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Losing your luggage might not be the end of the world, but it’s definitely the worst part of a trip. That’s where something like the SmartLock comes in, and a four-pack of these TSA-approved travel locks is going for $79.99 on StackSocial right now, which is the same price Amazon charges for a three-pack. It’s designed for Apple users, integrating directly with the Find My app, so you can track your bags on a map, ping them with sound if they’re nearby, or get alerts if you’ve walked off and left them behind.

Each lock uses a simple three-digit combination and is TSA-approved, meaning airport security can access it without cutting it open. The build feels solid, with a durable alloy shell and thick cable loop tough enough for typical travel abuse. It’s also refreshingly low-maintenance, with no constant charging needed. The built-in battery lasts about three months and is replaceable, so you’re not tossing the whole thing when it dies. You don’t need to install a separate app to manage the tracking either, if you’ve used Apple’s Find My for AirTags or devices, the setup will feel familiar and straightforward. You also get solid tracking features like Lost Mode and sound alerts.

That said, this is Apple-only. If you use Android, the Find My functionality won’t work, so you’re better off with a traditional smart tracker or lock. If you’re traveling with multiple bags or coordinating group travel, getting four in one pack makes the price easier to swallow. For frequent flyers or anyone with a track record of forgetting their carry-on at Gate 17, this is one of those travel add-ons that might actually be worth it.

Twenty-eight-year-old Nathan Laatsch was, until yesterday, a cybersecurity employee at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). He had a Top Secret clearance and worked in the Insider Threat Division. Laatsch spent his days—you’ll understand the past tense in a moment—”enabling user monitoring on individuals with access to DIA systems,” including employees under surreptitious internal investigation.

Given that Laatsch was one of those who “watched the watchers,” he appears to have had supreme confidence in his own ability to avoid detection should he decide to go rogue. “Stupid mistakes” made by other idiots would “not be difficult for me to avoid,” he once wrote. DIA couldn’t even launch an investigation of Laatsch without him knowing that something was up.

The Greeks had a word for this: hubris.

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After two years of negotiating, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, the union representing quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Media, has reached a tentative union contract with Microsoft, according to the Communication Workers of America. The union originally formed in 2023 and was immediately recognized by Microsoft, which made its commitment to stay neutral towards union organizing at ZeniMax official in 2024.

The new contract will cover over 300 ZeniMax employees and includes “substantial across-the-board wage increases as well as new minimum salaries for workers,” the CWA says. The contract also includes language protecting workers from the impacts of AI and “a crediting policy that clearly acknowledges the QA workers’ contributions to the video games they help create.”

“Video games have been the revenue titan of the entire entertainment industry for years, and the workers who develop these games are too often exploited for their passion and creativity,” Jessee Leese, a QA tester and ZeniMax Workers United-CWA bargaining committee member shared in the CWA announcement. “Our first contract is an invitation for video game professionals everywhere to take action. We’re the ones who make these games, and we’ll be the ones to set new standards for fair treatment.”

The new contract is considered “tentative” until union members ratify it, but because existing contracts often act as a reference in ongoing negotiations, the agreements ZeniMax workers secured will likely serve as a standard for other unions going forward. ZeniMax QA testers aren’t the only video game union at Microsoft — QA workers at Raven Software, QA workers at Activision, workers at ZeniMax Online Studios and the development team behind Overwatch are all still in active negotiations with the company.

Outside of Microsoft, the CWA also announced the United Game Workers-CWA union at this year’s GDC, as a another option for representation. United Game Workers-CWA is a direct-join union, a labor organization that all workers in an industry can participate in without needing legal recognition from an employer. The idea is that currently employed workers, anyone who’s been laid off and freelancers can all still wield power together, even without a potential contract hanging in the balance.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/zenimax-qa-workers-win-tentative-union-contract-with-microsoft-194204789.html?src=rss

It’s almost that time of year again. Summer Game Fest starts on June 6. The annual kickoff stream begins at 5PM ET on that date. Yeah, we know. The time isn’t ideal for folks with regular jobs, but we’ll be in Los Angeles to cover the event in person, so you can just hit up the site for updates.

