Anyone who was hoping to turn their iPhone into a literal computer-in-their-pocket will have to walk away disappointed, as Apple has rejected two PC emulators from the App Store.
The move follows a recent rule change that allowed emulators of retro game consoles like the Super Nintendo and even the PlayStation on the App Store, finally giving developers clearer boundaries on what exactly is and isn’t allowed.
The apps in question were iDOS3, which allows your iPhone to run MS-DOS, and UTM SE, a general operating system emulator that includes ways to run Windows 7, Windows 10, various versions of Linux, and more.
iDOS3 developer Chaoji Li told The Verge that Apple’s reason for rejecting the app was that “Only emulators of retro game consoles are appropriate per guideline 4.7.”
Li said Apple refused to offer suggestions for changes, or to define what exactly entails a retro game console.
UTM posted a similar note to X, formerly Twitter, taking issue with Apple’s idea that a “PC is not a console” on the basis that “there are retro Windows / DOS games for the PC that UTM SE can be useful in running.”
Regardless of Apple’s resistance to allowing PC emulation, UTM SE faces an extra barrier in making it to the iPhone. A follow-up to the post noted that Apple is also refusing to notarize the app for third-party App Stores due to inclusion of just-in-time compilation, which would technically break a guideline that apps must be self-contained. UTM said the emulator does not include any code that violates these rules, but that it will not be fighting Apple on the decision.
In an email to The Verge, Li lamented that “as the sole rule maker and enforcer in [the] iOS ecosystem, they don’t need to be consistent at all.”
Apple did not immediately reply to Lifehacker’s request for comment. For now, those looking to play retro games on iOS will have to look to alternatives like Delta and Retroarch.
Just a day after charging Apple with violating the Digital Markets Act, the EU is continuing its crusade against big tech. Now, Microsoft also faces a potential multi-billion dollar fine, although for reasons unrelated to the DMA.
Remember when the United States sued Microsoft for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows? It was a bit more complicated than that, but what’s old is new again, because the EU is charging Microsoft for breaking antitrust rules by bundling Team with its Office subscriptions.
“We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses,” EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who heads up competition policy in Europe, said in a statement today.
The EU’s public-facing statement wasn’t entirely clear on what would be enough, although because existing Office users can continue to renew old bundles that already had Teams included, it’s possible the Commission concluded that competition is still being threatened.
Microsoft intends to cooperate with the EU and told the Financial Times that it’s working on solutions, with President Brad Smith saying, “Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission’s remaining concerns.”
The EU began its investigation into Microsoft following a complaint from Slack, which runs its own popular remote work suite. If Microsoft is found guilty, it could face a fine of up to 10% of its annual global turnover. Based on numbers from last year, this would amount to about $21.1 billion.
Microsoft did not immediately reply to Lifehacker's request for comment.
The EU is charging Apple with violating the Digital Markets Act, a move that could cost the company $38 billion if found guilty. The action follows complaints that the company isn’t doing enough to satisfy the region’s DMA regulations.
The DMA’s rules, which came into effect for Apple in March, are intended to encourage fair competition and more open markets. The law was supposed to require Apple to allow steering—a developer practice for directing users to payment methods outside the App Store—as well as third-party app stores. Apple has technically complied with these requirements, but developers have called out the company for violating the spirit of the law.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has called Apple’s implementation of DMA policies “malicious compliance,” continuing a feud that began when a pre-DMA Apple pulled Fortnite from the App Store for steering users to Epic’s own payment methods. The developer called out the company’s “junk fees” for outside payments and third-party stores, and now it seems the EU agrees.
In a press release, the European Commission said it is formally charging Apple for violating its steering rules. The company currently only allows developers to link users to an outside website, which the EU says limits their ability to effectively market to or charge consumers. Further, it charges developers fees on digital purchases consumers make “within seven days after a link-out.”
EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who leads Europe’s competition policy, said that “Our preliminary position is that Apple does not fully allow steering.” In addition to the anti-steering charge, Vestager said the Commission has also opened proceedings to investigate compliance for third-party app store rules, with a focus on the company’s Core Technology Fee and the difficult process users must follow to install third-party app stores.
