Premium bottled water is emerging as restaurants’ answer to declining alcohol consumption as establishments offer curated water menus featuring bottles priced up to $25.70. La Popote in Cheshire has introduced a seven-water selection ranging from $6.75 Peak District spring water to $25.70 Portuguese Vidago, served in wine glasses at room temperature.

Water sommelier Doran Binder, who created the menu and founded Crag spring water, reports 7 million monthly social media views for water content. The movement extends beyond Britain — over a dozen US restaurants maintain water lists, while new producers like Hampshire’s Chorq plan champagne-style bottles with corks. Michael Mascha’s FineWaters has certified more than 100 water sommeliers globally as demand grows for waters distinguished by mineral content ranging from 14 to 3,300 milligrams per liter of dissolved solids.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google denied claims Monday that it had issued a security warning to Gmail users about a major vulnerability. The company stated that recent reports claiming a broad Gmail security alert were “entirely false.” Google said its email service blocks more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users’ inboxes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Google Phone app is getting a lot more like the iPhone’s. First, there was the new, iPhone-inspired horizontal swipe-to-answer gesture, but less controversially, there’s also now full-screen customizable calling cards for your contacts. These tie in with Android 16’s new Material 3 Expressive design language, which focuses on big buttons and bold colors. Here’s what you need to know about Android’s new equivalent to iOS’ Contact Posters feature.

How Android’s Calling Cards differ from iPhone’s Contact Posters

The Calling Cards feature in the Google Phone app doesn’t work exactly like Contact Posters on the iPhone.

On iPhone, the Contact Posters feature lets you create your own card, with your name and a photo or memoji, that gets automatically broadcasted to your contacts’ iPhones when you call them. They don’t need to do anything on their end, but that’s not how it works on Android.

On Android, you’ll have to create a Calling Card for each of your contacts individually, and your contacts won’t see the Calling Card you set up for yourself. In other words, you’re not controlling how you look to others, but how they look to you. You probably aren’t going to sit and do this for everyone, but I would highly suggest you take some time to add Calling Cards for your friends and family—they really do look nice.

How to create a Calling Card in the Google Phone app for Android

After updating to the new Google Phone app, open a contact page. Here, tap the Edit button from the top.

You’ll see a new Picture and Calling Card option. Tap the Rectangle Calling Card button.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

You’re now in the customization screen. Tap the Gallery or the Google Photos button to find a picture for your contact. Once you choose a photo, you can start the customization.

The image will be cropped to fit your screen automatically, but you can tap on the photo to pan or crop the image more if needed. You can also customize Font and the Color using the toolbar at the bottom. You have more than a dozen colors to choose from, although I would have appreciated a full color picker. When you’re happy with your Calling Card, tap the Done button.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Now, the Google Phone app will ask you if you also want to use your new Calling Card as a picture for that contact. This is usually a good idea. Tap Confirm and crop, then crop the Calling Card photo to just show the face of the contact. After you’re done, hit the Save button.

And that’s it. Your full-screen Calling Card is now saved and active. Repeat this process for as many contacts as you wish!

We’re roughly six months into Donald Trump’s trade war, and tech firms remain in a fog, unsure what tariffs or retaliations could be coming next.

To shed light on this struggle, we invite you to join us for an Ars Live talk at 3 pm ET on Tuesday, September 2, with Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Vice President of International Trade Edward Brzytwa. We’ll be discussing how tech firms are responding to tariffs so far and how looming chip tariffs could pose the biggest hurdle yet in sourcing alternative supply chains. And anyone joining will have an opportunity to ask their biggest questions about how tariffs could impact consumer tech.

Before Trump even took office, experts had warned that his global trade war—imposing tariffs on imports of various goods from various countries in a bid to strike more favorable trade deals for the US—risked spiking prices of popular tech products like laptops, game consoles, and smartphones.