The best way to watch this is likely via the YouTube stream. After all, the event is being hosted at the YouTube Theater. There will also be a Twitch stream for the YouTube-averse.

The organizers, including host Geoff Keighley, are promising “spectacular new video game announcements, surprises and reveals.” I like all three of those things. We don’t know that much about what games will be discussed during the two-hour event, but we aren’t going in totally blind.

The stream will feature a new look at Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, which is a nifty-looking Soulslike action RPG. The open-world MMORPG Chrono Odyssey (no relation to Chrono Trigger) is also making an appearance.

There’s also the Kojima of it all. This event is taking place just a couple of weeks before we get our hands on the long-anticipated Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. The legendary game creator will be on-hand to discuss the title during a dedicated event on June 8, but maybe he’ll pop up at the kickoff to give viewers a peek at whatever else he’s been working on.

However, the kickoff stream is just the beginning. The weekend is host to the Day of the Devs showcase, the Devolver Direct, Wholesome Direct and really so much more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/how-to-watch-summer-game-fests-kickoff-stream-193047735.html?src=rss

WordPress.com parent company Automattic is changing direction… again. From a report: In a blog post titled “Returning to Core” published Thursday evening, Automattic announced it will unpause its contributions to the WordPress project. This is despite having said only last month that the 6.8 WordPress release would be the final major release for all of 2025.

“After pausing our contributions to regroup, rethink, and plan strategically, we’re ready to press play again and return fully to the WordPress project,” the new blog post states. “Expect to find our contributions across all of the greatest hits — WordPress Core, Gutenberg, Playground, Openverse, and WordPress.org. This return is a moment of excitement for us as it’s about continuing the mission we’ve always believed in: democratizing publishing for everyone, everywhere,” it reads.

Automattic says it’s learned a lot from the pause in terms of the many ways WordPress is used, and that it’s now committed to helping it “grow and thrive.” The post also notes that WordPress today powers 43% of the web.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has failed to reverse a preliminary injunction currently blocking him from probing Media Matters for America (MMFA) in defense of Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

On Friday, a US appeals court upheld the injunction. In his opinion, senior Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote that there was “ample” evidence that Paxton “pursued a retaliatory campaign” against MMFA “because they published an unfavorable article about X.com.” And MMFA has standing to raise a First Amendment defense, because “the First Amendment generally ‘prohibits government officials from subjecting individuals to retaliatory actions after the fact for having engaged in protected speech,” Edwards wrote.

Edwards noted that the day after X sued MMFA over reporting on antisemitic posts appearing next to big brands’ ads on X—alleging the report fraudulently spawned an ad boycott—Paxton announced a broad probe into MMFA that, he confirmed in a press release, was directly due to X’s lawsuit.

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Ever since Google started integrating its Gemini AI into all its apps, users have complained about seeing the optional AI-powered Summarize button in their Gmail threads. Now, Google is so confident about this feature that it’s enabling automatic summaries for all paying Google Workspace accounts with Gemini access. Now when you open a long email or thread, an AI Summary will be the first thing you see, right up top.

Personally, I think these summaries can be quite convenient, depending on the email. But even though Google says these automatic summaries won’t show up on every email, just the ones where the AI thinks they would be useful, I could still see them getting annoying if they start showing up a bit too often. In that case, you might want to turn them off. Luckily, you can do that, but it also means turning off Gemini in Gmail completely.

Google’s new automatic email summary cards

According to Google’s announcement, the new automatic AI Summary Cards will appear on top of certain emails for paying Workspace users, but only on mobile (both iPhone and Android) for now. Again, you won’t see summaries for every email, like delivery orders or random promotions. But if Google detects that that your email is particularly long or has a lot of replies, that’s when a Summary card might kick in. These Summary cards will be dynamic, and will change as new replies come in. Google assures that all key points from your email thread will be covered in its Summary card, too. And in case a long email isn’t summarized for you, you can still use the “Summarize this email” button to manually trigger an AI recap.

The feature is currently only available in English, and it will be gradually rolled out globally over the next two weeks. You should start to see it on the web later on.

While Gemini has come a long way, it’s important to note that it’s still based on a Large Language Model, and so it’s vulnerable to hallucinations. While an AI Summary card could be handy, you should still also manually check your emails to make sure you don’t miss anything important.

