California passes sweeping online safety rules for kids

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

California has passed a sweeping law regulating how sites operate for minors. AB 2273, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, passed the state senate and now proceeds to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has not yet indicated whether he’ll sign it. If he does, the bill could raise legal challenges and major questions about the future of anonymity online.

AB 2273 was one of several online regulations floated by California lawmakers. Aimed at making online platforms safer for children, it requires web services “likely to be accessed by children” to conduct a survey assessing the potential risks for users under 18. Among many other measures, the sites must limit using personal information from minors and avoid collecting geolocation data...

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Apple’s Far Out event: every update on new iPhones, Apple Watches, and more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The event is set for September 7th

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The Sony WF-1000XM5 headphones just got their first discount at Woot

You can currently find the Sony WF-1000XM5 headphones at Woot for just $340. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Our Tuesday deals begin with the first substantial discount we’ve seen on the Sony WH-1000XM5 noise-canceling headphones. The original price for the XM5 headphones was $399.99, but Woot has discounted them to just $339.99. If you’re okay with settling for Woot’s 90-day limited warranty instead of the one-year warranty offered by Sony, this is definitely a deal worth looking into. While the XM5 headphones don’t offer any sweeping changes over the previous iteration, the XM4, they still include some of the best noise cancelation capabilities you’ll find in a pair of headphones, in addition to improved sound quality and better performance on voice calls. Read our review.

Hot on the heels of some of our Xbox Series S deals from last week,...

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The Sense75 is Drop’s take on the popular 75 percent keyboard

The Sense75 has RGB lighting that illuminates the desk underneath it. | Image: Drop

Mechanical-keyboard-focused retailer Drop has opened preorders for its latest keyboard, the Sense75. Unlike the retailer’s other recent keyboards like the Icon collection, where it sold pre-existing models in new configurations, the Sense75 is an all-new design — at least for Drop.

The Sense75 incorporates a number of recent keyboard design trends popularized by models like the GMMK Pro and Keychron Q1. It has a compact 75 percent layout that’s similar to what most modern laptops use, there’s a volume knob at the top right, and it uses a gasket-mount design. This means the switches are mounted to a circuit board that’s sandwiched between two gaskets, allowing it to flex slightly as it’s typed on. The design has proved popular with...

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Some Dell XPS 13 Plus screens have a glue problem

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

Some early adopters of the new, beautiful, and undoubtedly polarizing Dell XPS 13 Plus have reported issues with its screen. Dell has confirmed to The Verge that it is aware of a screen issue on some OLED models of the device. The company is reaching out to impacted customers and appears to be recalling some products.

The issue being reported (which is among several that buyers and reviewers have complained of since the Plus’ release) may be that the screws connecting the screen to the chassis appear to be coming loose. A video has been circulating for weeks now of an XPS 13 Plus’ screen falling off in a Best Buy demo area (the video is incorrectly labeled as being of the larger XPS 15). Other users have reported XPS 13 Plus screens...

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Facebook Gaming’s mobile app is shutting down later this year

Illustration by Alex Castro

Facebook’s Gaming app for iOS and Android is shutting down a little over two years after it launched. In a notice sent to users, Facebook says the app will no longer work or be available to download starting on October 28th, 2022.

Facebook launched Gaming in 2018 as a way to compete with Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer (at the time) and later rolled out an accompanying app on mobile in 2020. To help attract users in a market largely dominated by Twitch and YouTube, Facebook Gaming added a creator program, along with additional features to help build out its platform, such as the ability to co-stream. In 2020, Facebook Gaming absorbed Mixer, Microsoft’s failed streaming platform that had the company recruiting streamers like Ninja and Shroud.

...

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Garbage is sometimes a HIPAA violation

Health information can’t go in the dumpster.

After the Supreme Court decided to end federal protection for abortion in June, many abortion advocates and lawmakers started agitating for the Biden administration to make changes to the medical privacy law HIPAA. That’s because HIPAA has many, many gaps and doesn’t actually keep information around abortion safe in many situations.