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Microsoft has revealed the first batch of Game Pass additions for September 2025 and there’s one hornet-shaped title that looms large over the others. After a seven-year wait, Hollow Knight: Silksong arrives on September 4. We’ve known for a few years that the sequel to Team Cherry’s indie blockbuster would be on Game Pass on day one, and it’ll be available on the Ultimate and PC versions of the service.

Xbox announced the Metroidvania’s future debut on Game Pass all the way back at its June 2022 showcase. At the time, it claimed every game shown at the event would be out within the following 12 months. That didn’t exactly happen in Silksong‘s case.

Team Cherry confirmed pricing for Silksong this week as well. It’ll cost $20 on all platforms. The developer added that there will be a free Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade pack with “enhanced features” available for Kickstarter backers who receive a Switch key (it’s implied, but not confirmed, that anyone who gets the Switch 1 version will be able to upgrade for free later).

If you’re planning to dive into Silksong as soon as it goes live at 10AM ET on Thursday and you’re looking for something to play on Game Pass in the meantime, it’s maybe worth checking out I Am Your Beast. This is a fast-paced, covert revenge shooter from the folks at Strange Scaffold (Clickolding, TMNT: Tactical Takedown and El Paso, Elsewhere). It’s dropping on the Ultimate, PC and Standard versions of Game Pass today.

On September 3, Nine Sols will join the Game Pass Standard lineup after being on the Ultimate and PC versions of the service since last November. This is a Metroidvania from Devotion developer Red Candle Games, and it was one of our favorite games of 2024.

The other Game Pass additions for the first half of September are:

• Real-time strategy game Cataclismo (PC) — September 4 on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass

• 3D action adventure Paw Patrol World (Cloud, Console, and PC) — September 10 on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Game Pass Standard

• Disaster recovery/construction sim RoadCraft (Cloud and Xbox Series X/S) — September 16 on Game Pass Ultimate and Game Pass Standard

Inevitably, a few games are cycling off of Game Pass too. All You Need is Help, Wargroove 2 and We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie are all leaving the library on September 15.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/the-first-game-pass-additions-for-september-include-hollow-knight-silksong-and-i-am-your-beast-145148351.html?src=rss

OpenAI has promised to release parental controls for ChatGPT within the next month, the company said Tuesday. Once the controls are available, they’ll allow parents to link their personal ChatGPT account with the accounts of their teenage children. From there, parents will be able to decide how ChatGPT responds to their kids, and disable select features, including memory and chat history. Additionally, ChatGPT will generate automated alerts when it detects a teen is in a “moment of acute distress.” According to OpenAI, “expert input will guide this feature to support trust between parents and teens.”

The announcement of parental controls comes after OpenAI was sued in the first known instance of a wrongful death lawsuit against an AI company. In a lawsuit filed last week, Matt and Maria Raine, the parents of a teen who committed suicide this year, allege ChatGPT was aware of four failed suicide attempts by their son before helping him plan his death. The Raines said ChatGPT provided their son Adam with information on specific suicide methods, and even gave him tips on how to hide neck injuries sustained from his previous failed attempts.      

On Tuesday, OpenAI said parental controls are part of a broader effort by the company to improve safety on ChatGPT. Separately, the company has promised to work with additional experts, including those who specialize in eating disorders, substance use and adolescent health, to fine tune its models. 

The company has also promised to deploy a new real-time router designed to funnel sensitive conversations through its reasoning models. “Trained with a method we call deliberative alignment, our testing shows⁠ that reasoning models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines and are more resistant to adversarial prompts,” said OpenAI. Moving forward, in situations where ChatGPT detects a person may be in distress, the chatbot will direct those conversations through a reasoning model, regardless of the model the user selected before starting the conversation. 

More broadly, OpenAI says people can expect more safety features in the future. “This work has already been underway, but we want to proactively preview our plans for the next 120 days, so you won’t need to wait for launches to see where we’re headed,” OpenAI said. “The work will continue well beyond this period of time, but we’re making a focused effort to launch as many of these improvements as possible this year.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-adding-parental-controls-to-chatgpt-144128085.html?src=rss

Developer Hugo Tunius, writing in a blog post: Sideloading has been a hot topic for the last decade. Most recently, Google has announced further restrictions on the practice in Android. Many hundreds of comment threads have discussed these changes over the years. One point in particular is always made: “I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own.” I agree entirely with this point, but within the context of this discussion it’s moot.

