Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) are prepping a new bill granting Meta’s wish of putting the onus for age verification on app store operators, The Washington Post reports. Parents could reportedly sue those companies if their kids are exposed to things like sexual material, but businesses could shield themselves by implementing age verification.
[The Washington Post]
The move will “enhance synergy” and “foster synergies” all while “creating greater synergy,” according to the announcement that mentions synergy seven times.
Alphabet’s top lawyer says the agency’s proposed remedies, which include selling off Chrome, are part of “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.”
If adopted, Kent Walker says the security and privacy “of millions of Americans” would be endangered, trade secrets would be sent to foreign companies, AI progress and innovation would be stymied, and the world as we know it would basically end.
The Register points out an advisory from D-Link for a series of business routers asking owners to “Please Retire and Replace” these models: DSR-150 / DSR-150N / DSR-250 / DSR-250N.
The problem? A “stack buffer overflow vulnerability, which allows unauthenticated users to execute remote code execution,” published after their EOL, so D-Link isn’t fixing it and will instead offer owners a discounted upgrade.
The “Default Apps” section that Apple added to the iOS 18.2 beta in October now lets you pick a contactless payment default besides Apple’s Wallet app.
The new option, which Apple promised in August, is there in the just-released iOS 18.2 public beta 3. But 9to5Mac notes the change was present in the second beta, as well.
$14.8 billion profit in Q1, $16.6 billion in Q2, and now $19.3 billion in Q3 of fiscal 2025 — that’s profit, not earnings. (Earnings were $35.08 billion, up from $30.04 billion last quarter.)
The vast majority is from AI data center, of course — but gaming did have a 14 percent bump. It’s a $3B-a-quarter business, while data center is a $30B one.
Sony is giving you another shot to try and buy the retro-gray PS5 slim, DualSense, and DualSense Edge tomorrow at 12PM ET from PlayStation Direct, as spotted by Wario64. Good luck!
As of December 1st, Fortnite Crew, a monthly $11.99 subscription that already includes perks like the Battle Royale battle pass and 1,000 V-bucks, will also give you access to the rewards passes for Fortnite Festival, Lego Fortnite, and a new “OG Pass” that will tie into the revived Fortnite OG mode. The change is part of Epic’s work to streamline its passes.
[Epic Games' Fortnite]
After a brief delay, Fortnite is introducing a new cosmetic called “kicks” on November 21st that lets you change your character’s shoes. Yes, it’s yet another thing to buy in the game, but I also can’t wait to make a ninja turtle wear Air Jordans. Here’s a full rundown of the supported skins.
Though the excellent Pokétoon web series has just wrapped for the season, Netflix is getting ready to drop the next chapter of its (very different, but still very good) mainline Pokémon anime that will follow as Liko (Alejandra Reynoso), Roy (Anjali Kunapaneni), and Dot (Faye Mata) set out to find the legendary land of Laqua. The new episodes are scheduled to debut on February 7th.
I’m not talking about the fragile Samsung Galaxy Fold — but rather the “charmingly awful” Royale FlexPai that kicked off the entire foldable-screen craze in 2018! (Royale released a decent sequel, but by then Samsung found its stride.)
By 2019, folding phones had captured our imagination: I showed you how they were the stuff of science fiction, and we did a wacky field guide!
During trial, prosecutors pressed Wang for creating code that allowed Alameda to have a negative balance in FTX’s database.
But the prosecution ultimately advocated for Wang during his sentencing on Wednesday, citing his cooperation in deciphering the FTX case, along with his work to create a tool to help the government to detect fraud, CNBC reports.