“For too long Apple has been squeezing out innovative companies—denying consumers new opportunities & choices,” EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Apple is just the first company to enter the Commission's sights, as the DMA’s rules also apply to Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and ByteDance (TikTok). The Commission said it is also currently investigating Alphabet and Meta for non-compliance, as well as gathering “facts and information” on Amazon.
If Apple is found guilty of infringement, the EU could charge the company up to 10% of its annual global revenue, or around $38 billion based on last year’s earnings. The charge could jump to 20% for repeated offenses.
Apple did not immediately reply to Lifehacker’s request for comment, however Apple spokesperson Peter Ajemian told The Verge, “Throughout the past several months, Apple has made a number of changes to comply with the DMA in response to feedback from developers and the European Commission…we will continue to listen and engage with the European Commission.”
YouTube has been experimenting with ways to disable ad blockers for a while now, and now it’s going after its own subscribers. Specifically, if you’ve used a VPN to purchase YouTube Premium for a cheaper rate than is available where you actually live, Google is coming after you.
In a statement to TechCrunch, the company said the following: “To provide the most accurate plans and offers available, we have systems in place to determine the country of our users. In instances where the signup country does not match where the user is accessing YouTube, we’re asking members to update their billing information to their current country of residence.”
The statement followed reports users had posted on Reddit that their YouTube Premium subscriptions had been suddenly canceled without warning.
YouTube Premium rates differ depending on your market. For example, while the service costs $13.99 in the U.S., it costs the equivalent of $1.54 a month in India.
Redditors who contacted customer service said agents told them their plans were canceled because they had “moved” to a different region. One U.K.-based redditor who had signed up for YouTube Premium with a Ukrainian IP address said they were told they would need to sign up for a new plan with a U.K. card, bumping them up from a £2.30/month payment to £12.99 a month.
"Confirmed it's a crackdown on cheap VPN subscriptions," the Redditor wrote. "Yikes..."
YouTube did not outright confirm that it canceled subscriptions for using a VPN at sign-up, although the company did tell PCMag that it has “initiated the cancellation of premium memberships for accounts identified as having falsified signup country information.”
While the move to force people to pay full price for Premium follows a months-long campaign against ad blocking, YouTube Premium also offers additional services, including video downloads and access to YouTube Music Premium.
Google introduced AI Overviews in search results shortly after Google I/O in May, but it wasn’t first to the AI search game. It had already given Gemini the ability to search the internet, and Meta and other competing AI companies had done similarly with their own models. One of the biggest players in this field was Perplexity, which markets itself as a “conversational search engine”—basically another chatbot with internet access, but with even more of a focus on summaries and current events. Unfortunately, Perplexity is now finding itself in hot water after breaking rules and, like Google, returning wrong answer after wrong answer.
On June 11, Forbes published an article accusing Perplexity of stealing its content for quickly rewriting original articles without sourcing, and passing them off as its own. The AI company went as fair as to adapt Forbes’ reporting to podcast form. Shortly after, Wired ran an exposé on Perplexity, accusing it of “bullshitting” and breaking a widely held internet rule (more on that shortly). Now, we’re learning a lot more about what kind of recent data an AI might be able to train on going forward, and why AIs often make so many mistakes when trying to sum up current events.
Perplexity is accused of breaking a longstanding internet rule
Bots aren’t anything new on the internet. Before AI scraped websites for training material, search engines scraped websites to determine where to place them in search results. This led to a standard called the Robots Exclusion Protocol, which allows developers to lay out which parts of their site they don’t want bots to access. Perplexity says it follows this rule, but, spurred on by the Forbes story and an accusation of rule breaking from developer Robb Knight, Wired conducted its own investigation. What it discovered wasn't flattering to Perplexity.
“Wired provided the Perplexity chatbot with the headlines of dozens of articles published on our website this year, as well as prompts about the subjects of Wired reporting,” Wired’s article reads. According to the investigation, the bot then returned answers “closely paraphrasing Wired stories,” complete with original Wired art. Further, it would summarize stories “inaccurately and with minimal attribution.”
