Paramount Skydance increased its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) from $30 per share to $31 per share, WBD said today. Amid a competing offer from Netflix for WBD’s movie studios and streaming businesses, WBD said that Paramount’s new bid “could reasonably be expected to lead to a ‘Company Superior Proposal.’”

Under its revamped offer, Paramount would also pay the $7 billion regulatory termination fee that would arise should a Paramount-WBD merger fail to close due to antitrust regulation.

The company owned by David Ellison also said it would pay $0.25 per share for every day the deal doesn’t close, starting on September 30, rather than the previous start date of December 31.

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On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration released full-year data on how the country generated electricity in 2025. It’s a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that overall demand rose appreciably, and a fair chunk of that was met by additional coal use. On the good side, solar continued its run of astonishing growth, generating 35 percent more power than a year earlier and surpassing hydroelectric power for the first time.

Shifting markets

Overall, electrical consumption in the US rose by 2.8 percent, or about 121 terawatt-hours. Consumption had been largely flat for several decades, with efficiency and the decline of industry offsetting the effects of population and economic growth. There were plenty of year-to-year changes, however, driven by factors ranging from heating and cooling demand to a global pandemic. Given that history, the growth in demand in 2025 is a bit concerning, but it’s not yet a clear signal that the factors that will inevitably drive growth have kicked in.

(These factors include things like the switch to heat pumps, the electrification of transportation, and the growth in data centers. While the first two of those involve a more efficient use of energy overall, they involve electricity replacing direct use of fossil fuels, and so will increase demand on the grid.)

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Since it was announced a little over a week ago, Discord’s global age verification rollout has been a bit of a mess. First, the chatroom and voice chat company had to clarify that it won’t require all adults to upload an ID or facial scan to prove how old they are, as the initial post left many users with that impression. Second, the announcement came shortly after one if its existing customer service partners was breached, which lead to hackers getting a hold of user information, including government IDs provided for age verification. Third, users discovered that Discord had partnered with Peter Thiel-backed company Persona for an experiment in the UK, which raised flags about surveillance and security, and saw some personal identifying information being uploaded to the cloud when users thought it would be processed on-device. Now, Discord is admitting that it messed up, and is trying to make amends.

In a post on its website, titled “Getting Global Age Assurance Right: What We Got Wrong and What’s Changing,” Discord admitted that its new “teen-by-default” age settings haven’t had the warmest reception. The company said that it “knew this rollout was going to be controversial,” but added that “we failed at our most basic job: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why.” It then reiterated that “over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today,” while still doubling down on providing “real safeguards” for teenage users. That said, corporate damage control aside, the company also said it’s going to delay the global age verification rollout, and is going to make concrete changes to attempt to address user concerns.

How Discord’s global age verification is changing

To that end, Discord is making the following changes to its controversial global age verification rollout:

1. Global age verification will now be delayed from March to the “second half of 2026.” Until that point, age verification will only remain active in areas where it is legally required, like the UK and Australia.

2. On launch, Discord will provide a list of every age verification vendor it works with and their practices.

3. All age verification partners will only offer facial scanning on-device.

4. Before global age verification launches, Discord will develop alternative age verification methods beyond scanning your face or providing an ID, like providing credit card information instead. However, such methods might not be legally allowed in certain area, like Australia, the UK, and Brazil.

5. Discord will add spoiler channels as an option for communities, so they don’t need to use age-restricted channels to hide age appropriate, but still sensitive, content anymore. This will allow accounts that aren’t able to age verify to access these channels.

6. The company will publish a technical blog once age verification launches going into detail on how its systems work, and will add age verification metrics, including how many users were asked to verify or which age verification methods they used, to ongoing transparency reports.

Essentially, the idea is that if you’re an adult Discord user (and you live in a region that allows it, which Discord says may not be everywhere), Discord will likely be able to use factors like your signup email, your account age, and your activity to guess your age. If so, you’ll be automatically filtered into the correct age group and will be able to keep using the app as usual. Otherwise, you’ll be labeled a teen, and will need to verify by either scanning your face, providing a government ID, or using one of Discord’s new alternative methods. Or, you could keep using the app unverified, but you’ll lose access to age-restricted channels and any content Discord thinks is inappropriate enough to block for you.

Why does Discord care about my age so much?

