Top headlines from Engadget, the internet's original tech blog.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unnamed parties reached a framework agreement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A regulator has accused NVIDIA of violating China's antitrust laws over its acquisition of chipmaker Mellanox. In its preliminary findings of an investigation it commenced in December, the State Administration for Market Regulation claimed that the company breached both national regulations and the conditional terms China outlined when it rubber-stamped the $6.9 billion takeover. Also, on Monday, the state's Attorney General Letitia James released more specifics about what the SAFE for Kids Act will entail in practice. And, Valve has apparently updated its Steam Early Access policy to no longer accept games with what the company deems to be "mature themes." As first reported by Gamesmarkt earlier this month, gaming studio Dammitbird, which develops the adult adventure game Heavy Hearts, was not allowed to put the title on Steam Early Access because of its content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It's now hiring specialist AI tutors after downsizing its generalist AI tutor team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Even though Google's AI Overviews were introduced with a comically rocky start, it's about to face a far more serious challenge. Penske Media, the publisher for Rolling Stone, Variety, Billboard and others, filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the tech giant illegally powers its AI Overviews feature with content from its sites; a California bill that would require operating system and app store providers to verify users' ages before they can download apps has cleared the Assembly 58-0, and will now move on to Gov. Gavin Newsom; and the rear-wheel drive trim of the Tesla Cybertruck lasted about five months before it was unceremoniously removed from online sales. The Long Range model represented the most affordable Cybertruck option with its starting price of $69,990 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Seven companies are being asked to share how they're mitigating harm to younger users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Microsoft and OpenAI have issued a joint statement to say that they have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the "next phase" of their partnership. The companies are still finalizing the terms of agreement and haven't shared the details of what their future would look like exactly. In other tech news, Grok has once again been caught spreading blatant misinformation on X. In several bizarre exchanges, the chatbot repeatedly claimed that Charlie Kirk was "fine" and that gruesome videos of his assassination were a "meme edit." And, Merriam-Webster and its parent company Encyclopedia Britannica are the latest to take on AI in court. The plaintiffs have sued Perplexity, claiming that AI company's "answer engine" product unlawfully copies their copyrighted materials. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The group is looking to music royalty nonprofits for inspiration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon may be muscling into the field of augmented reality glasses. According to a report by The Information, sources claimed that the company is working on AR glasses for consumers, allegedly with plans to release the product in late 2026 or early 2027. In other news, David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, plans to make HBO more expensive, and passwords a lot harder to share, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And, Lyft and May Mobility have teamed up to launch a fleet of autonomous vehicles in Atlanta. It's a pilot program, so it's currently only available to Lyft riders in the area of midtown Atlanta. The companies promise a "measured, safety-first approach" with this rollout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
With the start of September comes the promise of crisp, fall-like weather and, like clockwork, new iPhones. Apple's "awe dropping" iPhone event this year had execs showing off the latest iPhones from Cupertino and reminding folks of the changes Liquid Glass and iOS 26 will bring to their handsets in the coming week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Microsoft reportedly plans to begin using Anthropic's latest Claude models to power some of the Copilot features in its Office 365 apps. In a report published Tuesday, The Information said the tech giant would announce the change "in the coming weeks." Microsoft currently relies on OpenAI's tech to power the majority of AI features found inside of Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Also, the FDA approved the biotech company eGenesis to begin human trials of pig-to-human kidney transplants. eGenesis provides pigs with CRISPR-modified genes. These genetic changes reduce the chances of organ rejection in human recipients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Current and former staffers have come forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Judge William Alsup has rejected the record-breaking $1.5 billion settlement Anthropic has agreed to for a piracy lawsuit filed by writers. According to Bloomberg Law, the federal judge is concerned that the class lawyers struck a deal that will be forced "down the throat of authors." Alsup reportedly felt misled by the deal and said it was "nowhere close to complete." Also, Vodafone made a commercial starring an AI avatar posing as a real lady. This is interesting because Vodafone is a major global brand and not a fly-by-night TikTok company. The company said it was “testing different styles of advertising — this time with AI." And, Bluesky has added a built-in bookmarking feature so users finally have a way to privately save posts on the platform. The update is out now on Bluesky's website and app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The company, they said, got their books from an online library with pirated works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple's so-called ‘Awe dropping' event is tomorrow and the company is all but certain to unveil the iPhone 17 line. The keynote will be livestreamed on YouTube Tuesday at 1PM ET from Cupertino. Three Engadget team members will be reporting, liveblogging and providing their hands-on impressions from Apple Park. Also, Microsoft said its Azure cloud platform has returned to normal service after an incident of cut underwater cables that played out over Saturday. The tech giant reported "undersea fiber cuts" in the Red Sea on Saturday morning, which disrupted Azure service throughout the Middle East and led to potential "increased latency" for users. Microsoft said that the latency issue was resolved by Saturday evening and was able to reroute the Azure traffic through other paths. And for most Hollow Knight: Silksong players, the combat is challenging and the boss fights are