Examples include the chatbot inaccurately accusing a police officer of stealing bicycles, and, in a test, responding to a request to summarize a webpage containing a single sentence with a wholly invented story about a young girl going on a fairy tale adventure. Wired concluded Perplexity’s summaries were the result of the AI flagrantly breaking the Robots Exclusion Protocol, and that its inaccuracies likely stemmed from an attempt to sidestep said rule.
According to both Knight and Wired, when users ask Perplexity questions that would require the bot to summarize an article protected by the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a specific IP address running what is assumed to be an automated web browser would access the websites bots are not supposed to scrape. The IP address couldn’t be tracked back to Perplexity with complete certainty, but its frequent association with the service raised suspicions.
In other cases, Wired recognized traces of its metadata in Perplexity’s responses, which could mean the bot may not be reading articles themselves, but accessing traces of it left in URLs and search engines. These wouldn’t be protected by the Robots Exclusion Protocol, but are so light on information that they’re more likely to lead to AI hallucinations—hence the problem with misinformation in AI search results.
Both of these issues presage a battle for the future of AI in search engines, from both ethical and technical standpoints. Even as artists and other creators argue over AI’s right to scrape older works, accessing writing that is just a few days old puts Perplexity at further legal risk.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas issued a statement to Wired that said “the questions from Wired reflect a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of how Perplexity and the Internet work.” At the same time, Forbes this week reportedly sent Perplexity a letter threatening legal action over “willful infringement” of its copyrights.
Just a little over half a year since it was fully released to all U.S. customers, Apple is shutting down its installment loan Apple Pay Later service. In a statement to 9to5Mac, the company said customers will now instead see installment loans “offered through credit and debit cards, as well as lenders” when checking out.
Apple Pay Later first started making its way to “randomly selected” customers in the U.S in March 2023 after being announced at WWDC a year prior. The feature existed directly in Apple Wallet, and though Apple said it allowed users to apply for a loan “with no impact to their credit,” fine print said loan and payment history “may be reported to credit bureaus and impact their credit” upon purchase.
The service followed the Apple Card’s launch in 2019, which included an arrangement with Goldman Sachs that Apple is apparently eager to get out of. Apple Pay Later was the company’s first attempt at handling its financial services itself via the Apple Financing LLC subsidiary, and followed in the wake of similar services like Klarna.
“Our focus continues to be on providing our users with access to easy, secure and private payment options with Apple Pay, and this solution will enable us to bring flexible payments to more users, in more places across the globe,” Apple’s statement reads.
In addition to accessing loans from credit and debit cards, Apple Pay will also now allow access to loans from Klarna competitor Affirm, a recent Apple blog reads. Like Klarna, Affirm has also faced criticism in the past, with critics pointing out how high interest rates can lay in wait behind the service’s hip branding.
Nintendo has brought the summer’s season of game announcements to a close in a big way, making good on promises that many worried had been forgotten. The Nintendo Switch 2might be on the way, but meanwhile, in 2024 and 2025, owners of the original Nintendo Switch have a packed schedule to look forward to. Here’s just a few of today’s biggest announcements.
Metroid Prime 4
Seven years after it was first announced and five years after Nintendo said it had restarted development on the title, Metroid Prime 4 finally has a release window, plus a new subtitle.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will release for Nintendo Switch in 2025 and see Samus once again go up against Space Pirates and Metroids, as well as a new foe in an all-black power suit similar to her own. The graphics seem to be using a similar art style to the original Metroid Prime’s Switch remaster, and environments appear to be large with many enemies on screen. Could this be a cross-gen title, with a version also being prepared for the Switch successor?
Mario & Luigi: Brothership
Mario’s other other RPG series is coming back for an all-new entry, titled Mario & Luigi: Brothership. The first entry for home consoles, it features a total graphical overhaul and seems to focus on Mario and Luigi being lost at sea. There, it looks like the brothers will encounter a group of characters that resemble electrical appliances. The game will keep its traditional turn-based-with-timed-button-presses combat, and despite the premise separating Mario and Luigi from the Mushroom Kingdom, Peach and Bowser make appearances in the trailer.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership launches on November 7, 2024 for Nintendo Switch.
Two big games are finally leaving Apple Arcade jail
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Fantasian earned rave reviews when it released exclusively on Apple Arcade in 2021, with critics praising its diorama visuals and unique approach to turn-based encounters. Now, RPG enthusiasts on other platforms will be able to enjoy the game, too, with Fantasian: Neo Dimension.