Here’s something HIPAA does do, though — govern garbage! It’s a HIPAA violation for someone to do what the New England Dermatology and Laser Center (NEDLC) did last year: throw away containers with patient labels on them in a parking lot dumpster. The labels had patient names and birthdays on them, and a security guard found them. The Department of Health and Human Services did an investigation, and NEDLC...

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Satellite connectivity on the Apple Watch Pro could be a game-changer

Emergency SOS via satellite would be a first. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

If you’re the type to read into Apple Event taglines, next week’s “Far Out” event certainly feels... space-y. It’s led Apple prognosticators to revive theories that Apple may be working on satellite features for emergency communications — both for the iPhone and perhaps the rumored Apple Watch Pro. Since the Apple Watch Pro is meant to be a Garmin competitor, satellite features could make it a real contender in the multisport GPS watch space.

There’s a lot that Apple needs to do in order to truly compete in this space. Multiday battery life and beefing up durability are numbers 1 and 2 on the list. The competition — Garmin, Polar, Coros — can run laps around the Apple Watch in these two areas. But if there’s one area where Apple already...

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The new 8BitDo Ultimate controller comes in October

The new controller will be available in wired, 2.4Ghz, or Bluetooth wireless flavors

8BitDo is taking a stab at the pro controller market with the release of the 8BitDo Ultimate Controller, which is currently available for preorder on Amazon and begins shipping on October 28th. 8BitDo’s older controllers like the SN30 Pro and Pro 2 have boasted a broad array of compatibility options thanks to their Bluetooth connectivity, but the Ultimate Controller will be available in three different configurations — Bluetooth ($69.99), 2.4Ghz ($49.99), or wired ($34.99) — based on your preferred console and connectivity method.

The Bluetooth model will also come packaged with a 2.4Ghz wireless adapter and, along with the wired model, is compatible with the Nintendo Switch, Windows, Android, and iOS devices. The 2.4Ghz exclusive model...

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League of Legends’ most coveted trophy is now made by Tiffany

The Summoner’s Cup is arguably the most iconic trophy in all of esports — and now it has a totally new look. The trophy is the prize for the annual world champion in League of Legends, and developer Riot Games teamed up with jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. to refresh its look. The trophy is made of a combination of sterling silver, fine silver, stainless steel, brass, and wood and weighs in at 44 pounds. It also features a new section with the names of previous champions engraved on the bottom, sort of like the video game equivalent of the Stanley Cup.

The new design is much more streamlined compared to the original, which looked like a heavy piece of medieval weaponry. You can check it out in the image below.

Photo by...

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James Van Der Beek shows us what a celebrity podcast deal is worth

Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP via Getty Images

Hello! I am back in NYC after a whirlwind couple of days in Dallas last week. It was really great to meet so many people from the industry in person. My biggest takeaway from Podcast Movement week is how much the podcast format has evolved (for better or worse). Video podcasts were the hot topic, with lots of discussions on how to pivot to video and whether it’s necessary to do so. As one exec told me, video is not for everyone! It’s much easier to produce professional-quality audio than video, and a lot of podcast genres don’t actually lend themselves to video. I will be curious to see if it’s as big of a topic next year — maybe by then, creators will have tried and abandoned the practice.

After a big newsy week last week, with Twitter...

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How the head of Facebook plans to compete with TikTok and win back Gen Z

Photo illustration by Will Joel / The Verge

Facebook is figuring out what a new generation wants from social media

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Now everyone can use Twitter Circle to keep certain posts private

Users in your Circle will see a notice highlighted in green beneath your tweet. | Image: Twitter

Twitter Circle, a feature that lets you limit your tweets to a smaller audience, is now available to everyone. The platform first started testing the feature among “select people” in May ahead of a wider rollout.

