Apple's changing its rules for data collection consent prompts after Germany's Federal Cartel Office accused Apple of giving the prompts a design that favored its own apps. Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompts reportedly cost social media apps nearly $10 billion when they launched with iOS 14.5, making cross-app tracking of users largely opt in. But as a designated "gatekeeper" under the EU's DMA rules, it is facing additional scrutiny over whether the program provides a level playing field.

The regulator says the prompts steer users away from agreeing to let third-party apps use their data, while encouraging them to give consent for …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Strings of code in Samsung's Galaxy Wearable app hint at an upcoming pair of over-ear headphones that could compete with the AirPods Max, SamMobile reports. Samsung's reportedly referring to the headphones as the "Galaxy H1," and SamMobile says they could launch sometime in 2027. That would make these the company's first pair of over-ear headphones since the Level On in 2015, which was released well before Samsung acquired Harman and a number of other audio brands.

Connection status icons in the app standard show the design of over-ear, wireless Bluetooth headphones, but not necessarily exactly what these will look like in the end. Samsung …

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There are over 120,000 of Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras installed all over the US. Flock’s cameras, and others like them, use AI to identify and track vehicles based on their license plate number, make, model, color, and other info, networked together to track vehicles and people’s movements throughout the day and across the country.

Dozens of communities have canceled contracts for the cameras or turned them off, including Los Angeles, as officials have pushed for more limits on the data they collect, who has access to it, and how it can be used in the future. Earlier this year, Amazon-owned Ring canceled a partnership with Flock after online backlash.

• Flock CEO: ‘We got this one wrong’
• Flock cameras? Target practice.
• Another grim portent for our AI policing future.
• The LAPD has suspended its use of Flock’s license plate readers, for now.
• No, Flock isn’t threatening people for debating surveillance
• The all-too-predictable Flock stalking problem.
• Let’s talk about Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state
• Ring’s Flock breakup doesn’t fix its real problem
• Flock is “pausing further exploration of a potential partnership with Ring.”
• Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
• Dozens of Flock AI camera feeds were just out there
• AI annotators overseas may be reviewing Flock license plate camera footage from the US.
• Amazon’s Ring now works with video surveillance company Flock
• Unprotected license plate surveillance cameras let anyone with a web browser tune in

Meta is launching an optional Scam Alert feature on WhatsApp that uses on-device machine learning to flag suspicious messages. Earlier this year, Meta also launched scam detection for device linking requests on WhatsApp. The new Scam Alert feature, which is rolling out in a limited beta, shows users a warning if a chat seems like a scam:

If the model identifies a message as a likely scam attempt, the user sees a warning in the chat, which is not visible to the other person. From there, the user can decide what to do: block, report, or continue the conversation. If they decide that a warning is incorrectly flagged, the user can mark the cha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

According to an Economic Daily News report spotted by MacRumors, executives for Apple supplier Pegatron confirmed during an earnings call that the iPhone 18 Pro series phones will launch this fall, but the base iPhone 18 won't arrive until the first quarter of next year. The more affordable iPhone 18e and a new iPhone Air are also rumored to launch around the same time, in line with rumors that have been circulating for more than a year.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and The Information both reported last year that Apple was planning to only launch its premium iPhones in fall 2026, and earlier this year another Apple supplier said one of its custom …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is hosting a Pixel launch event on Wednesday night where it will show off its latest lineup of devices. But you don't have to wait until then for all the news; we were able to check out the devices ahead of the event and take a look at everything Google's unveiling, including the latest Pixel phones, new health features on the Pixel Watch 5, and more.

Google will be livestreaming the event on Wednesday at 6PM ET / 3PM PT. But if you aren't able to watch along yourself, you can catch up on all of the highlights from Wednesday's Pixel launch below.

Pixel 11 launches with new colors and a price bump

Google refreshed its line of Pixel …

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Microsoft Edge is ending support for the Manifest V2 extensions platform, which will cut off the uBlock Origin adblocker and others like it, just like Google Chrome did earlier this year. According to Microsoft, there are only 58 extensions on the Edge Add-On Store "with any meaningful usage" that still use MV2, and only three of those aren't available on the newer MV3 platform.