The port will keep the same story and mechanics, but will feature enhanced visuals, and will come to Switch, PS5/PS4, Xbox consoles, and Steam in Holiday 2024.
Joining Fantasian in leaving Apple Arcade exclusivity is Hello Kitty Island Adventure, an Animal Crossing style life-sim that earned praise for its continual updates and its deep exploration elements. The game will now be coming to Switch and PC in 2025, with a port for PS5 and PS4 planned for some time after.
Dragon Quest III is back
Originally revealed in 2021, the Dragon Quest III HD-2D remake, which reimagines the classic Super Nintendo RPG in a style similar to Octopath Traveler, finally got a solid release date today, plus some company. The game, featuring designs from late Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, will launch on Switch, PS5, Xbox consoles, and PC on November 14, 2024. But as a surprise, the trailer also announced that it will be joined by remakes of its two predecessorssometime in 2025, bringing the whole Erdrick trilogy into HD-2D.
It’s clobberin' time
After years of stagnating in rights limbo, Marvel vs. Capcom is finally seeing some love again. Capcom’s classic Marvel arcade games from the (mostly) ‘90s are all coming together in one collection, which will give superhero fans access to six classic fighting games starring the X-Men, Spider-Man, the cast of Street Fighter, and more. Yes, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is here, but oddly enough, also a beat-em-up starring The Punisher.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics will release for Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam sometime in 2024.
Ace Attorney gets a hand-drawn revamp
Capcom’s Ace Attorney series normally sees players defending innocent clients in court, but in these spin-offs starring Phoenix Wright rival Miles Edgeworth, you’ll instead be playing the prosecution. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection brings two Nintendo DS games to home console, including one previously only released in Japan. Players can choose between the original pixel art or new hand-drawn art from the original series character designer when the game launches on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 6, 2024.
A Zelda Game Actually Starring Zelda
Fans have long joked about how The Legend of Zelda doesn’t actually star the titular princess (we don't talk about the CD-I), but that changes today. What first looked like a remake of the Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages games in the same style as the Link’s Awakening remake instead turned out to be a brand-new adventure starring Zelda herself.
Titled The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the game sees Link, several villagers, and even parts of Hyrule sucked into various strange vortexes, leaving Zelda to save the day.
Her gameplay is a little different than her green-hatted companion’s, instead focusing on her role as a princess. Early into the game, players will encounter the fairy Tri and earn the Tri rod, which they’ll then be able to use to summon “echoes” of various objects and even monsters. It’s a more analytical play style befitting of a wise leader, and will see you building structures and commanding armies to save your kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches for Nintendo Switch on September 26, 2024, alongside a new Zelda themed Nintendo Switch Lite console.
Other announcements
That’s just a taste of today's direct, but there’s plenty else to see in the whole stream, including a Switch port of Stray and a new Mario Party. Click below to watch the whole event.
The more accessories I add to my tablets, the more I feel like I’m missing the point. Should I really buy a brand new M4 iPad complete with a $350 Magic Keyboard, or should I just get a MacBook at that point? That’s why I like portable but separate keyboards like Logitech’s new Keys-To-Go 2, which takes what I like about my home keyboard and makes it far more travel friendly.
I’m a big fan of Logitech keyboards. At home, I use the MX Mechanical Mini, a tenkeyless low-profile keyboard with tactile mechanical switches. While away, I usually swap that out for the MX Keys Mini, which is roughly the same but with membrane switches—not as satisfying to type on, but quieter to those around me.
This usually works out for me, but I do have a few gripes. First is durability: the MX Keys Mini is entirely exposed when it’s in my bag, so I worry about keys getting damaged in transit. Second is size: It’s a small keyboard, but it’s still a little wide at 11.65 inches, and the angled riser it uses for greater comfort when typing makes it harder to store away.
This is partially my fault, since the MX Keys Mini isn’t meant for travel. That's why Logitech released the original Keys-To-Go, a completely flat keyboard that’s so thin its keys don’t have much opportunity to get damaged.