Twitter Circle is a lot like Instagram’s “close friends” feature, which lets you share your posts with a smaller group of people. On Twitter, you can add up to 150 people to your Circle, whether they follow you or not. When you want to send out a tweet that you might not want the entire Twitterverse to see, you can choose to share it with your Circle instead.

Image: Twitter

You’ll see the option to share to your Circle when you open the tweet composer. Choose the dropdown menu at the top of the composer, and...

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How Twitter’s child porn problem ruined its plans for an OnlyFans competitor

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Internal documents and Twitter employees reveal the need for massive investment to remove illegal content — but executives haven’t listened

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Sony’s latest Dolby Atmos soundbar packs in the features for $699

Image: Sony

Sony’s rounding out its A-series of soundbars with today’s introduction of the $699 HT-A3000. It’s a 3.1-channel bar with virtualized Dolby Atmos or DTS:X surround sound, and it joins the steeply priced HT-A7000 (7.1.2 channels) and mid-level HT-A5000 (5.1.2). At the very top of the lineup is the wireless, four-speaker HT-A9 system, which retails for $1,999.

So while you naturally shouldn’t expect the cheapest soundbar in the series to eclipse those on audio performance, none of Sony’s bars slouch in the sound department. And the company is including many of the same features and software capabilities across all of them. They include support for Chromecast, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth audio playback.

Taken by itself, the...

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Netflix’s holiday movie lineup is led by Enola Holmes and Knives Out sequels

Millie Bobby Brown in Enola Holmes 2 | Image: Netflix

It’s almost September, which means the holidays are creeping up on us — and for Netflix, that means a lot of movies. The streamer just released its schedule for holiday film releases in 2022, and it’s led by a pair of big sequels in Enola Holmes 2 on November 4th and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on December 23rd.

Elsewhere, the streamer has some notable animated features, like Guillermo del Toro’s take on Pinocchio (December 9th), Henry Selick and Jordan Peele’s Wendell & Wild (October 28th), Drifting Home (September 16th) from Studio Colorido, and My Father’s Dragon (November) from the studio behind Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers. Other titles to watch out for include Noah Baumbach’s post-apocalyptic White Noise (December 30th)...

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JBL’s new earbud charging case has a touchscreen so you can ditch the phone

The JBL Tour Pro 2 wireless earbuds feature a touchscreen charging case that reminds us of a smartwatch interface. | Image: JBL

JBL has just announced the Tour Pro 2 wireless earbuds, featuring adaptive noise cancellation and customizable ANC alongside a charging case with a 1.45-inch LED touchscreen control panel.

The display on the charging case allows you to flick through multiple screens where you can manage your music and make adjustments to your earbuds, as well as receive calls, messages, and social media notifications without having to first grab your phone. It’s being advertised as a productivity feature, and that does appear to hold some weight if you don’t already own a smartwatch or if you don’t tend to keep your phone in an easily accessible pocket.

Image: JBL

The JBL Tour Pro 2 wireless earbuds are available in either black...

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JBL launches more soundbars with detachable rear speakers

The JBL Bar 1000 with detachable wireless rear speakers that include their own upward-firing speakers | Image: JBL

JBL is launching a quartet of new Atmos-capable soundbars for the fall, and two of them have battery-powered wireless rear speakers that quickly deploy for a tidy home theater setup. When not watching a movie, the speakers can be docked into the sides of the new soundbars to recharge.

The flagship JBL Bar 1000 is an 11.1-channel performer that includes four upward-firing speakers for Dolby Atmos 3D sound. It also has a wireless subwoofer and supports DTS:X 3D surround sound.

JBL built a very similar version of the soundbar called the Bar 9.1 in 2020 that also had the cool removable rear speaker hat trick. But the new JBL Bar 1000 adds two more drivers for a 7.1.4 arrangement and bumps the power output to 880W compared to 820W in the Bar...

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Uber overhauls app safety features, including a new way to text 911

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber is overhauling its four-year-old app safety toolkit, adding a new feature for riders to contact security company ADT during rides. The company is also expanding the availability of a feature enabling customers to text 911.