How to turn off Gemini summaries in Gmail

If you’re a paying Workspace user with Gemini and you don’t want to see automatic summaries on your emails, the only way out is to disable Gemini in Gmail entirely. Disabling Gemini in Gmail means losing access to all its features, like suggested replies, help with drafting messages, Google Calendar integration, the Gemini sidebar, all of it. And of course, you won’t be able to access the upcoming Personalized Smart Replies feature that generates complete email responses using context from your Google account, written in your style of writing. Google really should have provided a toggle for these automatic summaries, but alas, it hasn’t.

It’s up to you whether the tradeoff of losing Gemini’s other Gmail features will be worth it, but if you start seeing automatic summaries in your Gmail, it’s the only known way to get rid of them, for now. To turn off Gemini in Gmail, open Gmail and click the Settings button at the top of the page. Here, go to See all settings, then scroll down to the Workspace smart features section. Click or tap on Manage Workspace smart feature settings. Finally, you’ll see the toggle for Smart features in Google Workspace. Disable that, and you’re all set.

Presumably, automatic AI summaries will also come to desktop and perhaps even free users at some point, although Google hasn’t said anything about this yet.

Major broadband lobby groups have asked the Trump administration to sue states that require internet service providers to offer low-cost plans to low-income residents, following their unsuccessful court challenges against such laws. The cable, telecom, and mobile industry associations filed the request this week with the Justice Department’s new Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force, specifically targeting New York’s law that mandates $15 and $20 monthly broadband options for eligible customers.

The industry groups suffered a significant legal defeat when the Supreme Court refused to hear their challenge to New York’s affordability mandate in December 2024, after losing in federal appeals court. Now they face a potential wave of similar legislation, with California proposing $15 plans offering 100 Mbps speeds and ten other states considering comparable requirements.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach technically launches on June 26, but you’ll be able to get an early look at the game and hear from a panel of people who worked on it thanks to a newly announced event that will close out Summer Game Fest on June 8. The “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Game Premiere” will be hosted by Geoff Keighley and feature live gameplay of the upcoming game, alongside a panel discussion with Hideo Kojima and other talent who worked on it.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach picks up after the events of the first Death Stranding, following Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus) as he’s drawn back into the world of schlepping things by Fragile (Léa Seydoux). Based on recent trailers, the sequel appears to build on the traversal challenges of the original, with new types of terrain and weather to navigate and new tools at Sam’s disposal to make it easier.

You can attend in-person at the Orpheum Theatre on June 8 at 10PM ET / 7PM PT by registering for tickets online. The event will also stream live on YouTube for anyone who’s not able to make the trek to Los Angeles to attend.

This premiere event kicks-off a world tour — appropriately titled the “Death Stranding World Strand Tour 2” — promoting Death Stranding 2: On the Beach leading up to the game’s launch and extending well beyond it. A24 and Kojima Productions also recently announced that the film adaptation of Death Stranding will be written and directed by Michael Sarnoski, the director behind A Quiet Place: Day One and Pig.

Considering the bromance / business partnership Kojima and Keighley have maintained over the last few years, it’s not at all surprising they’re teaming up to promote the new Death Stranding. Of course, the event is just one of several livestreams that will pad out Summer Game Fest 2025, which includes the Keighley-hosted Summer Game Fest Live, and more intriguing games showcases like Day of the Devs and the Devolver Direct.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/how-to-watch-the-death-stranding-2-premiere-event-at-summer-game-fest-184514009.html?src=rss

Hugging Face is best known as a platform for machine learning and AI development, but it has also been dabbling in the world of robotics. This week, the company revealed two new robots it plans to bring to market—including a humanoid one that it would sell for around $3,000, far less than many of the other options that have been floated, like Unitree’s $16,000 G1.

Dubbed the HopeJR, Hugging Face’s robot has up to 66 actuated degrees of freedom. According to Hugging Face Principal Research Scientist Remi Cadene, it can walk and manipulate objects. As shown in a short X video, it has an accessible look that reminds us a bit of Bender from Futurama. (It’s the eyes.)