To that end, not much has changed about Discord’s end goals, and the company did acknowledge that “we know many of you believe the right answer is not to do this at all.” However, Discord also said that its hand is being forced in regions including the UK, Australia, and Brazil, with “Europe and multiple US states close behind.” In scaling age verification globally, Discord says it wants to “show regulators that it’s possible to verify age without collecting identity,” also stating that “we don’t want to know who you are. We just need to know whether you’re an adult.”

To be fair, that still seems to involve knowing who users are to some extent, as you’ll still need to hand over some type of personal identifying information to verify, or rely on Discord’s age prediction to collect information to estimate your age in the background. But as a show of good faith, Discord acknowledged its “experiment” with Persona, and that Persona’s use of off-device facial scanning did not meet its bar for privacy.

What happens next is unclear. Discord’s made a lot of promises, but now it has to follow through on them. The company also didn’t provide a strict deadline for its age verification rollout, so its possible it could continue to get pushed back in regions that don’t legally require it. However, Discord is also up for for an IPO sometime this spring. Certainty and a happy consumer base will likely make investors happy, but that probably also means keeping regulators and concerned parents appeased. Continue to expect compromises, especially when Discord has already come under fire for exposing teens to sensitive material and adult conversations before.

This is a video of Instagrammer giva.lond and a group of friends walking across concrete traffic bollards in unusual ways. Giva is really good at it. AND does the entire walk with his hands in his pockets. That’s risky. At least for me. The last time I played the walking with my hands in my pockets game I won a set of veneers.

Meta AI security researcher Summer Yue posted a now-viral account on X describing how an OpenClaw agent she had tasked with sorting through her overstuffed email inbox went rogue, deleting messages in what she called a “speed run” while ignoring her repeated commands from her phone to stop.

“I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb,” Yue wrote, sharing screenshots of the ignored stop prompts as proof. Yue said she had previously tested the agent on a smaller “toy” inbox where it performed well enough to earn her trust, so she let it loose on the real thing. She believes the larger volume of data triggered compaction — a process where the context window grows too large and the agent begins summarizing and compressing its running instructions, potentially dropping ones the user considers critical.

The agent may have reverted to its earlier toy-inbox behavior and skipped her last prompt telling it not to act. OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent designed to run as a personal assistant on local hardware.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1Password is increasing prices for its individual and family plans. The individual rate is increasing from nearly $36 a year to $48, while the family option will cost $72 instead of $60. In emails sent to users, the business announced that the new rates will take effect for users at their next subscription renewal after March 27. 

It’s a sizable price hike, but 1Password hasn’t been incrementally inching its fees higher every couple years like we see so often for streaming subscriptions. This is the biggest bump we’ve seen to its rates in several years, even though the company has been adding ever-more tools for cybersecurity, such as new phishing protections that rolled out last month. Even at the higher cost, it’s still one of the best options out there for password management.

Fortunately for those on a budget, we have seen 1Password offer pretty substantial discounts on its plans at times, often cutting the rates by as much as half. The company usually participates in the big deal sprees like Black Friday, but keep an eye out for standalone sales that might pop up year-round.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/1password-plans-are-getting-more-expensive-soon-213236400.html?src=rss

DJI, the most popular consumer drone maker, is suing over the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s import ban against new, foreign-made drones, which has been in effect since December 23, 2025.

On Tuesday, the Shenzhen-headquartered company filed a petition [PDF] with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that seeks to overturn the FCC’s decision to list DJI on its Covered List. The Covered List includes communications equipment and services that are “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons,” per the FCC.

In its petition dated February 20, 2026, DJI said:

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The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog. From a report: Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity — 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand.

The figure was revealed in an Ofgem consultation on demand for new connections to the power grid. It pointed to a “surge in demand” for connection applications between November 2024 and June last year, with a significant number coming from datacentres. This has exceeded even the most ambitious forecasts.

Meanwhile, new renewable energy projects are not being connected to the grid at the pace they are being built to help meet the government’s clean energy targets by the end of the decade. Ofgem said the work required to connect surging numbers of datacentres could mean delays for other projects that are “critical for decarbonisation and economic growth.” Datacentres are the central nervous system of AI tools such as chatbots and image generators, playing a vital role in training and operating products such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As Lifehacker has previously argued, YouTube Premium is probably the best streaming service for most people. Ads can eat into your free time faster than you might realize, and because YouTube’s user-generated videos can be quite short, they’re especially annoying there—and blocking them without a paid subscription is tough.

