If you’ve ever joined me in the misfortune of downloading TikTok, you’ve probably spent at least one evening mindlessly scrolling until two or three in the morning, not even looking for anything in particular to watch. According to the EU, that needs to change, as the region has preliminarily determined that the “addictive” app is in violation of its Digital Services Act.

The decision came on Feb. 5 and followed an investigation from the European Commission into the effects that features including infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications, and the fabled TikTok algorithm have on the minds of users. According to the commission’s findings, “TikTok did not adequately assess how these addictive features could harm the physical and mental wellbeing of its users, including minors and vulnerable adults.” What will follow is likely a lengthy legal battle that could end up with the app having to either change how it operates and/or pay a hefty fine. And while it sounds like the effects would be limited to Europe, they could have global ramifications. Here’s what’s going on with the state of TikTok in Europe, and what you need to know about what comes next.

What is the Digital Services Act, and how did TikTok break it?

The EU’s Digital Services Act started being enforced in 2022, and generally focuses on regulating everyday online platforms, including marketplaces and social media apps. As TikTok is both of these in one, it falls under the act’s scrutiny, although it might not be the TikTok you’re thinking of. Specifically, the target here would be original TikTok owners ByteDance, rather than the new ownership for the American version of the app. That’s because ByteDance continues to operate TikTok outside of the United States, although Americans might still see some fallout from the EU’s regulation.

The Digital Services Act’s main focuses are on increased transparency, the ability to fight content moderation decisions, protections for minors, and most relevant in this case, non-algorithmic feeds and dark patterns. The EU’s investigation into the app began in 2024, with regulators being concerned about the app encouraging a “rabbit hole effect” among viewers, as well as how secure the app might be for minors. According to the investigation’s preliminary findings, the app is “constantly ‘rewarding’ users with new content,” sourcing videos that “fuel the urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain of users into ‘autopilot mode.'”

The regulators bring up scientific research to back up their claims, although specific papers are not linked. I’ve reached out to the European Commission for comment and will update this post when I hear back. Whatever the EU’s sources, however, there is no shortage of research supporting this claim. The NIH has previously “identified key addiction-related factors” in the app, and a number of universities have found that TikTok’s “seamless experience” and “reward pattern” can encourage reckless engagement. Scientists have compared the thrill of pulling up a new video to gambling, as the variable quality of the surfaced content leaves viewers seeking the next big hit, similar to a slot machine.

According to the EU, “TikTok disregarded important indicators of compulsive use of the app,” specifically regarding nighttime use from minors, as well as users frequently coming back to the app after closing it. While the Commission does acknowledge the app’s existing screen time management and parental control features, the organization also argues that these aren’t enough.

Will TikTok get rid of infinite scrolling?

According to the European Commission’s investigation, TikTok’s current tools for combatting the “rabbit hole effect” need to be changed. The regulators say that the app’s current time management tools “are easy to dismiss and introduce limited friction,” which reduces their effectiveness, while “parental controls may not be effective because they require additional time and skills from parents to introduce the controls.”

Regulators say that, if their findings are confirmed, the app must take more direct measures by changing how it operates. Examples for how to achieve this include “disabling features such as ‘infinite scroll’ over time” and “adapting its recommender system,” aka algorithm. In other words, regulators are suggesting that TikTok get rid of its bread and butter. In addition, the Commission also brings up the possibility of implementing “screen time breaks,” especially “during the night.”

Those would be some pretty major changes, but it’s worth noting that all of this is still preliminary, which means it will be a while before users see any changes stemming from this regulation. As part of the process, TikTok may now defend itself, examining the Commission’s investigation files and replying to its findings. No timeline is given here, meaning this could drag out for a good while. For instance, Apple is still fighting with the EU over supposed Digital Markets Act violations, while Meta only recently resolved a similar action from 2024.

That means any TikTok users in the EU who are worried about losing access to key features needn’t worry quite yet. However, if TikTok is found guilty of violating the Digital Services Act, it could face a fine of up to 6% of its “worldwide annual turnover,” although this is up to the discretion of regulators. That would, however, add up to billions of dollars, and continuing to act in violation of the act rather than making changes could result in further fines.

On TikTok’s end, the app told The Financial Times that “The Commission’s preliminary findings present a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform,” and that ByteDance will “take whatever steps are necessary” to fight the decision. I’ve reached out to TikTok’s European ownership, and will update this post when I hear back.

How will this affect the U.S.?

While U.S.-based readers might think that their apps will remain clear from any EU regulatory changes, that may not be the case. Designing different products for different sections of the market takes time and money, and that’s time TikTok might not be willing to spend. For instance, Apple’s global move to USB-C in its products stemmed from European regulation as well.