Anyone still using these extensions can switch to a different adblocker, like uBlock Origin Lite. Or they could use a different browser, like Opera, which still supports existing MV2 extensions and says it will continue to do so "for as long as it's technically rea …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The AI device OpenAI is developing with former Apple designer Jony Ive is "essentially a smart speaker without a display" that's battery-powered, doughnut-shaped and roughly the size of a hockey puck, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. The device, expected to launch in 2027 for a price over $300, reportedly "will have a unique look, complete with moving parts," including some that will move on their own to show when the device is responding or interacting with the user, along with lights, a camera system, and other sensors.

Gurman's sources also say the "battery-powered" device is designed to be "easy to carry around the home wit …

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Apple bumped up its trade-in offers for iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and certain Android phones, with some devices now worth over $100 more, 9to5Mac reports. The Mac Studio's trade-in value increased the most, going up by $260. While some devices' offers are unchanged, most got an increase of around $5 to $20, with a few seeing an increase of over $100:

• MacBook Pro ($855, previously $690)
• Mac Pro ($2,195, previously $2,045)
• Mac Studio ($1,305, previously $1,045)

Additionally, Apple is now offering trade-in credit for a handful of new Android devices:

• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G ($95)
• Google Pixel 9 Pro XL ($315)
• G …

Read the full story at The Verge.

X head of product Nikita Bier is stepping down and says he will move into a role as an advisor, writing that "it's time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster." He shared the update just over a month after celebrating his one-year anniversary on the job, and just weeks after Elon Musk's combined SpaceX / X / xAI companies went public.

He says that "almost every aspect of X" has been rebuilt while he was head of product, including its timeline, Android app, chat, and notifications. Going forward, the "next leaders" mentioned are Benji Taylor leading design with iOS lead Jonah Katz and Mridul Singhai leading the pr …

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Sunbird Messaging is back on the Google Play Store, offering Android users blue bubble privileges in iMessage complete with reactions and high quality videos for $2.99 a month. Apple and Google have made cross platform messaging better in recent years with support for RCS, but Android users can still cause issues in iMessage group chats, like breaking reactions and replies.

Android Authority reports that after Sunbird shut down nearly three years ago due to security issues, the company says its new setup addresses those, and that "Any message moving through our infrastructure is protected in transit and released once it's delivered," while …

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You can link more devices with one phone number on Signal now, including an Android phone or iPhone. Signal already supported linking PCs and iPads, but not additional phones. When you link a device on Signal, you can check and respond to new messages across all of your linked devices. You can also choose whether or not to transfer an end-to-end encrypted copy of your previous messages to each newly linked device to mitigate the risk of devices that might be shared, lost, or compromised.

The update is rolling out now with Signal version 8.20 on Android and version 8.22 for iPhone / iPad.

Signal also says it has made "significant interface …

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Driven by demand for AI capacity, AMD's data center revenue more than doubled year-over-year in its latest earnings report, reaching $6.7 billion. That's up from $5.8 billion in Q1, and jumping 107 percent from the $3.2 billion it reported for the same period a year ago. During Tuesday's earnings call, AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company expects "data center segment revenue to more than double year-over-year in 2027," as well.

At the same time, AMD's gaming revenue fell 31 percent compared to last year, to $779 million, as price hikes and component shortages slowed sales for the Xbox Series X / S, PS5, and Valve's Steam Deck. On a call after …

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After previewing HDR10 Plus Advanced late last year, Samsung's not-Dolby Vision 2 spec will launch globally on Amazon's Prime Video this month. The first TVs announced with support are Samsung's 2026 lineup, which will be able to make use of the extra metadata to deliver more precise HDR that is optimized for what you're watching, and tone mapping that can adjust for specific areas of the screen instead of applying one setting to the whole frame.

Samsung's press release didn't mention which titles will have support initially, or how many there are, other than including a press image showing off Amazon's series Ride or Die. The news also co …

Read the full story at The Verge.