YouTube Premium is also a bit pricey as streaming services go, at $14/month. Fortunately, the company also offers a “Premium Lite” plan that’s much cheaper—and thanks to the recent addition of a few key features, it no longer pales in comparison to a full subscription. In fact, the $8/month YouTube Premium Lite may now be the best paid YouTube tier for most people.

YouTube Premium Lite is getting two of the more expensive tier’s best features

Starting today, YouTube Premium Lite now offers both background play and download options on most videos, features that were previously exclusive to a full YouTube Premium plan. The update is currently rolling out, so it might take a little bit for it to reach you, but the change essentially gives you parity with a full YouTube Premium plan on the vast majority of YouTube content. According to YouTube, the company has “heard feedback about wanting these additional features included in the service,” which prompted the change.

Now, for the same $8/month price, you can get most of the full YouTube Premium experience, normally a $14/month value. The only catch? You’ll still get ads when streaming music and music videos, hence the “most videos” disclaimer. Ads also “may appear when you search or browse,” but as for interruptions while watching non-music content? You should be in the clear.

Credit: YouTube

A full YouTube Premium account no longer makes sense for most users

Essentially, unless you’re a big YouTube Music user, getting YouTube Premium Lite instead of a full-cost subscription is now a no-brainer. There are a few smaller bonuses you’ll be leaving behind, like the ability to “Jump Ahead” (instantly skip frequently skipped parts of a video, usually ad reads), but your subscription will also be around half the price. You win some, you lose some.

The only real gap now, at least for me, is for households with lots of different YouTube viewers YouTube Premium Lite still only applies to one profile at a time, so if everyone in your household wants to have their own separate algorithms instead of sharing a profile, you’ll need to get YouTube Premium Family, which costs $23/month, giving six people in the same household the benefits of a full YouTube Premium subscription. My husband and I have pretty different viewing habits, so we’re unlikely to switch to this cheaper tier any time soon. But if you live alone or you’re OK sharing a profile, you might as well save yourself some moolah.

Alternatively, you can also still get a YouTube Music Premium plan for $11/month. That removes ads and allows background play and downloads, but only for music and music videos. It’s essentially the opposite of YouTube Premium Lite, and faces stiff competition from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. Personally, I’d just pay the extra for a full YouTube Premium subscription, which has all the same benefits of YouTube Music Premium, but also works for non-music content and only costs $3/month more.

Still, while adding new features to Premium Lite is ultimately a discount, it does follow a move from YouTube to block people from accessing background play for free. Perhaps this is Google’s attempt at a compromise?

Earlier this month, Discord said it would be enacting an age verification policy. The platform faced some initial concerns from users about turning over their IDs and personal information, particularly given how poorly similar policies have been going elsewhere. Discord announced today it will delay and make some changes to its plans in response to the ongoing backlash.

The first change is that Discord is postponing the global rollout of its age verification plans until the second half of 2026. The company noted that it would meet its legal obligations in places where they exist, likely in those countries that have national laws requiring protections for younger users. But it will not begin the global rollout until it makes some amendments to the offerings.

Discord will offer more alternatives to how users can confirm their ages, including verification by credit card. That should allow people to access age-gated content without sharing an ID or performing a face scan. “If you’re among the less than 10 percent of users who do need to verify, we’ll give you options, designed to tell us only your age and never your identity,” according to a blog post credited to co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy.

The company is also promising more transparency about its vendors for these verification services and their practices. Discord said that it will not work with any partners for face scans unless the tests are performed completely on-device. The blog post noted that Persona, one of the common vendors for facial age estimation services, does not meet that standard and Discord has opted not to work with the brand. 

Finally, Discord is also building a new spoiler channel option so that servers with select age-restricted channels won’t have to require all members to verify their ages. It will also publish a technical explainer on its own automatic age determination systems.

We at Engadget have own worries about the wave of age verification laws happening both within the US and globally, but it’s somewhat encouraging to see a digital platform at least trying to continue to deliver anonymity while still creating effective protections for teens.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/discord-delays-age-verification-to-address-user-concerns-205500482.html?src=rss

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will reportedly give Anthropic until Friday to drop certain guardrails for military use, as reported by Axios. The outlet also reported that CEO Dario Amodei met with Hegseth yesterday as the Pentagon ratcheted up pressure on the AI company to give in to its demands.