punishing. However, there's another layer of complexity for anyone playing the sequel in Simplified Chinese: the bizarre translations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The new bike appears to be based on the company's EV Fun Concept and likely won't be available outside of Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The White House hosted several tech and AI leaders at an event today centered on teaching artificial intelligence in US schools. Many of the big tech companies — including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic — have already issued press releases with their commitments to a pledge from the White House to help "foster early interest in Al technology, promote Al literacy and proficiency, and enable comprehensive Al training for parents and educators." Also, A new peer-reviewed study alleges that 18 of the 100 most-downloaded virtual private network apps on the Google Play Store are secretly connected in three large families, despite claiming to be independent providers. Here's the link to the 18 VPNs that have overlaps. https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/researchers-find-alarming-overlaps-among-18-popular-vpns-191828342.html And Sesame Street creator Sesame Workshop and YouTube have announced a new "extended partnership" that will bring episodes of the iconic children's show to the platform and a series of workshops for creators on "how to create content that is entertaining while also promoting learning." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The updated Sound Tower models go big on noise and lighting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google must pay $425 million to the plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit that accused the company of collecting users' data even after they've turned off a tracking feature, a federal jury has decided. Plus, OpenAI has announced that it's making its Projects feature available to free users of ChatGPT; and the sports broadcasting piracy network Streameast has been shut down after it was investigated for a year by a US-based anti-piracy group. Streameast is the largest illegal sports streaming platform in the world, and while active it offered its users free access to 80 unauthorised domains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The controls will arrive sometime within the next month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google will not have to divest its Chrome browser but will have to change some of its business practices, a federal judge has ruled. The ruling comes more than a year after the same judge ruled that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in internet search. Following the ruling last year, the Department of Justice had proposed that Google should be forced to sell Chrome. But in a 230-page decision, Judge Amit Mehta said the government had "overreached" in its request. In other news, Waymo is preparing to launch in two more markets. The company announced today that it will expand into both Denver and Seattle; and the Federal Trade Commission announced that Disney will pay $10 million to settle allegations that the entertainment giant allowed data collection on YouTube videos meant for children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TechCrunch reports that these new messaging features will roll out in the coming weeks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google is officially debunking a series of reports that claimed Gmail has been hit with a "major" security issue in recent days. "We want to reassure our users that Gmail's protections are strong and effective," the company said in a somewhat unusual statement. "Several inaccurate claims surfaced recently that incorrectly stated that we issued a broad warning to all Gmail users about a major Gmail security issue. This is entirely false." Also, major social media platforms in China have started rolling out labels for AI-generated content to comply with a law that took effect on Monday. Users of the likes of WeChat, Douyin, Weibo and RedNote are now seeing such labels on posts. And, following news that Escape from Tarkov is escaping its perpetual beta, the pioneering extraction shooter is also about to make its debut on Steam. Nikita Buyanov, head of the Battlestate Games studio that developed Escape from Tarkov, confirmed on X that the game's Steam page "will be available soon," only teasing that the full details will come later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Plus, looking ahead to the Apple iPhone 17 event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok is taking another step towards becoming more than just a platform for infinitely scrolling through short videos. The social media app told TechCrunch that its users will soon be able to send voice notes, images and videos in direct messages or group chats. In other tech news, Meta hosted several AI chatbots with the names and likenesses of celebrities without their permission, according to Reuters. The unauthorized chatbots that Reuters discovered during its investigation included Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johansson, and they were available on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. And, xAI doesn't want its secret recipe for Grok to get out, and it's filing a lawsuit to make sure of that. In a lawsuit filed last week, xAI claimed that former employee Xuechen Li stole the company's confidential info and trade secrets before joining the team at OpenAI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The feature has begun appearing for some users but hasn't rolled out widely yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Microsoft is expanding its AI footprint with the release of two new models that its teams trained completely in-house. MAI-Voice-1 is the tech major's first natural speech generation model, while MAI-1-preview is text-based and is the company's first foundation model trained end-to-end. MAI-Voice-1 is currently being used in the Copilot Daily and Podcast features. Microsoft has made MAI-1-preview available for public tests on LMArena, and will begin previewing it in select Copilot situations in the coming weeks. In other news, NVIDIA revealed that its revenue for the second quarter rose 56 percent compared to the same period last year, and that's without shipping any H20 chips to China. It reported a revenue of $46.7 billion and a net income of $26.4 billion. And Fubo is making a move to attract new subscribers ahead of the NFL season. The company's new Fubo Sports bundle includes content from ESPN, Fox and local affiliates. The football-friendly package costs $56 monthly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The company's threat report detailed a 'vibe hacking' extortion scheme powered by Claude. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Most of the time, AI companies are locked in a race to the top, treating each other as rivals and competitors. Today, OpenAI and Anthropic revealed that they agreed to evaluate the alignment of each other's publicly available systems and shared the results of their analyses. The full reports get pretty technical, but are worth a read for anyone who's following the nuts and bolts of AI development. In other news, WhatsApp just introduced an AI-powered writing assistant, in case you need help with a text or whatever. The AI provides suggestions in various styles, like professional, funny or supportive. Once generated, the user can continue editing the message if required. And, Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant that's integrated into Windows and Microsoft 365, is making the jump to your living room. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