The safety toolkit is a section of Uber’s app through which customers can contact emergency services, report a safety issue to the company, or share their location with a family member or friend. It was first rolled out in 2018 as a way to address the company’s abysmal record on safety. Uber claims its rides are getting safer, and today’s announcement is meant to reflect these improving conditions.

“With so many safety features, it is time for an upgrade,” Rebecca Payne, the company’s lead safety product manager,...

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The wild keyboard and headphone designs of Angry Miao

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Overengineered arthouse tech from a tiny microbrand

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Starlink suffered a global outage overnight

Starlink RV installed on a beach house. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Starlink users around the world complained on Tuesday that Elon Musk’s internet from space service was down. My own Starlink RV service in the Netherlands went down for about 30 minutes. It’s now reporting “Degraded Service” which the SpaceX company is investigating, according to the Starlink app.

My outage began at 3AM ET which coincides with initial reports found on Twitter and Reddit. Starlink users from the US, New Zealand, Mexico, the UK, and beyond all reported outages. Access returned to most as of 7AM ET, although many are still reporting degraded throughput. My own speeds have dropped from around 200Mbps / 30Mbps to 32Mbps / 17Mbps (down / up) at publication time.

Last week SpaceX lowered the monthly subscription prices for...

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Elon Musk says whistleblower’s testimony gives him more reasons to dump Twitter deal

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk says the disclosures of Twitter’s former security chief have given him new justifications to walk away from his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform.

Musk’s lawyers filed a new “Termination Letter” with the SEC on August 29th, which cites the testimony of Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko as evidence that Twitter misled Musk in the parties’ merger agreement. Specifically, Musk claims that Twitter’s declaration in the merger agreement that it had not misled the SEC is false, citing Zatko’s allegations. In Zatko’s own complaints, which were published last week, he claimed that Twitter repeatedly and knowingly misled regulators about the security of its platform.

“[Zatko’s] allegations, if true, demonstrate...

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AMD teases RDNA 3 GPUs as it sets a release date for Ryzen 7000 CPUs

Team Red has been cooking up next-gen processors and graphics cards, set for release later this year. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

AMD revealed price, performance, some release dates, and more about the upcoming RDNA 3 graphics cards and Ryzen 7000 series processors during its “together we advance_PCs” livestream on Monday.

Four CPUs using the new Zen 4 desktop processing architecture (codenamed “Raphael”) will launch on September 27th, 2022. The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X chip will cost $699 at launch and features 16 cores, 32 threads, and a boost clock of up to 5.7GHz.

Image: AMD

A rundown of pricing, specs and release date for the upcoming Ryzen 7000 series.

The three other processors include the Ryzen 9 7900X (12 cores, 24 threads and a 5.6GHz boost) for $549, the Ryzen 7 7700X (8 cores, 16 threads and a 5.3GHz boost) for $399, and the...

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Sony makes the PS5 lighter just as the price goes up

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony has once again quietly launched a revised PS5 model that’s more lightweight. Press Start, an Australian-based gaming site, reports that both the disc and digital versions of the PS5 are a lot lighter now, after new models began appearing in Australia this week.

The new disc model (CFI-1202A) now weighs 3.9kg (8.6 pounds), a 7 percent reduction from the 2021 revision (4.2kg / 9.2 pounds) and an even bigger 13 percent reduction from the original model (4.5kg / 9.9 pounds). The digital PS5 has a similar weight loss, with the 2022 revision now weighing 3.4kg (7.5 pounds), down 13 percent from the original weight of 3.9kg (8.6 pounds). The new models mean the disc version of the PS5 now weighs the same as the original digital PS5 model.

P...

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French government uses AI to spot undeclared swimming pools — and tax them

Photo by Yang Bo/China News Service via Getty Images

The French government has collected nearly €10 million in additional taxes after using machine learning to spot undeclared swimming pools in aerial photos. In France, housing taxes are calculated based on a property’s rental value, so homeowners who don’t declare swimming pools are potentially avoiding hundreds of euros in additional payments.