When Google restricts your ability to install certain applications they aren’t constraining what you can do with the hardware you own, they are constraining what you can do using the software they provide with said hardware. It’s through this control of the operating system that Google is exerting control, not at the hardware layer. You often don’t have full access to the hardware either and building new operating systems to run on mobile hardware is impossible, or at least much harder than it should be. This is a separate, and I think more fruitful, point to make. Apple is a better case study than Google here. Apple’s success with iOS partially derives from the tight integration of hardware and software. An iPhone without iOS is a very different product to what we understand an iPhone to be. Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There’s one mobile productivity hack that works no matter what you’re trying to do on your phone, or which app you’re in: being able to type faster. Whether you’re filling out a web form or messaging the group chat, getting your text inputted more quickly saves you seconds and minutes that can add up.

And there are more ways to do this than you might think—from hidden keyboard shortcuts to whole new approaches to typing out text. Try out one or more of these methods and you should be able to carve out more time to spend away from your phone screen (or to compose even more messages on your mobile).

Slide to type

Slide to type is an option on many keyboards.
Credit: Lifehacker

Rather than lifting up your finger and tapping down again for every single letter, you can just slide to type: Press on the first character of the word, then slide to the next one, and so on, until the word is finished. Once you get used to it, it can really speed up your typing. This is actually enabled by default on Pixels and iOS, but needs enabling on the Samsung Keyboard.

To manage the feature on Pixels, tap the gear icon on the keyboard then Glide typing. On iPhones, head to Settings then tap General > Keyboard > Slide to Type. On Samsung phones, you need to turn it on: Tap the gear icon on the keyboard, then choose Swipe, touch, and feedback > Keyboard swipe controls > Swipe to type.

Text shortcuts

Use text shortcuts to speed up your typing.
Credit: Lifehacker

If you find yourself typing the same phrases over and over again in your messages, you can save them as shortcuts that get triggered by a custom code: So every time you type “omw,” you’ll see “on my way” appear as a suggestion, for example.

On Pixels, these shortcuts can be managed by tapping the gear icon on the keyboard, then Dictionary > Personal dictionary, then your current language: Tap the + (plus) icon in the top right corner to add a shortcut.

On Samsung phones, tap the gear icon on the keyboard, then Text shortcuts to add or remove shortcuts. If you’re on an iPhone, text shortcuts can be managed from General > Keyboard > Text Replacement in Settings.

Go one-handed

Your phone keyboard can shrink for easier one-handed use.
Credit: Lifehacker

We’ve written before about how to make it easier to use your phone one-handed on Android and iOS, but it’s worth repeating here. If you only have one hand free, it can seriously slow down your typing speed—but it doesn’t have to.

With the keyboard open on Android, tap the four squares to the top left (Pixels) or the three dots to the top right (Samsungs) to find the One-handed button, which pushes the keyboard to one side or the other (use the arrow to switch).

If you’re on an iPhone, open the keyboard, then press and hold the globe icon (bottom left). A series of icons pop up, enabling you to push the keyboard to the left or the right, or return it to its normal size.

Use your voice

Voice typing is another option on your phone.
Credit: Lifehacker

You probably don’t want to be dictating a personal message to your partner so that the whole subway car can hear, but if you’re busy on other jobs then voice input is a handy alternative. Depending on your typing speed, you might find it helps you get through your messages more quickly.

It couldn’t be much simpler to enable, either. Every default keyboard has a mic icon: Top right on Pixels, bottom left on Samsungs, and bottom right on iPhones. Tap the button, and then start talking—and you can speak out punctuation, too.