Granted, Apple is owned by the same parent companies worldwide, so it is possible TikTok’s new U.S. ownership might not be affected from changes elsewhere. However, it’s worth noting that one of the EU’s bigger issues is with TikTok’s algorithm, or “recommender system,” which the U.S. ownership currently licenses from Bytedance rather than owning outright. Any changes made overseas could bleed their way into our app on this side of the pond as well, especially as U.S. TikTok does maintain some parity with global TikTok, allowing American viewers to watch videos from the more than 200 million users in Europe, in addition to other areas around the world.

That said, the European Commission’s early calls for TikTok to change its operations are far from finalized. Even if TikTok is found guilty, it will likely enter a long back-and-forth while attempting to meet the Digital Services Act’s requirements, and the solution the company and regulators land on could end up looking less severe than what the Commission suggested in yesterday’s press release (I imagine TikTok will fight hard for infinite scroll). For instance, Google is still working with the EU on the specifics of ensuring its services comply with the DMA, a process that began in 2023 and is still being fine-tuned.

How to turn on TikTok’s screen time management and parental controls

From a personal perspective, I do think the EU is onto something here. I could certainly use some reminders to avoid getting sucked into a TikTok rabbit hole, especially late at night. While it might be some time until any regulation affects the TikTok app, and we don’t yet know if features like infinite scroll will still be in place (although it’s worth noting that Instagram Reels has not been targeted on this front) once the dust settles, here’s how to take advantage of TikTok’s current screen time and algorithm management features.

First, algorithmic control. This is a big part of the EU’s case against TikTok, but there do currently exist a few ways to control what pops up on your feed. While the default For You page leaves you at the app’s whims, there are three other feeds you can access by swiping right after opening the app. The first, Friends, shows you videos from your friends or from suggested accounts. The second, Following, shows you videos from accounts you follow. Pretty self-explanatory. The third one, though, needs to be turned on.

Called STEM, this feed only shows you educational videos about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. To turn on the STEM feed, tap your profile icon at the bottom right of the app, then hit the three-lined menu icon in the top right corner. Navigate to Settings and privacy > Content preferences and toggle on STEM feed. This won’t get rid of any of your other feeds, but it’ll now be an option you can swipe to on the main menu.

Next, screen time management and parental controls. There are a number of options for each of these, with screen time management living under Settings and privacy > Time and well-being and parental controls under Settings and privacy > Family Pairing.

The Time and well-being section will show you show you your daily average screen time over the last week alongside some meditation-related activities, but the real crux of the controls are in the Screen time button, which sits right above your average screen time graph. Here, you can set daily limits, sleep hours, and reminders to take breaks, although like the European Commissions says, there are easily dismissed.

Family Pairing is a bit more powerful, although not being a parent, it’s something I haven’t toyed around with. It lets you see your child’s screen time and set limits they can’t dismiss, as well as restrict who they can message and what their privacy and safety settings are. For a more detailed guide, click here.

Finally, even if you don’t set any screen time limits and stick purely to your For You feed, there is some fine tuning you can do. Under Settings and privacy, tap Content preferences. From here, you can set the app to filer out videos or posts that contain that word in any text-based fields, tell the algorithm how interested you are in certain topics, mute specific accounts, or even refresh your For You feed to have the algorithm start over fresh. You can also turn on Restricted mode, which will hide content that TikTok deems as not “comfortable for all audiences.”

What are the best TikTok alternatives, and how do I move?

If those controls still aren’t enough for you, or the idea of regulators changing how TikTok works isn’t what you’re looking for, there are now a sizable number of TikTok alternatives you can try instead. Instagram Reels is the obvious one, although a popular recent choice is Upscrolled, which promises “every post has a fair chance to be seen,” something that’s been encouraging to users put off by the TikTok algorithm. An older alternative is RedNote, which is run by Chinese developer Xingyin Information Technology. It gained some popularity during early TikTok ban scares, although I’ll admit I haven’t heard of it as much recently.

Frustrated by fake citations and flowery prose packed with “out-of-left-field” references to ancient libraries and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a New York federal judge took the rare step of terminating a case this week due to a lawyer’s repeated misuse of AI when drafting filings.

In an order on Thursday, district judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the extraordinary sanctions were warranted after an attorney, Steven Feldman, kept responding to requests to correct his filings with documents containing fake citations.

One of those filings was “noteworthy,” Failla said, “for its conspicuously florid prose.” Where some of Feldman’s filings contained grammatical errors and run-on sentences, this filing seemed glaringly different stylistically.

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Open source packages published on the npm and PyPI repositories were laced with code that stole wallet credentials from dYdX developers and backend systems and, in some cases, backdoored devices, researchers said.

“Every application using the compromised npm versions is at risk ….” the researchers, from security firm Socket, said Friday. “Direct impact includes complete wallet compromise and irreversible cryptocurrency theft. The attack scope includes all applications depending on the compromised versions and both developers testing with real credentials and production end-users.”