Co-designed with French robotics company The Robot Studio, HopeJR will be open source. “The important aspect is that these robots are open source, so anyone can assemble, rebuild, [and] understand how they work, and [they’re] affordable, so that robotics doesn’t get dominated by just a few big players with dangerous black-box systems,” Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue told TechCrunch.

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Age verification is coming to app stores in Texas, meaning that users could soon be required to provide some form of identification in order to download anything from the Google Play and Apple App stores, regardless of the app’s content.

Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas App Store Accountability Act, which is set to take effect at the beginning of next year. The new law, which purports to be about keeping children safer online, has significant implications for user privacy and data security.

What will be required for app store age verification in Texas?

The Texas law will require Google and Apple to verify the age of all users before they download any app through their app stores, even if the app has no sensitive or age-specific content. Parents will have to provide consent for minors to download apps or make purchases, and app stores will have to confirm that parents or guardians have the legal authority to make those decisions for their children. App stores will also have to share which age categories users fall into (child, young teen, older teen, or adult) with app developers.

While the specifics are yet to be determined, that means Google and Apple will have to collect some form of user identification, whether that’s a driver’s license, passport, or other government-issued ID, or biometric data, such as a facial scan, for anyone using their app stores in Texas. Even more documentation will be required for parents proving legal guardianship of minor users.

Utah passed a similar bill earlier this year making app stores responsible for centralizing age verification, and while its requirements are slightly less onerous, they’re not much better when it comes to your privacy.

How age verification compromises your privacy

Privacy experts—as well as both Apple and Google—have raised alarms about the implications of age verification, noting that requiring all users to turn over sensitive personal information included in data-rich documents that can prove your age is a form of digital surveillance. It creates an identifiable record of online activity and increases the risk that the data will be used, shared, or sold (unlike physical ID checks, which are momentary and impermanent).

Age verification also presents security concerns with how sensitive user data is collected and stored. Data breaches are a fact of life in 2025, and individuals may have very little (if any) knowledge about whether and how their information is used and stored without their consent, and without recourse if it is compromised.

Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), notes that the Texas law doesn’t have any built-in protections for user data, such as minimizing what is collected and transmitted and for how long it is retained. Plus, there are risks present in the likelihood that app stores will utilize third-party verification services to comply with the requirements, meaning data is available to multiple parties.

The EFF and the ACLU also argue that online age verification requirements violate users’ First Amendment rights, as they may make protected free speech inaccessible—if adults don’t have a valid form of identification, or facial recognition inaccurately estimates age, or minors can’t get parental consent—or force people to choose between shielding their privacy and being online.

“If I have to provide this level of personal information because the government mandates it just to download an app from an app store, I’m going to be significantly worried about what happens to my data, and I might just decide to not actually download the app or even use this app store,” Mackey says.

The online incel (“involuntary celibate”) subculture is mostly known for its extreme rhetoric, primarily against women, sometimes erupting into violence. But a growing number of self-identified incels are using their ideology as an excuse for not working or studying. This could constitute a kind of coping mechanism to make sense of their failures—not just in romantic relationships but also in education and employment, according to a paper published in the journal Gender, Work, & Organization.

Contrary to how it’s often portrayed, the “manosphere,” as it is often called, is not a monolith. Those who embrace the “Redpill” ideology, for example, might insist that women control the “sexual marketplace” and are only interested in ultramasculine “Chads.” They champion self-improvement as a means to make themselves more masculine and successful, and hence (they believe) more attractive to women—or at least better able to manipulate women.

By contrast, the “Blackpilled” incel contingent is generally more nihilistic. These individuals reject the Redpill notion of alpha-male masculinity and the accompanying focus on self-improvement. They believe that dating and social success are entirely determined by one’s looks and/or genetics. Since there is nothing they can do to improve their chances with women or their lot in life, why even bother?

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Looking up guides for video games might account for a higher proportion of my Google searches than any other individual activity. Just the sheer number of different quests, mechanics, stats, and even romance guides any given game can involve is staggering. That’s why I’ve come to appreciate collectibles maps even more lately. These interactive tools let you find, filter, and track all the little doodads in your games, organized by the layout of the game’s map.