The makers of Claude have reportedly been offered an ultimatum: Either yield to the government’s demands to remove limits for certain military applications, or potentially be forced to tailor its AI model to the government’s needs under the Defense Production Act.

Anthropic, for its part, has said that while it was willing to adopt certain policies for the Pentagon, it would not allow its model to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or for the development of autonomous weapons.

Claude is currently the only AI model employed in some of the government’s most sensitive work. “The only reason we’re still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good,” a defense official told Axios.

The Pentagon is reportedly ramping up conversations with OpenAI and Google about using their models for classified work. ChatGPT and Gemini are already approved for unclassified government use. Elon Musk’s xAI also recently signed with the DoD to use Grok in classified systems.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-pentagon-has-reportedly-given-anthropic-until-friday-to-let-it-use-claude-as-it-sees-fit-203549467.html?src=rss

Samsung Unpacked 2026 is nearly upon us. On Wednesday, Feb. 25, Samsung will take the stage in San Francisco to make some pretty major product and feature announcements. Unlike some other big tech companies, however, Samsung isn’t being 100% secretive here. The company has already told us that it will reveal the next Galaxy S Series, and while they haven’t said exactly what it will be called, it’s pretty safe to assume this will be the Galaxy S26 series. The rumors suggest Samsung has plenty of other updates up its sleeve, too, including the new Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy AI announcements.

Based on the leaks and rumors, it seems the S26 series will likely be a small year-over-year update to the S25 series, which is largely to be expected from a smartphone OEM as big as Samsung. While there may not be too much incentive to update from the S25 series, users of older Galaxy devices, or older smartphones in general, may find the processor and camera upgrades worthwhile. There may also be unique features, like Privacy Display, which can make it more difficult for others to see your screen when they’re not looking at it head-on. We’ll have to see exactly which rumors pan out to know for sure.

You don’t need to be seated in San Francisco in order to keep up with all the Samsung news, though. We’ll be covering the event live as it happens, posting to this live blog throughout the day. That means we’ll be reporting when Samsung reveals the Galaxy S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra; all the new features those devices come with; and any new accessories and AI advancements you can expect from the Samsung ecosystem. For all the latest Samsung Unpacked 2026 news, keep checking this live blog throughout Wednesday.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Cyberattacks reached victims faster and came from a wider range of threat groups than ever last year, CrowdStrike said in its annual global threat report released Tuesday, adding that cybercriminals and nation-states increasingly relied on predictable tactics to evade detection by exploiting trusted systems.

The average breakout time — how long it took financially-motivated attackers to move from initial intrusion to other network systems — dropped to 29 minutes in 2025, a 65% increase in speed from the year prior. “The fastest breakout time a year ago was 51 seconds. This year it’s 27 seconds,” Adam Meyers, head of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, told CyberScoop. Defenders are falling behind because attackers are refining their techniques, using social engineering to access high-privilege systems faster and move through victims’ cloud infrastructure undetected.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google sent out an AI-generated news alert that included the N-word, according to reporting by Deadline. The push notification featured a link to a story by The Hollywood Reporter regarding an incident at the recent BAFTA Film Awards. The word appeared in the notification under the link.

This was first spotted by Instagram user Danny Price, who accompanied a screengrab with a caption reading “what an interesting Black History Month this has turned out to be.” Google has since apologized and said that it has “removed the offensive notification” and is “working to prevent this from happening again.”

This story follows the aforementioned BAFTA incident, in which an audience member with Tourette syndrome shouted the N-word when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo took to the stage to present an award. Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson, who made the comment, said he was “deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intention or to carry any meaning.” The incident has sparked outrage and a renewed discussion on the realities of living with vocal tics.

AI makes lots of high-profile errors and this isn’t the first time it has ruined a news alert. Apple actually scrapped its own AI push notifications last year when the tool made a series of embarrassing mistakes, including wrongly telling readers that the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione, had shot himself.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-sent-an-ai-generated-push-alert-that-included-a-racial-slur-195951493.html?src=rss

A UK regulator today fined Reddit £14.5 million ($19.6 million) for not verifying the ages of users. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) alleged that the failure to check ages resulted in Reddit illegally using children’s personal information.