Packages that were infected were:

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This is another size comparison video from Meta Ball Studio (previously), this time visualizing the sizes of various fictional buildings (all of which Alex Honnold plans to climb) from pop culture show, movie, and video game franchises. I learned a lot by watching it. Mostly, that my apartment isn’t larger than any of these except the first three, which were Ant Man’s mobile laboratory, the Krusty Krab, and SpongeBob’s pineapple house, just to be clear. I basically live in a shoebox. Well, if shoes were sold separately.

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The Apple Watch is a powerful tool for following and tracking exercise. We’ve already shown you 10 hacks for all Apple Watch users, but I’m here with a follow-up on the fitness features, specifically. With these lesser-known settings, apps, and features, you can get more out of your workouts and your health data.

Give your Apple Watch rings a “rest day”

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The Apple Watch’s Fitness app famously includes three rings (Move, Exercise, Stand) that you can close with activity throughout the day. Not only should you change your Move and Exercise goals to numbers that work for you (raising or lowering them as appropriate), you can also schedule in different goals for each day. 

Originally, your Move, Exercise, and Stand goals were the same every day, but these days you can change your ring-closing goals, including adding rest days. Go to the Fitness app and tap the Activity Rings card, and then tap the “+/-” icon next to each goal. You can create a weekly schedule so that you have lower targets on certain days. You can also change a goal temporarily just for today—for example, reducing your Stand hour goal on a day you’re taking a road trip. 

Wear your Apple Watch on your arm (or ankle)

The Apple Watch is meant to be worn on the wrist, but that doesn’t mean you have to wear it there. If your workout has you snatching kettlebells or bench pressing in wrist wraps, consider wearing the Watch on your upper arm. Or if you use a standing desk, your steps may not register unless you put the Watch on your ankle. Both of these locations will likely require a bigger wristband than what came with the Watch. Fortunately, you can buy an extra-long band, like this one. 

Change the Apple Watch’s app view for easier tapping during a workout

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

This is a tiny hack, but one that makes it so much easier to operate your watch mid-workout: Press the crown, and you’ll see all your installed apps. By default, they appear as little icons clustered together. You can rearrange them if you like, but no matter the arrangement, they’re tough to accurately tap while you’re running down the street. Make life easier on yourself by scrolling to the bottom of this screen, and tap List View. This puts your apps in an alphabetical list, with the name next to each icon. It’s now far easier to tap anything you might need during your workout.

Use Bevel to gather your Apple watch data into a convenient dashboard

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The Apple Watch collects a lot of data, but Apple doesn’t give you a convenient way to view it all in one place. The Fitness app has workout data, and the Health app stores everything else—but the Health app isn’t as user-friendly as you might wish. Third-party apps have stepped in to fill the gap. Bevel, for example, provides recovery scores and collects data in much the same way you’d see from a Whoop or Oura ring. There are other apps that do the same thing, like Athlytic, but I’m recommending Bevel because it has a free tier (and most of its functionality is on that tier). If you like the experience, consider shopping around to see if you prefer other apps.

Create custom intervals on your Apple Watch

The Workout app on Apple Watch has evolved quite a bit from its original format as a simple tracker with a start and stop button. The current version of the Fitness app has a little timer icon in the corner of each workout type, under the Workouts tab. Tap that, and you can view and edit custom workouts. Program yourself an interval workout, or a workout of a specific length. You can do this most easily from your phone—Apple has instructions here. 

Use your Apple Watch to race yourself

If you run or bike the same route often, try the Race Route feature. Routes are automatically generated after you do the same run twice. On the Watch itself, go to the Workout app and choose a Run or Cycle workout, then tap the timer icon to bring up options including race routes. You can choose to race your personal best time on that route, or just your last workout on that route. During the activity, you’ll see whether you’re keeping pace with that previous workout.

Do a workout even without the Apple Watch

It may look empty, but it got tracked.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

One of the best upgrades to iOS 26 is that the Fitness app can now track workouts even without the Apple Watch. If you left your watch at home but still want to get a run in, you can track it directly from your phone. Just go to the Fitness app, then Workout, and then tap whichever type of workout you’d like to do. If you choose an outdoor workout like a run, your phone will track your distance and pace with the phone’s GPS. If you choose an indoor workout, the app can still log the workout with a timer, but it won’t be able to collect any data. You’ll get a readout with the amount of time you worked out, and an estimate of your calorie burn, and you can rate your effort so the workout counts toward your training load. If you have a device that can measure your heart rate—like a chest strap or headphones like the Powerbeats Pro 2—you can pair that device directly to your iPhone, without involving the watch, and track your workout through the Fitness app with heart rate data intact.

