Hasta La Gadget!

The U.S. Justice Department intends to criminally charge Boeing for breaching a settlement connected to two deadly 737 Max jetliner crashes, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters. The federal government is reportedly seeking a guilty plea from Boeing, which may include a $243.6 million criminal fine and…

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Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, which acquired the movie rental service Redbox in 2022, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Deadline reports. The company recently disclosed net losses of $636.6 million for 2023 in a SEC filing, and Deadline reported just a few days ago that it had suspended medical benefits and missed payroll, leaving employees without their paychecks for a week already. In a message to employees on Saturday, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment said it had applied for a debtor-in-possession loan in an attempt to remedy the situation.

“Upon court approval, we expect payroll to be funded early in the week and funding for this upcoming week’s payroll to also be secured,” the message said, per Deadline. “We also expect to have the funds to reinstate medical benefits back to May 14, 2024 and going forward.” The $375 million deal to acquire Redbox brought with it a ton of debt, and according to The Verge, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment owes money to a slew of retailers, studios, and streaming platforms — including Walmart, Universal and Sony — as well as other creditors.

Its total debts come to about $970 million. Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment also owns the streaming service Crackle and a few other film and TV brands, in addition to selling the long-running self-help books it’s best known for.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-owner-of-redbox-has-filed-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-172124081.html?src=rss

The Detroit Police Department has to adopt new rules curbing its reliance on facial recognition technology after the city reached a settlement this week with Robert Williams, a Black man who was wrongfully arrested in 2020 due to a false face match. It’s not an all-out ban on the technology, though, and the court’s jurisdiction to enforce the agreement only extends four years. Under the new restrictions, which the ACLU is calling the strongest such policies for law enforcement in the country, police cannot make arrests based solely on facial recognition results or conduct a lineup based only on facial recognition leads.

Williams was arrested after facial recognition technology flagged his expired driver’s license photo as a possible match for the identity of an alleged shoplifter, which police then used to construct a photo lineup. He was arrested at his home, in front of his family, which he says “completely upended my life.” Detroit PD is known to have made at least two other wrongful arrests based on the results of facial recognition technology (FRT), and in both cases, the victims were Black, the ACLU noted in its announcement of the settlement. Studies have shown that facial recognition is more likely to misidentify people of color.

The new rules stipulate that “[a]n FRT lead, combined with a lineup identification, may never be a sufficient basis for seeking an arrest warrant,” according to a summary of the agreement. There must also be “further independent and reliable evidence linking a suspect to a crime.” Police in Detroit will have to undergo training on the technology that addresses the racial bias in its accuracy rates, and all cases going back to 2017 in which facial recognition was used to obtain an arrest warrant will be audited.

In an op-ed for TIME published today, Williams wrote that the agreement means, essentially, that “DPD can no longer substitute facial recognition for basic investigative police work.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/detroit-police-can-no-longer-use-facial-recognition-results-as-the-sole-basis-for-arrests-204454537.html?src=rss

Extreme E, the premium off-road EV racing series, is pivoting to hydrogen. The series announced this week that it’s rebranding to Extreme H, and unveiled a hydrogen-powered race car it’s calling the Pioneer 25 to usher in the transition. The first season is slated to begin in April 2025 in Saudi Arabia, before heading to the UK, Germany, Italy and wrapping up in the US.

Extreme E had its first race in 2021, putting electric off-road vehicles to the test of (as you might expect) extreme environments, like the desert. It got some major teams on board, including the likes of McLaren. This year marks Extreme E’s fourth season. In a blog post about the shift to hydrogen, founder and CEO Alejandro Agag said the move is “not just about e-mobility; it’s about creating green power solutions that can be applied anywhere, from remote locations to bustling cities.”

“By launching Extreme H, we’re not only showcasing the viability of hydrogen as a fuel source but also testing the wider hydrogen ecosystem including recharging and hydrogen transportation — as well as helping to create a market for it,” Agag wrote. Pioneer 25, Extreme H’s flagship race car, is powered by a 75kW hydrogen fuel cell.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/extreme-e-is-now-extreme-h-a-hydrogen-powered-racing-series-starting-2025-213645987.html?src=rss

The U.S. Justice Department intends to criminally charge Boeing for breaching a settlement connected to two deadly 737 Max jetliner crashes, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters. The federal government is reportedly seeking a guilty plea from Boeing, which may include a $243.6 million criminal fine and…

Read more…