They singled out the behaviors of Meta's AI chatbots in their letter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SpaceX has successfully launched the Starship for its 10th test flight after it was delayed a couple of times due to weather conditions and other issues. This time, the company was able to achieve its objectives without the vehicle and its booster exploding mid-test. In other tech news, Anthropic has settled a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of authors for an undisclosed sum. The move means the company will avoid a potentially more costly ruling if the case regarding its use of copyright materials to train artificial intelligence tools had moved forward. And, Meta is throwing its resources behind a new super PAC in California. According to Politico, the group will support state-level political candidates who espouse tech-friendly policies, particularly those with a loose approach to regulating artificial intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Jetson AGX Thor developer kit retails for $3,499. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The US Attorneys General of 44 jurisdictions have signed a letter addressed to the Chief Executive Officers of multiple AI companies, urging them to protect children "from exploitation by predatory artificial intelligence products." In other news, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI is suing Apple and OpenAI, as reported by Reuters. The suit accuses the companies of illegally conspiring to stop rival AI companies from getting a fair shot on the App Store, alleging they have "locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing." And, the 100,000-square-foot amusement centers will be centered around all things Netflix and will include a retail component, a restaurant called Netflix Bites and numerous "immersive story-driven experiences" based on the company's most successful properties. The Netflix House in Philadelphia will open November 12 at the King of Prussia Mall, and the Dallas location will open December 11 at Galleria Texas. A third location is planned for Las Vegas in 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
xAI made the older Grok model available for all, while Elon Musk said the upcoming Grok 3 will follow suit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple is going after another one of its previous employees for allegedly sharing trade secrets with a new employer. Apple's lawsuit listed Chen Shi, a former employee who worked on the Apple Watch team, along with Oppo, as defendants, claiming they "conspired to steal Apple's trade secrets." In other news, Users with Mississippi IP addresses can no longer access the Bluesky app. The decentralized social media network has explained in a post that Mississippi's new age verification law for social networks "would fundamentally change" how it operates, and it wouldn't be possible to comply with its small team and limited resources. And Google is changing the way you confirm if contacts are legit. The company has begun rolling out a QR code to verify that the person you're communicating with is, in fact, who they say they are, 9to5Google reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI Mode will add agentic event and appointment finders soon, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AppleInsider spotted the latest bizarre wrinkle to this story, which is that the actual phone still does not exist. The publication noticed that promotional images for T1 all show different smartphones that appear to be tweaked in a photo editor to look gold. While the website shows a badly edited image of what appears to be a Revvl 7 Pro 5G phone, an Instagram ad seems to depict an iPhone 16 Pro Max, again with the company's branding overlaid. A third confusing image edit was posted on X earlier this week. That photo shows a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra equipped with a case made by Spigen. The South Korean accessory company's logo can be seen behind the render of an American flag. In other news, Germany-based search engine and browser nonprofit Ecosia is the latest party to make an offer for Google's Chrome. Questions about Chrome's fate have been swirling since the news that the Department of Justice would push for Google to sell the browser after the ruling that the company's search engine business constituted a monopoly. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just announced an investigation into Tesla regarding its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. That's according to a report by Electrek. The road safety regulator says the probe involves inconsistencies with how the company reports crashes regarding the aforementioned systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It's a battle of the foldables and we break down the differences between the two most popular folding phone brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
We've heard a lot this year about AI enabling new scams, from celebrity deepfakes on Facebook to hackers impersonating government officials. However, a new report suggests that AI also poses a fraud risk from the other direction — easily falling for scams that human users are much more likely to catch. The report, titled "Scamlexity," comes from a cybersecurity startup called Guardio, which produces a browser extension designed to catch scams in real time. In other news, Bloomberg has published a deep dive into operations at Oracle, chronicling the software giant's rise in cloud computing and current push into powering artificial intelligence projects. The publication reported that Oracle has promised to develop tens of billions of dollars in data centers, which have become a hot business. And more and more airlines think that Starlink is the solution. The latest company to sign with the SpaceX affiliate is Alaska Air Group, which announced that it will start offering Starlink Wi-Fi next year and expand the service to its entire fleet by 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