“Our investigation found that Reddit failed to apply any robust age assurance mechanism and therefore did not have a lawful basis for processing the personal information of children under the age of 13… These failures meant Reddit was using children’s data unlawfully, potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content,” an ICO press release said.

The ICO findings are based on Reddit’s actions prior to its July 2025 rollout of a system that verifies UK users’ ages before letting them view adult content. But the ICO said it is still concerned about Reddit’s post-July 2025 system because the company relies on users to declare their ages when opening an account.

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Three years after announcing plans to produce a film based on the viral YouTube short, The Backrooms (Found Footage) in 2023, A24 has released the first teaser for its adaptation. Backrooms, as the film is now called, is directed by the short’s original creator, Kane Parsons, and will be released on May 29, 2026.

The teaser offers little to go on for anyone who hasn’t watched the original short or the series of videos Parsons made after it, but it is replete with The Backrooms‘ hallmark: ominous liminal spaces. Layered over footage of stranger and stranger rooms (or perhaps one room becoming the platonic empty retail spaces popularized by short), the voice of Chiwetel Ejiofor tells the film’s other star, Renate Reinsve, about a “place” he discovered that’s full of rooms.

Parsons’ original video is inspired by a creepypasta called “The Backrooms” that originated on the forum 4chan in 2019. The YouTube series expanded on the basic concept of a liminal space that exists outside reality with monsters and a mysterious company researching The Backrooms. It’s unclear how much of that larger lore will be incorporated into the feature film adaptation, but since the teaser is missing the digital video filter that gave the YouTube short its distinct look, it seems possible Parsons could be going for something a bit different. Well that, and the fact the film stars two Oscar-nominated actors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/heres-the-first-teaser-for-a24s-adaptation-of-the-backrooms-194300513.html?src=rss

This is going to be a big week for Samsung. The company is making some major announcements at Galaxy Unpacked 2026 on Wednesday, revealing the next generation Galaxy S Series devices (which almost assuredly means the Galaxy S26), as well as some new AI updates. In the lead up to this event, Samsung is also now rolling out its latest security updates for its Galaxy devices—at least, some of its devices.

What’s new with Samsung’s February security update

Samsung’s February security update contains 37 patches for issues the company discovered since the January update. This time, there are no critical patches, but there are plenty of fixes for “High” severity issues. According to SamMobile, 25 of these patches were provided by Google, which fix issues with Android in general, while the other 12 were specific to Samsung to patch issues within its own ecosystem. That includes issues for Emergency Sharing, Knox Guard Manager, Samsung Dialer, Samsung’s Settings app, face and fingerprint authentication systems, and the PACM module—things that only apply to Samsung’s own OS.

Not all Galaxy phones are getting this update right away. Samsung is kicking things off with its Galaxy S25 series, meaning the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra. It also appears to be rolling out to its latest foldable devices as well, including the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and Z TriFold. If you bought Samsung’s latest and greatest—at least until the S26 series launches—you’ll likely see the update in your Settings app imminently. If your Galaxy device is on the older side (or even one year older than the S25 series), you may need to wait a bit before the patches appear.

Speaking of waiting, Samsung started rolling this update out to Korean users first, so if you’re in another region, you might not see it right away. But it does seem evident the patch is on its way, especially with Unpacked airing Wednesday.

How to install Samsung’s February security update

Once the security update hits your device, open the Settings app, then choose either Software update or System updates. (This may differ depending on your device.) From here, depending on your carrier, tap either Download and install, Check for system updates, or Check for software updates. The latest update may begin downloading automatically, but if it doesn’t, tap Download now. Finally, follow the on-screen instructions to install the update.

Waymo had set out some big plans for expanding its autonomous vehicle taxi program across the US in 2025 and it appears to be continuing that pace into 2026. Today, the company announced that the first public riders can begin using its fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando. 

To start, these robotaxi rides will only be available for a small number of people with the Waymo app in those cities. “We will be inviting new riders on a rolling basis to ensure a seamless experience across our initial service areas, as we meaningfully scale our operations ahead of opening our service to everyone later this year,” the company said in the blog post announcing the expansion.

Google-owned Waymo is now operating in ten commercial metro areas. It announced its plans to start testing its vehicles in these four US cities in November. The company also began a test phase in Miami at that time, and Waymo’s robotaxi service began accepting riders in that locale in January.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymo-will-start-offering-robotaxi-rides-in-four-more-cities-192841871.html?src=rss