Motorola has a third-generation foldable smartphone under development codenamed Maven. The device includes top of the line specs and is scheduled for a summer release. Tesla has sued a former employee over stealing confidential data related to its under-development supercomputer project Dojo.

China on Saturday ordered live streaming platforms to monitor underage users more closely. Under these new rules, users under 18 years of age won’t be able to tip their favourite streamers and can’t stream themselves without a guardian’s consent. Meta owned Instagram is planning to launch support for NFTs on the Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Flow blockchains.

Starting Thursday, Google has stopped Russian users and developers from downloading or updating any paid apps from the Google Play Store due to the current sanctions on Russia. Last but not least, an Xbox Live outage prevented players from accessing cloud games starting Saturday evening and wasn’t resolved till early Sunday morning.

In the News: Android 13 will block sideloaded apps from accessibility features

First look at the Motorola Maven

• Following two generations of the Motorola Razr, the company has another foldable in development codenamed Maven.
• The new smartphone will reportedly launch in two variants, one featuring the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC and one with the Plus variant (SM8475).
• Multiple memory and storage configurations are also available, including 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage.
• The design has more similarities with the Galaxy Z Flip 3 than the Razr, eliminating the chin, and the fingerprint sensor has moved to the side inside the power button.
• There’s a dual-camera setup at the back, featuring a 50MP primary camera and a 13MP wide-angle and macro sensor.
• The front camera is a 32MP punch-hole cutout on the folding FHD+ screen.

H/t: 91Mobiles

Tesla sues former employee for stealing trade secrets

• Tesla is suing a former employee for stealing confidential information related to its supercomputer project called Doja. 
• The employee, a thermal engineer, called  Alexander Yatskov, quit in May after working at the company for only a few months starting in January. 
• Yatskov had admitted to transferring confidential data over to his devices and then handing in a dummy laptop when Tesla officials confronted him. 
• Tesla is also accusing Yatskov of lying about his experience and skills on his resume. 
• The supercomputer project Dojo has been teased since 2019. The goal is to use AI to analyse large amounts of data collected by Tesla cars on the road. 

H/t: Bloomberg

China puts a leash on underage streamers

• China has now banned minors from tipping their favourite streamers. The order has come as a part of the country launched a two-month campaign to clean up the live streaming and short video businesses. 
• Government authorities have also instructed live stream platforms to stop all streams to minors post 10 PM and require guardian consent before minors can stream on any live streaming platforms.
• Chinese authorities have previously taken action on playtime for minors alongside imposing requirements to curb addiction. 

H/t: Reuters

Instagram to support NFTs

• Meta owned Instagram has announced that it’ll support NFTs from the Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Flow blockchains in a pilot program.
• The pilot will be run by a NFT experts based in the US. It’s unclear whether the image-sharing platform will support all four blockchains at launch. 
• The feature will support commonly used crypto wallets like MetaMask. Once a compatible wallet is connected, users can showcase their NFTs on their profiles. 
• Instagram has confirmed that it’ll not charge anything to let users post and share their NFTs. 

H/t: CoinDesk

Paid app downloads and updates banned on the Russian Play Store

• Google has blocked paid apps from being downloaded or updated on the Russian Google Play store starting Thursday in view of the current sanctions imposed against the country. 
• Russian developers can still publish and update free apps on the Play Store. Users will be able to access free content without any hurdles as well. 
• The company had previously paused its Play Billing system on March 10 due to sanctions. This left Russian users with no way to buy games, apps, or pay for subscriptions. 
• Google has advised developers to provide billing grace periods or free trials. Renewals can also be deferred for up to one year, letting users access paid content without being charged. 
• Additionally, developers can choose to offer their apps for free or remove paid subscription tiers. 

H/t: Google via Bleeping Computer

Xbox Live outage leaves players stranded

Players should no longer be seeing issues when it comes to purchases, launching games, or joining Cloud Gaming sessions. Thanks for being patient. Happy gaming! https://t.co/WTAzvBkgcY

— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) May 8, 2022

• An Xbox outage starting from 4 PM ET Saturday to early Sunday morning left players unable to launch cloud games, play their digital games or make purchases on the Xbox store. 
• In a follow-up tweet, Xbox reported that players should start seeing improvement when purchasing or launching games as they worked on a full resolution. Players were asked to restart their consoles if they saw any more errors. 
• Before this outage, there was a bigger outage for several hours from Friday night to Saturday morning. Players could not start cloud gaming sessions, launch regular games, make purchases on the store or even run regular apps like Netflix on their consoles. 

H/t: The Verge 

In the News: Fortnite makes a comeback to Android and iOS with Xbox