They cost $230 and are available in two colorways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The White House has joined TikTok, the social media app that President Trump wanted to ban during his first term. Its first post shows clips of Trump in various events with Kendrick Lamar's track playing in the background. The New York Times notes that it references a popular video edit of Creed, a boxing movie starring Michael B. Jordan, on the app. In the TikTok post, Trump could be heard saying "I am your voice," while the caption reads "America we are BACK! What's up TikTok?" In other news, an Oregon man has been charged in a federal complaint today on allegations of operating a botnet for hire that conducted cyberattacks beginning at least in 2021. Ethan Foltz has been accused of running Rapper Bot, also known as Eleven Eleven Botnet and CowBot, and using it to execute coordinated distributed denial of service or DDoS attacks; Meta rolled out its new voice dubbing feature globally. The Reels feature uses generative AI to translate your voice, with optional lip-syncing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee will open in partnership with Kairos Power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
UK officials will no longer compel Apple to create backdoor access to its users' data. That's according to US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She wrote on X that the administration worked closely with the UK over the past months. As The New York Times noted, the UK government issued the secret order earlier this year after amending the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. In other news, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced plans to investigate both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for offering AI chatbots that can claim to be health tools, and potentially misusing data collected from underage users. Paxton says that AI chatbots from either platform "can present themselves as professional therapeutic tools," to the point of lying about their qualifications; and Substack now lets users subscribe to any paid publication via an in-app purchase from the official iOS app. The news comes after the company tested the feature with 30,000 creators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Players can expect more age-based restrictions and a new tool that automatically detects inappropriate content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anthropic's latest feature for two of its Claude AI models could be the beginning of the end for the AI jailbreaking community. The company announced in a post on its website that the Claude Opus 4 and 4.1 models now have the power to end a conversation with users. According to Anthropic, this feature will only be used in "rare, extreme cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions." In other news, the first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games have come to a close with some new world records, but don't expect them to beat humans in a 100-meter dash any time soon. The three-day robotics event in Beijing, China that saw humanoid robots compete in everything from boxing to cleaning concluded this weekend. And Can-Am, part of the motorsports group BRP that recently introduced electric snowmobiles, has just launched its first electric all-terrain vehicle. The Outlander Electric is designed to be "whisper quiet" for chores like herding or hunting, but it can actually tow more than its gas-powered counterparts thanks to the high level of torque. Powered by BRP's modular Rotax E-Power drivetrain, the Outlander Electric makes up to 47 hp and 53 foot pounds of torque. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
They offer real-time text recognition, scene descriptions, facial recognition and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Supreme Court has decided not to weigh in on one of the many state-level age-verification laws currently being reviewed across the country. Today, the top court chose not to intervene on legislation from Mississippi about checking the ages of social media users, denying an application to vacate stay from NetChoice. Also, Intel has had some recent struggles in delivering results for its shareholders, but the company could soon be answering to an additional boss. The current administration is reportedly in talks to have the US government acquire a stake in the chipmaker. And, a Meta document on its AI chatbot policies included some alarming examples of permitted behavior. Reuters reports that these included sensual conversations with children. Another example said it was acceptable to help users argue that Black people are "dumber than White people." Here's the link to the Meta AI Chatbot policies: https://www.engadget.com/ai/an-internal-meta-ai-document-said-chatbots-could-have-sensual-conversations-with-children-191101296.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The FTC launched this complaint against the Tinder and Hinge parent company in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sam Altman is preparing to co-found a new company funded by OpenAI that will go up against Elon Musk's Neuralink, The Financial Post reported. The startup, called Merge Labs, will use AI for its brain-computer interface and compete directly with Neuralink, along with other nascent companies in the field like Precision Neuroscience and Synchron. In other news, Apple is still hard at work on becoming a relevant player in AI. The latest missive from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg suggests that Apple is shifting its artificial intelligence goals to center on new device segments. Sources reportedly told the publication that Apple has a slate of new smart home products in the works that could help pivot its lagging AI strategy; and Amazon is expanding its same-day grocery delivery service with the addition of perishable food items in over 1,000 US cities. Shoppers can now add fresh grocery items like produce, dairy, meat, seafood and frozen foods to their orders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
It will help you track your vital signs during both processes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple has denied Elon Musk's accusation that it's favoring OpenAI in its App Store rankings and making it impossible for other AI companies to reach the top. In a statement sent to Bloomberg, Apple said the App Store is "designed to be fair and free of bias." In other news, Google is officially rolling out Preferred Sources, which lets you curate search results. The feature allows you to pick specific or "preferred" sources, like a certain blog or news outlet, and see them more prominently when you use Google Search; and databases used by US federal courts for sharing and managing case documents have been hacked. Politico first reported on the hack last week on August 6; yesterday, an investigation from The New York Times stated that Russia is suspected to be involved in the attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The company announced that it would discontinue dial-up service on September 30th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices