with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices.”

Federal authorities have taken a greater interest in modern financial platforms in recent years after at least some of them had become something of a Wild West. Of course, FTX’s fraudulent practices and subsequent collapse led to a seismic decline in the cryptocurrency industry. Although it isn’t clear if the feds have gotten involved, Elon Musk’s X (the husk of what was once Dorsey’s Twitter) reportedly violated US sanctions by accepting blue-check subscription payments from terrorist organizations.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/block-reportedly-greenlit-transactions-involving-terrorist-groups-and-sanctioned-nations-181222712.html?src=rss

The Department of Transportation announced a new final rule last week that would require airlines to automatically refund passengers whose flights are canceled or significantly delayed. There are some exceptions, but in general, it’s a huge win for passengers who are tired of airlines giving them the runaround. As…

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Amazfit, renowned for its cost-effective yet dependable fitness wearables, is set to introduce its latest innovation, the Amazfit Helio smart ring, in the US market at a competitive price point of $299. Initially unveiled in January, the Helio smart ring outpaced Samsung’s Galaxy Ring to market. Crafted from titanium alloy and weighing less than 4g, the Helio promises both resilience and comfort.

Scheduled for release on May 15, consumers can acquire the Helio ring through various avenues, including standalone purchases on the official Amazfit website or bundled options alongside the Amazfit Cheetah Pro or Amazfit T-Rex Ultra. Notably, Amazfit advocates utilizing the Helio ring alongside their smartwatches for seamless data synchronization.

Although the initial inventory will offer limited sizing options, the company pledges to expand its range in due course. Highlighting its health-tracking capabilities, Amazfit positions the Helio ring as ideal for monitoring recovery and sleep patterns. With its proximity to the user’s pulse, the sensor delivers precise health insights, facilitating comprehensive recovery monitoring and analysis through the Zepp App.

Key health metrics provided by the Helio ring encompass sleep score, full recovery time, blood oxygen levels, sleep heart rate variability, and sleep resting heart rate — Moreover, boasting a 10ATM water resistance rating, the Helio ring ensures suitability for various sports and activities.

For those considering a bundled purchase, pairing the Helio ring with an Amazfit Cheetah Pro or T-Rex Ultra offers a discounted price of $149, with additional bundled pricing options to be disclosed by the company shortly.

Meet The Amazfit Helio, An Innovative Smart Ring Set To Debut In US At $299

, original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

This one’s a bummer. Mega-publisher Take-Two Interactive is shuttering Rollerdrome studio Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 team Intercept Games, according to paperwork seen by Bloomberg.

Roll7 is based in London, and was founded in 2008 by lifelong friends Tom Hegarty and Simon Bennett. Roll7 is the studio behind OlliOlli, OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome, all fantastic games with wheel-based mechanics. OlliOlli was a Vita hit in 2014 and World landed in early 2022 — they’re both great, and the latter in particular is a flow-state-inducing skateboarding platformer with an adorable art style. Rollerdrome was one of our favorite games of 2022; it’s a luscious third-person rollerskating-and-gunplay game that looks like a slice of 1970s dystopian sci-fi. 

Roll7 has picked up multiple prestigious awards over the years, including recent wins at BAFTA and DICE. As the studio name implies, Roll7 developers know how to make incredibly smooth action games.

Take-Two purchased Roll7 in November 2021 and made it a subsidiary of Private Division, the company’s label for small- and mid-size publishing deals. According to Bloomberg, Take-Two plans to close Roll7 and will offer severance packages to staff.

Intercept Games is based in Seattle and is responsible for Kerbal Space Program 2, a popular flight-simulation title that’s still technically in early access on Steam. Take-Two founded Intercept in 2020 specifically to manage Kerbal Space Program 2, and the game has been receiving updates since going live in February 2023.

Take-Two has yet to confirm that it’s closing Intercept Games — but it hasn’t said it isn’t, either. The company filed a notice in Washington on Monday outlining plans to lay off 70 people in the state and permanently close their place of business, and some Kerbal developers have confirmed their recent departures. Private Division will continue to update Kerbal Space Program 2, Take-Two said in a statement.

Take-Two is one of the largest video game companies around, reporting $5.3 billion in revenue last year. It’s the owner of Grand Theft Auto and the parent company of Rockstar Games, 2K, Private Division, Zynga and — very recently — Gearbox Software. Take-Two purchased Borderlands studio Gearbox in March for $460 million. Grand Theft Auto VI, arguably the most anticipated game of the decade, is due to add billions to Take-Two’s bottom line in 2025.

In April, Take-Two announced plans to lay off 5 percent of its employees, or roughly 600 people, by the end of 2024. It also canceled some in-development projects. When news of the planned firings broke last month, Take-Two didn’t identify which studios would take the hit, but now we know it includes Roll7 and Intercept. The company laid off some Private Division workers in 2023 as well.

An estimated 9,400 people have been laid off in the video game industry so far in 2024, and a total of 10,500 workers were let go in 2023. Sony, Microsoft and Riot Games have fired a combined 3,300 employees this year alone, and the fallout from Embracer Group’s funding implosion keeps spreading, with numerous shuttered studios and more than 1,400 displaced workers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/take-two-is-shutting-down-the-studios-behind-rollerdrome-and-kerbal-space-program-2-000253545.html?src=rss