Try out different keyboards

The Typewise keyboard gives you a choice of alternative layouts.
Credit: Lifehacker

Both Android and iOS let you install alternative keyboards and switch between them, and you might find they help you type more quickly: Look at Typewise for example, for Android or iOS, which brings with it larger buttons, a host of customizations, and the ability to swipe-to-type mentioned above.

Then there’s SwiftKey from Microsoft, also available for Android and iOS, which gives you a host of ways to customize the keyboard to suit your typing style—as well as promising the most accurate autocorrect and text prediction around, meaning you can more quickly get out the message you want to type.

WARSAW, INDIANA—The Blank Slate pickup scratches a particular itch for some, fulfilling the desire for an EV powertrain without all the bells and whistles associated with a modern vehicle. Gone is the infotainment screen, the lane-keeping assistance, and, for those concerned about surveillance, a modem. Instead, it’s an unpainted modular pickup and can be configured post-production into nearly anything the owner wants. Oh, and it’s cheap.

This Old Factory

For decades, the RR Donnelley & Sons printing plant in Warsaw, Indiana, pumped out catalogs. Glossy shopping books from JCPenney, Sears, and—my personal favorite—Radio Shack left the plant and were shipped all over the country to eager shoppers looking for their next mail-order delight. Then the Internet broke all of that.

The last employees clocked out in 2023.

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Marshall’s family of TV audio gear is growing. The company has announced the Heston Sub 200 subwoofer and Heston 60 compact soundbar, both of which are now available for pre-order. The $700 Heston 60 is a smaller take on the first soundbar Marshall introduced earlier this year, the Heston 120, offering Dolby Atmos and DTS-X for more intimate spaces. With the Heston Sub 200, a $600 subwoofer that pairs with both soundbars, Marshall touts “a sound that can be truly felt.” Both products come in Cream and Black, and sport Marshall’s classic guitar amp styling. They ship September 23.

The Heston 60 has 7 Class D amplifiers — two 25W and five 5W — with a total power output of 56W. It has two woofers and five full range drivers. The soundbar offers wireless and wired connectivity, with Bluetooth (5.3) and Wi-Fi, as well as an HDMI 2.1 port (eARC), a 3.5mm aux port, an RCA input and USB-C. It also supports AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect.

Marshall

The Heston Sub 200 packs two 5.25 inch subwoofers and two 120W Class D amplifiers, with a peak total power output of 236W. Marshall says it’ll deliver deep, room-shaking bass. The subwoofer has Bluetooth and wired input (RCA mono). 

The Heston 60 and Heston Sub 200 will be available from Marshall starting September 23, and will roll out to select other retailers on September 30.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/marshall-tv-subwoofer-heston-200-compact-soundbar-heston-60-140044805.html?src=rss

The last week of summer 2025 was marked by more number-based slang, a movie blockbuster that you may not have heard of, and a viral video that brought the entire world together to say, “give that kid that hat!”

What is KPop Demon Hunters?

KPop Demon Hunters is an animated film from Sony that started streaming on Netflix in late June. It quickly became the most-watched original animated film on the platform, and by August, it was the most-watched film on Netflix ever, surpassing 236 million views. KPop Demon Hunters is so popular, Netflix rushed a “sing-along” version into actual theaters. It opened on Aug. 23, on 1,700 screens, and, despite its audience largely already having seen the movie, it took first place at the box office, and grossed around $20 million. All without you and I ever having heard of it.

The film itself is a musical in which a K-pop girl group called Huntr/x fight demons by night while selling out stadiums by…night, also. Critical praise for KPop Demon Hunters is nearly universal, with critics praising its catchy songs, quality animation, positive message, and its energetic pace.

What (and why) is 2016 nostalgia?

There are over a million videos on TikTok tagged “#2016.” Some of them, no doubt, were shot in that bygone age, but most of them are nostalgia videos, meant to re-create the unique vibe and look of nine year ago. Remember? Everyone was excited about the presidential election, we all had fidget spinners, and we were all listening to that golden oldie “Hello” by Adele? Oh, and everything apparently looked like this:

The 2016 aesthetic is achieved through a TikTok filter, but the popularity needs more explanation. 2016 was only nine years ago.