This comes with its own problems, though, mostly in the form of comfort. There’s a reason my MX Keys Mini has that angle, even if its riser likes to get caught on notebooks and flaps when packed away.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
How the Keys-To-Go 2 improves on what came before
With the Keys-To-Go 2, Logitech is trying for the best of both worlds, completely redesigning its portable keyboard for both greater durability and greater comfort.
The change mostly comes down to one new design feature: The keyboard comes with an attached cover now. This allows the Keys-To-Go 2 to protect its keys while packed away, plus provide a greater angle while typing.
That steeper angle is thanks to a magnetic bottom, which allows the cover to fold underneath the keyboard to act like a riser. When fully deployed like this, the Keys-To-Go 2 has an 18mm pitch, slightly up from the original Keys-To-Go. It’s also got 1mm of key travel, which is equivalent to the Magic Keyboard's.
The entire Keys-To-Go 2 is smaller than the original Keys-To-Go, too, since the cover replaces what was a large rectangle of empty space at the top of the original. Plus, the shortcut keys are now a full function row when used on non-mobile operating systems.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Still room to grow
There’s still compromises (I scored 86 wpm on the Keys-To-Go 2 vs. 92 on the MX Keys Mechanical), but the overall experience is now much more similar to a Magic Keyboard or an MX Keys Mini at a fraction of the cost.
Whereas my previous Logitech keyboards needed me to plan my packing around them, I could easily see myself just making the Keys-To-Go 2 part of my everyday carry routine. It’s just under 10 inches long and only 0.18 inches tall (with the cover closed), so I certainly have room for it.
That said, this is still a tablet or phone keyboard through-and-through. There’s no touchpad, so it expects you to control your device via its own touch screen. Or you could pair a mouse, although that sort of defeats the purpose of this being a neat and tidy all-in-one package.
There’s also a sacrifice that comes with having a neat and tidy package: the batteries. To get this keyboard so thin, there’s no room for rechargeable batteries, so instead you need to supply replaceable ones. Some people actually prefer these, since they don’t limit your device’s lifespan, but they’re a bit hard to swap out in the Keys-To-Go 2. You’ll need both a nonstandard screw bit (T5) and nonstandard batteries (CR2032 coin batteries) for this. The keyboard comes with batteries already installed, but not a compatible screwdriver, so you might be in for a bit of frustration when your battery first runs dry.
Logitech does promise up to 36 months of battery life with up to two hours of continuous typing per day, a metric I didn’t have time to test in the couple weeks of early access Logitech gave me with the Keys-To-Go.
One more minor complaint: I was sometimes able to press keys even with the cover closed. While I don’t expect this would damage the keyboard, it could turn on your connected devices while it jostles around in your bag.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
It’s a bit pricey
The Keys-To-Go 2 is purposefully designed for one specific task, and at that task, it succeeds just about as well as it could. While I would personally like to see a touchpad on the device, the extra space or thickness needed for that would just turn this into an entirely different product.
For non-attachable tablet keyboards, this implements a lot of smart upgrades over its predecessor and is among the best options you have right now.
Unfortunately, that also means there’s a bit of a premium for it. The price here starts at $80, which while far under what an attachable keyboard can run you, is still lot to pay for a one-purpose device. It's also $10 more than its predecessor.
Whether that’s worth it to you depends on how much you appreciate Logitech’s build quality, as well as convenience features like its shortcut keys for easily mapping across three different devices. For me, these are well worth the price of entry, especially with the smart changes Logitech has made to durability here, meaning the keyboard is likely to last a long time.
Adobe just can’t catch a break. After raising eyebrows earlier this month with new terms of service that had users worried the company would be poking through their files and potentially training AI on their work, the Photoshop maker is now coming under fire by the FTC, this time over alleged dishonest pricing. The government organization is suing Adobe over its hidden fees and hard to cancel subscriptions.
In a complaint filed on Monday, the FTC said, “Adobe has harmed consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms.” In a related blog post, the regulator dinged Adobe for not making it clear that the subscription is a one-year commitment that charges 50% of any remaining payments when canceled, which can amount to “hundreds of dollars.”
The FTC also complained about Adobe’s poor treatment of customers who are trying to cancel. “Subscribers have had their calls or chats either dropped or disconnected and have had to re-explain their reason for calling when they re-connect,” reads the complaint.