Connect your Apple Watch to a treadmill

The Apple Watch is pretty good at judging distance and speed outdoors when you run, and your iPhone can do a good job of that, too. But once you’re indoors on a treadmill, only the treadmill knows how far you’re running. The Apple Watch’s distance estimations aren’t always very good. That is, unless you’re using a treadmill that can beam data directly to your watch. The treadmills in a lot of commercial gyms have this feature through a system called GymKit. In your Settings on the watch, go to Workout and turn on Detect Gym Equipment. When you use a compatible gym machine, there will be a spot on the console to tap your watch. You’ll hear a beep, and then the data on your watch will be synced to the data on the machine. 

Install WorkOutDoors on your Apple Watch for more run data and mapping

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

We’ve seen that the stock Workout app has plenty of great features for running and other workouts, but many runners and hikers prefer a different option. The Apple Watch app WorkOutDoors gives Garmin-level mapping and data analytics during your run. It takes a bit of time to learn your way around all the features, but this is an incredibly powerful tool for just a small investment ($8.99 as a one-time charge).

Top up the Apple Watch’s battery before sleep

If you use the Apple Watch to track your sleep, you don’t have the option of charging it while you sleep. But don’t worry if it’s close to bedtime and you’re low on battery—Apple Watches, especially the most recent models, are designed to charge quickly for exactly this reason. The Apple Watch Series 11 only needs five minutes of charge time for eight hours of sleep tracking. 

Memory prices across DRAM, NAND and HBM have surged 80 to 90% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026, according to Counterpoint Research’s latest Memory Price Tracker. The price of a 64GB RDIMM has jumped from a Q4 2025 contract price of $450 to over $900, and Counterpoint expects it to cross $1,000 in Q2.

NAND, relatively stable last quarter, is tracking a parallel increase. Device makers are cutting DRAM content per device, swapping TLC SSDs for cheaper QLC alternatives, and shifting orders from the now-scarce LPDDR4 to LPDDR5 as new entry-level chipsets support the newer standard. DRAM operating margins hit the 60% range in Q4 2025 — the first time conventional DRAM margins surpassed HBM — and Q1 2026 is on track to set all-time highs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After writing two November stories analyzing price expectations for Valve’s upcoming Steam Machine, I really didn’t think we’d be offering more informed speculation before the official price was revealed. Then Valve wrote a blog post this week noting that the “growing price of… critical components” like RAM and storage meant that “we must revisit our exact shipping schedule and pricing” for the living room-focused PC gaming box.

We don’t know exactly what form that “revisiting” will take at the moment. Analysts who spoke to Ars were somewhat divided on how much of its quickly increasing component costs Valve would be willing (or forced) to pass on to consumers.

“We knew the component issue was bad,” DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole told Ars. “It has just gotten worse. “

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Apple plans to allow third-party voice-controlled AI apps in CarPlay, Bloomberg reports. Siri is the default voice assistant for things like controlling music and looking up directions, but future AI apps in CarPlay could handle the complicated, open-ended requests Siri can’t answer.

The expanded support would let developers like OpenAI or Google offer versions of their ChatGPT and Gemini apps for CarPlay. Similar functionality is possible just by connecting a smartphone to a car over Bluetooth and using an AI app’s voice mode, but CarPlay support would presumably make the process a little more seamless. 

Not so seamless that it replaces Siri, however. Bloomberg writes that these third-party apps won’t be able to replace the Siri button in the CarPlay interface or use their own wake words (“Hey Google,” etc.). Instead, anyone who wants to spend a long drive talking to Gemini will have to open the app first. That could cut down on the utility of using one of these apps, but Apple presumably wants to get Siri to a place where CarPlay users prefer it as their in-car assistant anyway.

Apple and Google recently announced that Gemini would power future versions of Siri and Apple Foundation Models, the AI models underpinning Apple Intelligence. The delayed, updated version of Siri Apple introduced alongside Apple Intelligence in 2024 is supposed to be able to take actions on user’s behalf, work across apps and understand the context of what’s on screen, all things Gemini can currently do. Reports suggest Apple wants to eventually use Google’s Gemini models to transform Siri into a proper conversational chatbot, too. That future version of the voice assistant could be right at home in CarPlay.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/apple-will-reportedly-allow-third-party-ai-assistants-in-carplay-213432646.html?src=rss

In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic brought global industry and travel nearly to a halt, satellite sensors recorded a dramatic plunge in nitrogen dioxide, a byproduct of internal combustion engines and heavy industry. For a moment, the world’s air was cleaner than it had been in decades.

But then something strange started happening: methane, the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, was surging. Its growth rate hit 16.2 parts per billion that year, the highest since systematic records began in the early 1980s. A new study published in the journal Science looked at the complex chemistry of the troposphere (the lowest region of the atmosphere) and found that the two changes are likely connected.

