A Petlibro outage is preventing its smart pet feeders and other devices from performing scheduled tasks, like dispensing food. The outage began on Tuesday, with users across Reddit reporting that their smart feeders, litter boxes, and water fountains have gone offline.

Though Petlibro maintains that "existing settings and schedules stored locally on your device will continue to operate as programmed," many users say that's not the case. Instead, some users report that Petlibro's RFID and Granary food dispensers are missing scheduled feedings due to the outage - a major problem for pet owners currently away from home. Some users say they've …

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Google TV Freeplay, the company's free, ad-supported streaming service, now supports video on demand. Instead of tuning into Google TV Freeplay's selection of always-on channels, you can now choose from over 10,000 shows and movies to watch whenever you want.

The update introduces titles like Lady Bird, Seventeen Again, and Hell's Kitchen, according to Google's announcement. The company has also expanded its live TV lineup to include more than 300 channels dedicated to news, sports, reality TV, true crime, and more. Some of these new channels include World of Love Island, Yahoo! Sports Network, Bloomberg TV Plus, and The Martha Stewart Chan …

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Google is gearing up to reveal a bunch of new Pixel devices on August 12th. A series of leaks leading up to the event suggest that the Pixel 11 lineup will come in an array of colors, with signs pointing to a built-in light coming to Pro models. Teasers from Google also indicate that it will show off a next-gen Pixel Fold alongside a Pixel Watch 5 in four different finishes. There might be a new Pixel Tag tracker as well.

Google may take the wraps off the new devices well ahead of its Made by Google livestream. On Google’s website, the countdown for preorders ends on August 12th at 10AM ET — eight hours before its event at 6PM ET. Comedian Trevor Noah will host this year’s show, featuring notable guests like NBA star Stephen Curry, podcaster Alex Cooper, Indian cricketer Shubman Gill, and Japanese actress Ayami Nakajo. We’ll be live blogging the event, so stay tuned!

Follow along for all the latest news about Google’s Pixel devices.

• Google’s upcoming Pixel phones are for the fans, even if its launch event isn’t
• What to expect from Google’s 2026 Pixel hardware launch event

Zoom has patched a major security vulnerability that could allow an attacker to hijack anyone's device during a meeting. In a blog post on Tuesday, researchers at A Security say they uncovered the flaw using "fewer than 20 prompts on publicly available AI models," as reported earlier by Wired.

The exploit involved Zoom's annotation feature, which allows users to draw on their screen while sharing it with other meeting participants. With the exploit, an attacker could join or host a meeting and run malicious code on victims' devices, allowing them to steal data, turn on the camera or microphone, or install malware. The attack required no act …

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Spotify will soon label AI artists and remove their music from your recommendations. The change, which will start rolling out in mid-September, means you'll see an "AI Persona" badge on an artist's profile across the app if they do "not represent a real person."

The music streaming platform will allow artists to disclose that they're an AI persona starting today, but it won't rely solely on self-identification. Spotify says it will use human review and AI tools to determine whether someone's profile, including their name and image, "appears to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities." If Spotify determines that an artist's identity …

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Starting February 1st, 2027, creators who want to monetize their channel through YouTube's Partner Program (YPP) will need at least 1,000 subscribers and either 8,000 qualified watch hours over the past year, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. That's a sizeable jump from YouTube's current requirement of 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 watch hours in the past year, or 1,000 subscribers with 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days. Creators will also need to maintain 10 million Shorts views over 90 days to earn money from the Shorts Creators Pool, though falling below this threshold won't result in removal from YPP.

Ad …

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Valve says a data breach may have exposed the personal information of customers who ordered its Steam hardware in Europe. In an email sent to users, Valve says its European shipping partner, CEVA Logistics, suffered a data breach that may have included customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

The breach at CEVA occurred between July 29th and August 1st, weeks after Valve began taking reservations for its new Steam Machine and Steam Controller. Valve adds that European customer data "was likely compromised" as part of the breach, as CEVA stores "delivery-related information" for up to 90 days after orders.

…

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This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about how AI is changing our daily lives, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Long before ChatGPT became a thing, educators and editors frequently used anti-plagiarism tools to see if writers were being honest about their work. These tools work by comparing a written work against a database filled with content from across the web, scholarly articles, and more to check for matching sentences and phrases. Some, like Turnitin, offer a percentage th …

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For roughly an hour this week, Telegram vanished from Apple's App Store. Even during that blip, it was a stunning absence for such a major app: an avenue of communication for more than 1 billion users around the world, used widely as a secure platform for people who live in countries under censorship. Apple later revealed that it had removed the app due to the presence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and restored it once that content was removed.

But the decision once again stirred up questions and confusion about Apple's moderation policies and how it treats different companies. And one company in particular sprang to many people's m …

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TikTok says a "moderator error" delayed the removal of a livestream that appeared to show blogger Perez Hilton harming himself, as reported earlier by Wired. Jamie Favazza, a spokesperson for TikTok US, tells The Verge that the platform notified law enforcement about the situation and banned Hilton's account for violating its community guidelines.

Hilton, or Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., is known for the celebrity gossip blog he started in 2004, where he often posted photos of stars featuring his own often obscene or cruel drawings layered on top.

Though some users claimed Perez's livestream aired for more than 30 minutes, Favazza disputes …

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SoftBank contributed $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library in January, just months before announcing that it's leasing land from the federal government to build a sprawling data center in Ohio. The Japanese company revealed the timing in response to a June letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), which raised concerns about bribery.

"Are we expected to believe it's a coincidence that two months after Softbank donated $50 million to the Trump library, his administration announced a massive lease deal for Softbank's data center?" Sen. Warren said in a statement to The …

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Disney is looking into launching a free streaming option. When asked about Disney's plans for free, ad-supported streaming during an earnings call on Wednesday, Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro confirmed the company is "exploring a free product for consumers."

D'Amaro added that a free tier will help drive growth and expand the streaming service's reach "to a customer segment that's more price sensitive." Though D'Amaro said that there's "nothing specific to announce today," he noted that a free tier is "definitely something that we're considering."

In July, Business Insider reported that Disney's chief product and technology officer, Adam Smith, b …

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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov blames an extortionist for planting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in a public chat to get the app temporarily removed from Apple's App Store on Monday night. "Apple removed Telegram from the App Store before contacting us," Durov says in a post on X. "This creates a potential systemic risk for every mobile app that hosts user-generated content. If an app used by more than a billion people can be removed from the App Store without prior warning, any app can be."

Durov adds, "Extortionists have found a way to manipulate Apple into overreacting." Apple didn't immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.

Read the full story at The Verge.

T-Mobile is launching a new financing option that will allow you to pay for a device, taxes, and fees over 36 months. In an update on Tuesday, T-Mobile says its new Equipment Installment Plan (EIP) Flex 36 requires no upfront payment and will come with a 0 percent APR for a limited time.

Even if you are financing a device, carriers typically require you to pay sales tax, an activation fee, or a down payment at checkout. T-Mobile says its new plan eliminates that by allowing you to pay off all of these costs over time - though its website notes only "well-qualified customers" will pay $0 upfront. The EIP Flex 36 financing option is available …

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Apple is working on a feature that will allow users in the European Union to copy content on their iPhone and paste it onto their Windows PC (or vice versa), as spotted earlier by MacRumors. The move comes in response to an interoperability request from Microsoft that asks Apple to open up its Universal Clipboard feature, which supports copying and pasting across the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro.

Under the EU's Digital Markets Act, developers and government agencies can work with digital gatekeepers, like Apple, to make their systems interoperable with third-party tools and services. The EU's ruling on connected devices has also forced …

Read the full story at The Verge.