In a statement, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director Samuel Levine said “Americans are tired of companies hiding the ball during subscription signup and then putting up roadblocks when they try to cancel.”
The lawsuit targets Adobe executives Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani directly, implicating them for their control and authority in implementing such practices.
The complaint follows an investigation that began in 2022. Despite being aware of the increased scrutiny, “Adobe has nevertheless persisted in its violative practices to the present day,” the FTC says.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Currently, there are 20 different plans for individual subscribers listed on Adobe’s website, with more options available as you click through the listed cards. The Creative Cloud All Apps plan, which is highlighted with a “Best Value” banner, does say that a “fee applies if you cancel after 14 days” for its “Annual, paid monthly” tier, although it does not provide specifics on the amount, even when you hover over an info button. Customers can go as far as entering payment information without seeing the final figure.
In a statement posted to the company's newsroom, Adobe General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer Dana Rao said, "We are transparent with the terms and conditions of our subscription agreements and have a simple cancellation process. We will refute the FTC's claims in court."
In a blog post on the Windows website on Thursday, Windows+ Devices corporate vice president Pavan Davuliri wrote that Recall will no longer launch with Copilot+ AI laptops on June 18th, and is instead being relegated to a Windows Insider preview “in the coming weeks.”
“We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider Community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security,” Davuluri explained.
The AI feature was plagued by security concerns
That’s a big blow for Microsoft, as Recall was supposed to be the star feature for its big push into AI laptops. The idea was for it to act like a sort of rewind button for your PC, taking constant screenshots and allowing you to search through previous activity to get caught up on anything you did in the past, from reviewing your browsing habits to tracking down old school notes. But the feature also raised concerns over who has access to that data.
Davuliri explains in his post that screenshots are stored locally and that Recall does not send snapshots to Microsoft. He also says that snapshots have “per-user encryption” that keeps administrators and others logged into the same device from viewing them.
At the same time, security researchers have been able to uncover and extract the text file that a pre-release version of Recall uses for storage, which they claimed was unencrypted. This puts things like passwords and financial information at risk of being stolen by hackers, or even just a nosy roommate.
Davuliri wasn’t clear about when exactly Windows Insiders would get their hands on Recall, but thanked the community for giving a “clear signal” that Microsoft needed to do more. Specifically, he attributed the choice to disable Recall by default and to enforce Windows Hello (which requires either biometric identification or a PIN) for Recall before users can access it.
Generously, limiting access to the Windows Insider program, which anyone can join for free, gives Microsoft more time to collect and weigh this kind of feedback. But it also takes the wind out of Copilot+’s sails just a week before launch, leaving the base experience nearly identical to current versions of Windows (outside of a few creative apps).
It also puts Qualcomm, which will be providing the chips for Microsoft’s first Copilot+ PCs, on a more even playing field with AMD and Intel, which won’t get Copilot+ features until later this year.
This week’s tech announcements might have led with big Apple news at WWDC, but they’re closing on Samsung’s humblest smart product yet: the Galaxy Watch FE.
Starting at $199, the Galaxy Watch FE is the Android smartwatch leader’s first attempt to capture the success of the simple Apple Watch SE, rather than the more glitzy Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Pixel Watch 2. That means no rotating bezel, a smaller battery, only one size option, a smaller display, and a last-gen Exynos W920 chip. But with almost the same sensor loadout (minus temperature tracking) as the standard Galaxy Watch6, plus a $100 discount from the company’s current cheapest option, it finally gives Samsung’s wearables an entry-level pick.
It also has IP68 dust resistance and 5ATM water resistance, plus the same NFC (for contactless payments), GPS, Bluetooth, and wifi connectivity as Samsung’s more expensive watches. LTE connectivity can be added on for an extra $50, and you’ll boot up the watch to the familiar Wear OS 4 experience.
It’s unusual for Samsung to announce this now rather than wait for one of its Unpacked events, although it does give the company something to announce during its biggest mobile competitor’s biggest week.
If you’re like me and only use your smartwatch very casually, it’s worth waiting until the June 24 release date for this one, since it seems like it will provide an almost identical moment-to-moment experience as the now mid-range Galaxy Watch6, even with its compromises (you’ll have to wait for later this year if you want LTE, though).