An atmospheric cleaner

Since the late 1960s, we knew that atmospheric methane doesn’t just vanish. It is actively scrubbed from the sky by the hydroxyl radical, a highly reactive molecule that breaks down methane, turning it into water vapor and carbon dioxide. “The problem is that the lifetime of the hydroxyl radical is very short—its lifespan is less than a second” says Shushi Peng, a professor at Peking University, China, and a co-author of the study. To do its job as an atmospheric methane clearing agent, a hydroxyl radical must be constantly replenished through a series of chemical reactions triggered by sunlight. The key ingredients in these reactions are nitrogen oxides, the very pollutants that were drastically reduced when cars stayed in garages and factories went dark in 2020.

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Things don’t look great for virtual reality. Once seen as the future of online interaction, the present has caught up to VR, and it’s brutal: Meta is by far the biggest dog in the virtual reality kennel, and its virtual reality division, Reality Labs, lost over $73 billion since it launched five years ago, leading the company to pull some resources from VR to focus on smart glasses and AI. Apple, seen as the runner-up in the VR market, shipped only 45,000 Vision Pro headsets in the final quarter of 2025, a rounding error compared to the 82.6 million iPhones Apple sold in the same period.

At his metaverse introduction in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg envisioned Horizon Worlds as a vast digital continent, but its active user base is around 200,00 people. For comparison, kids’ game Roblox boasts over 380 million monthly active users. And this is all despite Meta’s and Apple’s headsets being excellent hardware, by almost all accounts.

In the cold light of the ledger, virtual reality looks like shambling corpse, too dumb to know it’s dead. But they said the same thing about video games in 1983—Atari’s death looked like the end of the road, but then the NES came out. 

Zuckerberg’s sales pitch of a billion people living in a frictionless, legless, gravity-free vacuum of suburban-techno-capitalism might be gone—it turns out we didn’t want another world full of random people—but what’s growing in its place is a bottom-up community built by filmmakers, game developers, and regular people, all creating a new way to belong.

Virtual reality filmmaking is an exciting new avenue

“What we’re all trying to do is build the Holodeck from Star Trek,” said Matt Celia, co founder and creative director of Light Sail VR told me. Light Sail has been producing VR films and video for the past 10 years, and its catalog includes everything from concerts at Red Rocks to narrative VR series to an Emmy-winning immersion into Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary. “My belief in the medium is unshaken,” Celia said. “I think this is the most authentic way to tell stories.”

According to Celia, experiencing films in VR frees the viewer from distractions that mar other ways of watching—your phone’s bright screen isn’t going to pull your attention, and you literally don’t have visible surroundings to distract you. “When you make the conscious choice to put on a headset, to watch a piece of content and engage with it, it’s actually transformative, almost meditative,” Celia said.

More than just a new way to show old movies, immersive film is a new medium being born; filmmakers are inventing a new language. Whether it’s in a you-are-there, 360-degree view of Steve Martin’s SNL monologue, narrative VR series like Eli Roth’s The Faceless Lady, or interactive documentary experiences like D-Day: The Camera Soldier, artists are using virtual reality to tell stories in a completely new way. “We’re all obsessed with this idea that we can live and breathe into a story,” Celia said, “That is what’s driving us all to create these more and more immersive and impressive and impactful experiences.”

Gaming in virtual reality is still great, too

Visionary experiences are great, but most people buy VR headsets to play games. The news that Meta shuttered three of its AAA game development studios—Armature, who brought Resident Evil 4 to VR; Sanzaru, the studio behind Asgard’s Wrath; and Twisted Pixel, creators of Deadpool VR—might suggest that VR gaming is on life support. It could also just be the growing pains of the gaming industry figuring out what works in a new medium.

Virtual Reality game studio Resolution Games seems to have cracked the code. The company has grown consistently since it started up in 2015, selling millions of games despite a challenging environment, with its flagship title Demeo earning critical raves and a partnership with Wizards of the Coast on Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked. 

“We are very conservative with our funds, and we’re very resource efficient,” Tommy Palms, the CEO of Resolution said. “You have to be if you live in this space, where [there are] few hits and they don’t typically make as much money as they would in other ecosystems.”

No matter how prudent the management, no game studio survives if the games aren’t good, and Resolution’s games are very good, often in ways that seem counter-intuitive to what we thought VR games would be. “A big grand virtual world, like Cyberpunk or Grand Theft Auto, but you’re inside it… now we know in reality, that’s not a very comfortable experience, unfortunately,” Palms said.

Instead of that immersive world, Demeo puts players at a game table in a virtual basement with their friends. You’re not in a dungeon; you’re a person playing a game about a dungeon. “It creates a much more social situation in general because it increases the chance for you to play with your friends,” Palms explained. “You’re doing something together, solving a problem or focusing on something else, you’re just with your friend.”

I checked in on Meta’s Horizon Worlds, and it feels dead

Speaking of friends, if Mark Zuckerberg’s original vision of the Metaverse was about anything, it was about bringing people together. “Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That is why we are focused on building this,” Zuckerberg wrote in his Founder’s Letter in 2021.

