Author: News Room
The US Department of Justice announced on Friday that TikTok will pay $400 million to settle a lawsuit filed in 2024 over allegedly violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In the lawsuit, the DOJ alleged that TikTok collected data from children without notifying parents or obtaining consent and did not delete the accounts when parents requested.TikTok is set to pay $300 million right away and will pay a further $100 million “upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered against TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly,” the DOJ says in a press release. The settlement is “one of…
I am so sorry, fellow US gadget fans: the FCC’s drone ban appears to have struck again. The HoverAir Versa — a baby steadycam with snap-on propeller wings that transform it into a drone — has already stopped taking US orders just three days after its Indiegogo debut, and may be forced to abandon shipping plans in the US.HoverAir is now telling backers it’s only shipping its camera to the US, not the piece that turns it into a drone, “due to a few remaining logistics updates with the Flight Kit.” But those “logistics” may actually be a euphemism for…
LinkedIn actually announced a “Seems like AI slop” button on July 30th, and the company says that a lot of people have already used it. According to a Thursday post from chief product officer Hari Srinivasan, “over a million people” have clicked on the button, which is accessible from the three dots menu on a post.LinkedIn announced the button a few weeks after AI detector Pangram determined that 41 percent of LinkedIn’s longform posts were flagged as fully AI generated, which 404 Media reported on. Alongside the AI slop button, LinkedIn introduced “new and improved” classifiers to identify posts as…
The PlayStation 5 is skipping towards its sixth birthday, although it might not feel that way if you spent its early years staring at the relentless “out of stock” messages on your phone. Pandemic-related shortages made the console difficult to buy until well into 2022, meaning many owners joined the generation considerably later. The PS5 didn’t immediately leave its predecessor behind, either. Cross-generation releases kept the PS4 relevant for longer than usual, delaying the point at which PS5 truly felt like Sony’s primary console. But with the PS5 Pro now on sale and the original hardware well into its life…
Apple is laying off staff on the Siri and the Vision Pro teams, according to Bloomberg. The cuts include “largely shutting down” a Vision Pro gaming team and “reducing the size” of the team that makes Vision Pro immersive content, the publication says. More than 200 jobs were cut.Apple said in a statement to Bloomberg it was making the changes to “to evolve our business to deliver the best experiences for our users,” though it will be making new roles. The company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.The Vision Pro launched in early 2024 as…
Walmart will soon allow you to pay for your items with Google Pay or Apple Pay. In an announcement on Friday, Walmart says it’s going to bring tap-to-pay capabilities to “select” Walmart and Sam’s Club locations starting August 24th, before rolling out support to all US stores by the end of 2026 and gas stations by mid-2027.This launch has been a long time coming, as Walmart was one of the last major retailers not to support Apple Pay or Google Pay. The retail giant even backed the launch of the short-lived CurrentC mobile payment service before rolling out Walmart Pay…
The Tim Cook CEO era at Apple is almost over and there’s deep intrigue into how his replacement John Ternus will handle things after taking the reins. Will the new man look to keep the ship steady? Or could we be set for a shake up to drive Apple into a new era of prosperity? Well, according to an analyst at a major US bank, exciting times may lie ahead with Apple taking more risks than before and not waiting as long to push on into new product categories. Cook’s era was incredibly successful for Apple, but under his leadership…
Oura is facing criticism form wearers about the accuracy of smart rings’ sleep tracking capabilities and now a class action lawsuit has been filed accusing the company of misleading customers about the quality of their shuteye. The suit filed in San Francisco contests that Oura Ring products aren’t even capable of measuring things like sleep quality or sleep stages and accuses the company of AI-based guesswork. The suit filed by the Clarkson Law Firm (via TechCrunch) earlier this week accuses Oura of taking advantage of wearers’ desire for proper sleep tracking, but claims the tech inside the Ring models wouldn’t…
In response to these videos, other creators started sharing what appear to be screenshots of partnership offers they’d received from PR firms working on Higgsfield’s behalf. All of this led fans to the conclusion that Higgsfield has been trying to use creators to boost its profile and garner goodwill from the public. Almost immediately, fans began dragging Haapoja and Kolder for seemingly working with Higgsfield. Haapoja’s and Kolder’s videos are not labeled as ads and neither the creators nor Higgsfield responded to The Verge’s questions about whether these were paid partnerships. But in producing and posting videos that feel very…
If you’ve been out enjoying the summer this month there’s a good chance you’ve not been able to keep on top of your gadget news in the way you normally would – but help is at hand. Here at Stuff it’s literally our job to keep you up-to-date with all the latest headlines. All the biggest stories can be found in our news section, but this is the home of those other stories we haven’t been able to cover. That doesn’t mean this is second-rate stuff, though. Below you’ll find the very best new gadgets from the past month, starting…
He hates weigh-in days. My cat Pablo is a voluptuous boy. His primordial pouch, originally thought to protect cats’ squishy insides, hangs low and wobbles to and fro. Once, when he was five or six, a vet sternly sat my spouse and me down, gravely stating, “He’s simply too young to be this fat.” Pablo didn’t care, but we were traumatized. Now that he’s 10, the vets have repeatedly scolded us. All 20 pounds of his rotundity, they say, cannot continue. The specter of diabetes and kidney problems, and the fact that his obesity combined with a too-small pee-pee hole…
It feels like retro technology is having a real moment again. The iPod is making a return to prominence. Compact discs are on the rise. Dumb phones are specific choices consumers are making, and the rise of cameras without external connectivity continues. There’s good reasons why. Cameras free of the computational processing, and filters can provide a more authentic representation of a scene. Some believe the warm sound of vinyl records is better than even the most uncompressed digital music. The common thread? A growing aversion to the all-conquering smartphone that has taken us away from the activity only being…