“Steve, didn’t nine years ago just happen, like three years ago?” you may be asking. Maybe to you. And to you everything is about the same as it was then. But if you’re 18 years old, 2016 was half a lifetime ago. 2016 nostalgia isn’t really about the style or cultural difference between then and now; it’s a more of a personal kind of nostalgia, where young people are remembering who they were “back then,” not what the world was like. In any case, nostalgia cycles are getting smaller and smaller, in a shrinking recursive cycle. I can only assume it will catch up to itself soon and everyone will start being nostalgic for the present.

What is a Mason 67 Kid?

There is a new genre of male out there, and his name is Mason.

Last week, I defined Gen Alpha’s favorite slang term, “6-7” by pointing out that it doesn’t mean anything, but it does identify the person who says it as a certain kind of person. Culture watchers online have identified that person, stereotyped him, and named him Mason 67 Kid.

A Mason 67 Kid is a white, suburban Gen Alpha boy who plays baseball, rocks a fluffy “ice cream” haircut, and says “6-7” a lot. His sunglasses are Pit Vipers. He wears Yeezy slides. His polyester-as-hell ice cream shorts can be purchased at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The name comes from this video that first identified the trend:

Others quickly latched on. Here’s a Mason:

And an AI Mason:

There are a million more Masons at the hashtag.

This is the first stereotype of Generation Alpha—children under 15—I’ve seen, and it will be interesting to see if it sticks. In a way, it’s just “white kid” and doesn’t say anything at all about anything. Just like 6-7.

What does “41” mean?

Since we’re doing number-based slang that only Gen Alpha says, have you heard of “41” yet? The number 41 is mostly a response to the whole 6-7 thing. Its origin is Blizzi Boi’s “41 Song (Yung Smiley Saks! Remix),” which you can see here:

In the (terrible) song, Blizzi Boi raps about how he is 41 years old and has 41 goals or maybe 41 gold. It’s a bad song, and Blizzie Boi should know better at his age, but apparently the kids like it, because they started saying “41” a lot. Like 6-7, you say it in answer to any question that calls for a number. “What time is it? 41!” So far, 41 is only a fraction as popular as “6-7,”, but maybe there are enough children looking for a new number to say that it will overtake the original.

In the future, look for 59 to gain popularity, or maybe 12.

What does “chopped” mean?

In young people slang, “chopped” is not the past tense of “chop.” It means “ugly” and is often applied to someone’s face or outfit, but anything that isn’t aesthetically pleasing could be referred to as “chopped,” as could anything that is generally not good, like an awkward situation.

(For more slang terms from generations Z and Alpha, check out my glossary of young people slang.)

Viral video of the week: Polish CEO snatches cap from young fan at US Open

Bet you’ve already seen this week’s viral video, but if you haven’t, it’s a clip of the crowd at the US Open, and captures the moment when tennis player Kamil Majchrzak tried to give his hat to a young fan, only for it to be snatched out of the kid’s hand by Polish CEO Piotr Szczerek.

This clip has spread everywhere because it contains all the ingredients of a perfect 2025 meme:

• The kid looks like a tennis version of Mason 67.

• Everyone already suspects CEO’s would steal candy from a baby, and here’s proof.

• Self-righteousness is a powerful emotion.

• You just knew it was going to ruin this CEO’s life, and it totally did! (Here’s his apology.)

It also typifies 2025 internet culture in that I could not find the original clip anywhere. Instead, I found thousands of viral reaction posts, commentary videos, and frame-by-frame breakdowns, all of which are trying to grab some of that attention, and all of which are unnecessary. We all had the same reaction. What commentary can you offer on this? No one needs to break down this video because we can see it for ourselves. Content-about-content is a plague on the land, a cycle as recursive as nostalgia for 2016, an entire culture becoming a snake eating its own tail.