Central to that vision was Horizon Worlds, a digital ecosystem designed to draw a billion residents and hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce. It’s been nearly five years since launch and Horizon Worlds’ overall cost-per-user likely outpaces the GDP of small nations, so I wanted to check out how it’s doing; experiencing an environment that weird is more than enough motivation to strap on the old face-computer and poke around.

Horizon Worlds, circa 2026, feels dead. But dead in a unique way. Tens of thousands of “worlds” have been created by both users and corporations, and they’re shiny, bright, and open to explore, but not many people seem interested. Randomly picking worlds is like walking around in an abandoned mall—stuff, but no people. If you’re into “liminal spaces,” you will never run out. Still, like the headsets it’s played on, Horizon Worlds is really good.

Take The Office World, an official recreation of The Office‘s Dunder Mifflin, right down to the desktop tchotchkes. You can walk into Michael Scott’s office and pull games up on his computer, sort mail for Schrute Bucks, or go downstairs to check out the warehouse. The Office World is filled with the kind of cleverly written fan-service details that should draw droves of The Office faithful to hang out and meet each other. But they don’t. During the half hour I spent in The Office World at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday, the population count never got above five people. It’s lonely in there, like a water cooler with no co-workers around it or an empty film set with no one there to call “action.” 

Doesn’t this looks “fun?”
Credit: Stephen Johnson

I had a similar experience at Blumhouse Horrorverse, an atmospheric, shadowy forest clearing surrounded by spooky buildings. It’s filled with things to see and do for fans of Blumhouse properties like M3GAN, The Purge, and The Black Phone. You can play a game where you’re locked in a mansion with a player-controlled villain, or search for hidden Easter eggs to unlock M3GAN’s signature dress for your avatar. But the woods were so quiet. The few people I encountered were either very young children—the “squeakers” that haunt every corner of Horizon Worlds—or first-timers who wandered around in silence before vanishing like ghosts.

Liminal, right?
Credit: Stephen Johnson

But I found signs of life in the digital ruins

I was about to call quits on my virtual safari, but I thought I’d check out one last world. A search for “over 18” (damn squeakers) brought up The Soapstone Comedy Club. I’m glad I visited. The spot is alive. There’s a full schedule of upcoming stand-up shows, trivia, improv, and karaoke—and more importantly, there are people hanging out. Upon logging in, a friendly volunteer introduced herself, and before long I was chopping it up about life, online and off, with a bunch of new pals on the patio of a virtual comedy club.

Check my new computer friends.
Credit: Stephen Johnson

“If you told me 10 years ago that I was going to be known as ‘The Unemployed Alcoholic,’ and I would own a pretend comedy club in a cartoon land, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Aaron Sorrels, know as “TheUnemployedAlcoholic” online, told me. “And I sure wouldn’t have believed I could sell my wife on the idea,” he added.

In recovery and unemployed, Sorrels watched that now-infamous Facebook Connect event in 2021 that launched the Metaverse, and rather than clowning on it because the avatars didn’t have legs, Sorrel was inspired. “It sounds almost hokey,” Sorrels said, “but I heard about the Metaverse, specifically Horizon Worlds, and I was like, ‘I got to get in there.'”

With no background in programming, Sorrels built Soapstone from the ground up, creating a career for himself, paid gigs for others, and more importantly, a place for people to belong, just like Zuckerberg envisioned. “I came in to build a comedy club, and what’s ended up coming out of it is more than a comedy club. There’s a community of people that have adopted The Soapstone as theirs” Sorrels said. “It’s not a corporate place, or someone else’s place. This place belongs to them.”

“In the Soapstone, I can host shows, step on stage, or instantly connect with friends and family members who live thousands of miles away as if they were right here in the same room,” explained Soapstone Community Lead LollyDee. “It’s especially meaningful for people with anxiety, physical limitations, or those who live far from social hubs. For many of them, Soapstone Comedy isn’t just entertainment, it’s their social space and sense of community.”

So, is virtual reality dead?

Sorrels definitely doesn’t think VR is dead. “There are dynamic and powerful things happening every day, every moment of every day in VR,” Sorrels said. “I think back on what I heard Mark Zuckerberg say four years ago… he said it was a 10-year process. We’re not halfway through it yet.”

The loud, anarchic vibe of VRChat is too much for me, but about 40,000 (mostly young) people use it to connect every day. Big Screen has a healthy user base of VR cinephiles checking out 2D and 3D movies. People are virtually beating each other up 24/7 in Thrill of the Fight 2. I could go on, but you get the picture: VR might not have broken big, but specialized communities are thriving in all corners of the metaverse.

In 2026, the “Next Chapter of the Internet” version of the Metaverse, where we would all would live, work, and buy digital sneakers, is something of a ghost town. But a more sustainable, organic space is taking root. VR isn’t a second world; it’s a group of specialized tools for specific passions—a private IMAX theater for the cinephile, a global open-mic night for would-be comedians, a tactical tabletop for D&D nerds. VR isn’t everything to everyone, but it’s something to someone, and there’s nothing more alive than that.