The project to spot the undeclared pools began last October, with IT firm Capgemini working with Google to analyze publicly available aerial photos taken by France’s National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information. Software was developed to identify pools, with this information then cross-referenced with national tax and property registries.

The project is somewhat limited in scope, and...

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Logitech’s cloud gaming handheld leaks with Android apps and Switch-like UI

Logitech’s handheld looks like it runs Android. | Image: Evan Blass (Twitter)

Logitech’s new cloud gaming handheld has leaked weeks after the company teased it was working on the new device. Logitech G and Tencent Games confirmed their plans for a dedicated handheld earlier this month, and now Evan Blass has tweeted pictures of the handheld which reveal access to the Google Play store, alongside support for Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia’s GeForce Now service.

The Logitech G Gaming Handheld looks roughly the same size as a Nintendo Switch, and it even includes a Switch-like UI where you scroll through apps and games. One leaked image shows Chrome and YouTube apps, alongside Xbox, Nvidia, and Steam icons. While Blass tweeted images of the handheld, Logitech was quick to file a DMCA complaint to remove them from...

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Meta links Instagram’s NFT posts to Facebook as the market for ‘digital collectibles’ tanks

Photo by MTV VMA 22/Getty Images

Meta has been testing support for NFT “digital collectible” posts on Instagram since May, and if you’re among the expanding group of people with access, then you can now share posts with your blockchain-verified items on Facebook as well. According to an updated blog post from the company, it’s “started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram,” after they connect their digital wallets to either platform.

The posts will basically look like normal posts, according to a screenshot the company tweeted, but will have a badge marking them as a “digital collectible.”

Image: Meta

NFT Posts on Instagram that link to Facebook

The FAQ has a lot of details...

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Tesla can’t stop employees from wearing union swag, labor board rules

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Union swag at Tesla is in. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said that Tesla’s current dress code policy was unlawful. Specifically, the part where it only allowed employees to wear Tesla or other pre-approved black tee shirts. That policy meant union swag was not allowed — a hindrance to anyone trying to organize or show union solidarity.

Tesla’s policy went into effect in 2017, and employees were reportedly told they couldn’t wear shirts baring the United Auto Workers logo. Tesla attempted to justify its dress policy to the board claiming that its black shirts prevent damage to cars and it needed to maintain “visual management” of its employees. The NLRB rejected this.

“With today’s decision, the Board reaffirms that any...

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Samsung’s Z Fold 4 passes durability tests, but how will it hold up long term?

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is the latest in the line of Samsung’s foldables to endure JerryRigEverything’s torture test that subjects devices to razor blades, lighters, and handfuls of dirt. Like the Fold 3 and Fold 2 before it, the Fold 4 managed to survive the test, albeit with quite a few scratches and some burnt-up pixels.

But the real question is whether the Fold 4 can pass the test of time. Samsung has taken significant steps toward improving the durability of its lines of foldables, making them water resistant, as well as adding stronger screens with a more rigid aluminum frame. And while the company has released videos — both this year and the last — designed to inspire confidence about the durability of its devices, they still don’t...

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Google’s making it easier to add emoji in Docs

Apologies to my editors, who are going to start getting drafts bursting with emoji.

A few months after Google added emoji reactions to Google Docs, the company’s making it easier to include them in your actual document as well. Today, it announced a new shortcut that lets you easily insert an emoji while writing, so you no longer have to pull up your computer’s picker or copy and paste the icons from other places.

The new system gives you several ways to get at emoji, which Google lists in this help document. The simplest is to just type “@[emoji name],” and typing “@emoji” will pull up a searchable emoji picker, like the one on your phone.

Gif: Google

It’s a pretty simple system.

You can also type “@:[emoji name],” which I’ve found to be the fastest and most reliable method. Typing in the...

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