There’s a good chance you’ve stumbled onto some collectible tracking sites just by searching for something like “where the heck is that last manuscript page in Alan Wake II?” Sometimes, guides with more traditional lists and screenshots will link to an interactive map where you can get a top-down view of everything you’re looking for.

While these tools are often described as tracking “collectibles,” in reality they’re often databases for the location of almost everything in a game. Whether it’s the location of certain characters, quest markers, shopkeeper locations, and upgrades, these maps will often point you to everything you need to find.

For the biggest game library: IGN’s interactive maps

If you’ve come across any collectible trackers, it’s probably one of IGN’s. You’ve probably come across a walkthrough of a particular level in a game from IGN via Google. What you might not have noticed is that, along the top of those pages, are links to interactive tools that show a lot of the same information overlaid on the game world’s map. You can click on points of interest and even check off which ones you’ve collected. That same info even syncs to the text-based guides. (Disclaimer: Ziff Davis, Lifehacker’s parent company, also owns IGN.)

Of all the collectible tracker sites I’ve seen, IGN has the most games available, with over 200 titles. It even includes some recent releases like Doom: The Dark Ages with most or all of the info available on release date. This will vary based on a game’s popularity, release date, and how complex tracking its quests and data can be, but if you’re looking for a tracker for a particular game, IGN is your best bet.

The downside is that while browsing IGN’s maps is free, you can only check off 50 items without a subscription to IGN Plus. In exchange for $30/year (or $5/month), you’ll unlock the ability to check off as many items as you want, add your own custom notes to maps, and the removal of ads. If you play a lot of sandbox games—and you don’t want to roll your own game-tracking spreadsheets—it might be a worthwhile trade-off.

For a much cheaper subscription: Map Genie

A very similar service to IGN’s interactive maps, Map Genie has almost as many games as IGN, with similar limitations, but a much cheaper subscription. Like IGN, Map Genie limits you to 50 items you can check off for free, but you can get unlimited access (and no ads) for only $10/year.

Here’s a plot twist for you, though: Map Genie is also owned by IGN. So why bother with IGN at all if Map Genie exists? Well, while Map Genie has most of the same game maps as IGN, there are several games IGN has that Map Genie doesn’t. Games like Bioshock and Cyberpunk 2077 appear in IGN’s library but not Map Genie.

On the other hand, a Map Genie subscription also includes access to in-progress game maps. At the time of writing, that includes games like Hollow Knight, Control, and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. In general, Map Genie is the better deal anyway, but the specific game you want to track might impact which service is better for you.

For free tracking (on fewer games): GameTrek

GameTrek has a much smaller library (with only 18 games so far at time of writing), but it has one big advantage: it’s free. At least for now, you can track every collectible, write your own notes, and filter every category of item on the map without paying a cent. You will need to create an account to track anything, but there’s no payment required.

The small library is also growing at a healthy (if not frenzied) clip. Within the last couple of months, the site has added guides for recent releases like Doom: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as well as older-but-popular games like The Last of Us Part II. There are a lot of gaps in GameTrek’s library right now, but it’s hard to beat free.

Another free option: Enthusiast sites (like Zelda Dungeon)

Interactive collectible trackers take a lot of work and often don’t turn a profit. If you saw a $30 or even $10 per year price tag above and (perhaps understandably) scoffed, you can see why. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of excited nerds online who love obsessing over their games. Depending on the franchise, you can sometimes find whole sites dedicated to maps and trackers for just one series.

Zelda Dungeon is the perfect example here. While it has guides for every Legend of Zelda game under the sun (or moon, as the case may be), it also has interactive maps for several games. This includes Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and even the recent Echoes of Wisdom.

Not only do these include tracking for everything from Lightroots to Korok seeds (all 1,000 of them), but you can even mark them complete for free without an account. You’ll need to create an account and log in to save your progress across devices, but it’s the most generous of all the collectibles trackers I’ve seen. 

Your mileage may vary depending on which franchise you’re looking for (or how old the game you’re playing is), but there’s always someone out there documenting their favorite games. If you find a good forum, subreddit, or fan-site dedicated to your beloved franchise, it’s worth seeing if they already have an interactive map you can use.