Google-spinoff Waymo is in the midst of expanding its self-driving car fleet into new regions. Waymo touts more than 200 million miles of driving that informs how the vehicles navigate roads, but the company’s AI has also driven billions of miles virtually, and there’s a lot more to come with the new Waymo World Model. Based on Google DeepMind’s Genie 3, Waymo says the model can create “hyper-realistic” simulated environments that train the AI on situations that are rarely (or never) encountered in real life—like snow on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Until recently, the autonomous driving industry relied entirely on training data collected from real cars and real situations. That means rare, potentially dangerous events are not well represented in training data. The Waymo World Model aims to address that by allowing engineers to create simulations with simple prompts and driving inputs.

Google revealed Genie 3 last year, positioning it as a significant upgrade over other world models by virtue of its long-horizon memory. In Google’s world model, you can wander away from a given object, and when you look back, the model will still “remember” how that object is supposed to look. In earlier attempts at world models, the simulation would lose that context almost immediately. With Genie 3, the model can remember details for several minutes.

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Disney+ subscribers in some European countries have lost access to advanced HDR features like Dolby Vision, TechRadar and FlatpanelsHD report. The issue was first spotted by German Disney+ subscribers on Reddit, but currently also impacts subscribers in Portugal, Poland, France and the Netherlands, according to FlatpanelsHD.

“Dolby Vision support for content on Disney+ is currently unavailable in several European countries due to technical challenges,” Disney said in a statement. “We are actively working to restore access to Dolby Vision and will provide an update as soon as possible. 4K UHD and HDR support remain available on supported devices.”

If the issue is in fact a technical one, it seems like it could be around for the long-term. Disney has removed any reference to Dolby Vision from its Disney+ video quality support page in Germany. As of now, the company lists HDR10 as its default HDR format, despite Dolby Vision support being a feature of Disney+ for several years now. 

FlatpanelsHD writes that the real issue might be legal, rather than technological. A company called InterDigital won an injunction in a German court against Disney in November 2025 because it violated at least one of the company’s patents on streaming video technology. The injunction specifically requires Disney to stop violating InterDigital’s patent on “a method for dynamically overlaying a first video stream with a second video stream comprising, for example, subtitles.” It’s not entirely clear how that plays into the company offering Dolby Vision in Europe, but it would explain why subscribers in Germany were some of the first people to notice Dolby Vision’s absence.

Engadget has contacted Disney for more information about Disney+’s missing HDR support and whether InterDigital’s injunction played a role. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

Mentions of Dolby Vision were also stripped out of the US version of Disney+’s video quality support page. InterDigital hasn’t won an injunction in the US, but the company is pursuing a patent case against Disney in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That doesn’t necessarily mean Dolby Vision support will be taken from US subscribers next, but it does suggest there’s more happening here than just technical challenges.

Update, February 6, 3:44PM ET: The original version of this article included mention of Disney+ losing HDR10+ support in Europe, but Disney says it never offered HDR10+ in that region. The article has been updated accordingly.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-loses-access-to-dolby-vision-in-some-european-countries-193930702.html?src=rss

Salesforce is essentially shutting down Heroku as an evolving product, moving the cloud platform that helped define modern app deployment to a “sustaining engineering model” focused entirely on stability, security and support.

Existing customers on credit card billing see no changes to pricing or service, but enterprise contracts are no longer available to new buyers. Salesforce said it is redirecting engineering investment toward enterprise AI.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Maybe this is just me being Extremely Online, but whenever I see a video of someone squatting in running shoes, a comment section goes off in my head. “Ditch the shoes!” “You’ll hurt yourself!” “You don’t want cushions under your feet when there’s a heavy bar on your back!”

There’s some truth behind those knee-jerk reactions; when squatting (or deadlifting), I do not personally wear running shoes nor would I recommend them. But the importance of your choice of shoes is hugely overblown. You aren’t going to injure yourself or kill your gains by squatting in sneakers.

Why people say you shouldn’t squat in sneakers

Why is this questionable advice so pervasive? I blame internet form-check culture. People who have just learned to squat themselves aren’t in a position to diagnose mobility issues, or on the flip side to reassure new lifters that they’re basically doing fine and just need more practice. But they can see that you are wearing New Balances, so that’s what they pick on first.

The idea is that running shoes and other soft sneakers put a squishy layer of foam under your feet. When you’re running, that’s great; it absorbs impact and helps to return some energy to your foot as you push off. But when you’re squatting or deadlifting, you’ll benefit more from a solid footing.