Granted, even with its clear comparisons to the Apple Watch SE, it looks like Samsung is taking a slightly different approach here. The tradeoffs: being based on Samsung’s mid-range Galaxy Watch6 rather than its more premium Galaxy Watch6 Classic means the FE doesn’t have any kind of physical dial, whereas the Apple Watch SE has the same digital crown as the rest of Apple’s watch lineup. At the same time, the FE does have an always-on display, something Apple Watch owners can’t get without spending $400. It’s also $50 cheaper than the cheapest Apple Watch.
Despite explaining away issues with its AI Overviews while promising to make them better, Google is still apparently telling people to put glue in their pizza. And in fact, articles like this are only making the situation worse.
Most of these offending answers were quickly scrubbed from the web, and Google issued a somewhat defensive apology. Unfortunately, if you use the right phrasing, you can reportedly still get these blatantly incorrect "answers" to pop up.
In a post on June 11, Bluesky user Colin McMillen said he was still able to get AI Overviews to tell him to add “1/8 cup, or 2 tablespoons, of white, nontoxic glue to pizza sauce” when asking “how much glue to add to pizza.”
The question seems purposefully designed to mess with AI Overviews, sure—although given the recent discourse, a well-meaning person who’s not so terminally online might legitimately be curious what all the hubbub is about. At any rate, Google did promise to address even leading questions like these (as it probably doesn’t want its AI to appear to be endorsing anything that could make people sick), and it clearly hasn’t.
Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that Google’s AI Overview sourced the recent pizza claim to Katie Notopoulus of Business Insider, who most certainly did not tell people to put glue in their pizza. Rather, Notopoulus was reporting on AI Overview’s initial mistake; Google’s AI just decided to attribute that mistake to her because of it.
“Google’s AI is eating itself already,” McMillen said, in response to the situation.
I wasn’t able to reproduce the response myself, but The Verge did, though with different wording: The AI Overview still cited Business Insider, but rightly attributed the initial advice to to Google’s own AI. Which means Google AI’s source for its ongoing hallucination is...itself.
What’s likely going on here is that Google stopped its AI from using sarcastic Reddit posts as sources, but it’s now turning to news articles reporting on its mistakes to fill in the gaps. In other words, as Google messes up, and as people report on it, Google will then use that reporting to back its initial claims. The Verge compared it to Google bombing, an old tactic where people would link the words “miserable failure” to a photo of George W. Bush so often that Google images would return a photo of the president when you searched for the phrase.
Google is likely to fix this latest AI hiccup soon, but it’s all bit of a “laying the train tracks as you go situation,” and certainly not likely to do anything to improve AI search's reputation.
Anyway, just in case Google attaches my name to a future AI Overview as a source, I want to make it clear: Do not put glue in your pizza (and leave out the pineapple while you’re at it).
In another move away from the old days of Twitter, X has started hiding the posts you’ve liked from other users. The news follows a previous promise from owner Elon Musk that X would start hiding public retweet and like counts until you click through to a post, although this change doesn’t go quite that far.
In a post on @XEng, the official account for X engineering updates, the site announced that while the like count still shows up under your notifications and that you will still be able to personally see which posts you have liked, others will now no longer be able to see that information. Essentially, the “Likes” tab on your profile page is now private, working more like the current Bookmarks system.
The one exception is a post’s author, who will still be able to see which accounts have liked their posts. (So you’ll still know when your mom likes that post about her grandkids.)
The change seems to already be live, with Musk posting “Important change: your likes are now private” to his personal account. As of writing, I can see my own likes page, but nobody else’s. Overall like count is still showing as normal for me on both my home feed and when I click through to posts.
Previously, public likes allowed users to find posts they might be interested in by looking through what their friends have liked. X competitor Threads uses a mix between the old and new system: Individual profiles don’t show a Likes tab, but you can click the amount of likes on a post to see who has liked it.
Hidden likes were previously restricted to paid users, although X director of engineering Haofei Wang explained in May the reasoning behind making them private for everyone. “Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior,” Wang said. “For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be edgy in fear of retaliation.” (J.K. Rowling fans are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief.)
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