I can agree with the sneaker-haters that your best options for squatting are either firm shoes (with no squish at all) or going without shoes. I’d rank your options like this:

1. Weightlifting shoes, like Nike Romaleos or Reebok Legacy Lifters, which have an elevated heel and a very firm sole. These are best if you need or prefer an elevated heel to keep good body positioning while you squat. They’re pricey though, and if you have good ankle mobility, you may not benefit much from the heel. These are great for squatting but not so much for deadlifts.

2. Shoes with a firm, flat sole, like Converse Chuck Taylors or Vans Old Skools. These are good all-around gym shoes, and you can deadlift in them, too.

3. No shoes at all. Most gyms frown on true barefoot training but it’s usually fine to slip off your shoes and lift in socks.

I have a more detailed guide here to choosing the right shoes to lift in. If you want to buy shoes specifically for lifting, consider those options. But what if you’re new to the gym and all you have is sneakers?

Weightlifting in sneakers isn’t going to kill you

When the sneaker-haters start making scary claims, saying you’ll hurt yourself or that you can’t possibly lift heavy in squishy shoes, they really don’t have a firm sole to stand on.

There aren’t any studies that attribute a higher injury rate to sneaker-wearers than to lifters who wear other footwear. Any claims that you’ll get hurt in sneakers are pretty much guaranteed to be made up. People love to scare each other about “dangerous” exercises and practices in the gym, evidence be damned.

I’ll admit that when I squat in sneakers, I don’t feel as stable. But I have squatted in sneakers, and the squats go fine. Look around your local gym; you’ll see plenty of people in suboptimal footwear.

Once I participated in a competition where people executed a variety of strange and heavy lifts. Toward the end, a few folks were attempting one-legged lifts, and commented that it was hard to do these in sneakers. I looked around and realized that most of the competitors had been wearing sneakers all day. And probably trained in them too. These were folks who had been putting up serious poundages! Until they took on a particularly balance-focused task, their choice of footwear hadn’t stood in their way at all.

Lifting in sneakers is the same kind of “not ideal, but you’ll be fine” situation as squatting without a belt, or running on a sunny day without sunglasses. So, should you squat in sneakers? Eh, they’re not your best option. But if they’re what you have for now, you’ll be fine.

An investigation has uncovered a sprawling network of hidden cameras in Chinese hotel rooms that livestream guests — including couples having sex — to paying subscribers on Telegram. Over 18 months, the BBC identified six websites and apps on the messaging platform that claimed to operate more than 180 spy cams across Chinese hotels, not just recording but broadcasting live.

One site, monitored for seven months, cycled through 54 different cameras, roughly half active at any given time. Subscribers pay 450 yuan (~$65) per month for access to multiple live feeds, archived clips, and a library of more than 6,000 edited videos dating back to 2017.

The BBC traced one camera to a hotel room in Zhengzhou, where researchers found it hidden inside a wall ventilation unit and hardwired into the building’s electricity supply. A commercially available hidden-camera detector failed to flag it. China introduced regulations last April requiring hotel owners to check for hidden cameras, but the BBC found the livestreaming sites still operational.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney+ subscribers in some European countries have lost access to advanced HDR features like Dolby Vision and HDR10+, TechRadar and FlatpanelsHD report. The issue was first spotted by German Disney+ subscribers on Reddit, but currently also impacts subscribers in Portugal, Poland, France and the Netherlands, according to FlatpanelsHD.

“Dolby Vision support for content on Disney+ is currently unavailable in several European countries due to technical challenges,” Disney said in a statement. “We are actively working to restore access to Dolby Vision and will provide an update as soon as possible. 4K UHD and HDR support remain available on supported devices.”

If the issue is in fact a technical one, it seems like it could be around for the long-term. Disney has removed any reference to Dolby Vision from its Disney+ video quality support page in Germany. As of now, the company lists HDR10 as its default HDR format, despite Dolby Vision support being a feature of Disney+ for several years now. 

FlatpanelsHD writes that the real issue might be legal, rather than technological. A company called InterDigital won an injunction in a German court against Disney in November 2025 because it violated at least one of the company’s patents on streaming video technology. The injunction specifically requires Disney to stop violating InterDigital’s patent on “a method for dynamically overlaying a first video stream with a second video stream comprising, for example, subtitles.” It’s not entirely clear how that plays into the company offering Dolby Vision and HDR10+ in Europe, but it would explain why subscribers in Germany were some of the first people to notice Dolby Vision’s absence.

Engadget has contacted Disney for more information about Disney+’s missing HDR support and whether InterDigital’s injunction played a role. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

Mentions of Dolby Vision and HDR10+ were also stripped out of the US version of Disney+’s video quality support page. InterDigital hasn’t won an injunction in the US, but the company is pursuing a patent case against Disney in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That doesn’t necessarily mean Dolby Vision support will be taken from US subscribers next, but it does suggest there’s more happening here than just technical challenges.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/disney-loses-access-to-dolby-vision-and-hdr10-in-some-european-countries-193930091.html?src=rss