Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and 10 other Democratic members of Congress today urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Trump Mobile’s broken promises related to Trump phone delivery dates and claims that it is “made in the USA.”

The request isn’t likely to get very far. Trump declared early in his second term that independent agencies like the FTC may no longer operate independently from the White House, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has backed Trump’s claim of authority over historically independent agencies. The Supreme Court appears likely to approve Trump’s firing of an FTC Democrat, giving him expanded power over the agency.

The letter, led by Warren and other lawmakers, was sent to Ferguson. “We write today regarding questions about false advertising and deceptive practices by Trump Mobile, and to seek information on how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) intends to address any potential violations of consumer protection law given the inherent conflicts of interest presented by the company’s relationship to President Donald Trump,” the letter said.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft’s library of books is so heavy that it once caused a campus building to sink, according to an unproven legend among employees. Now those physical books, journals, and reports, and many of Microsoft’s digital subscriptions to leading US newspapers, are disappearing in a shift described inside Microsoft as an “AI-powered learning experience.”

Microsoft started cutting back on its employee subscriptions to news and reports services in November, with some publishers receiving an automated email cancellation of a contract. […] Strategic News Service (SNS), which has provided global reports to Microsoft’s roughly 220,000 employees and executives for more than 20 years, is no longer part of Microsoft’s subscription list.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last week, news about the adoption rates for Apple’s iOS 26 update started making the rounds. The new update, these reports claim, was being installed at dramatically lower rates than past iOS updates. And while we can’t infer anything about why people might choose not to install iOS 26, the conclusion being jumped to is that iPhone users are simply desperate to avoid the redesigned Liquid Glass user interface.

The numbers do in fact look bad: Statcounter data for January suggests that the various versions of iOS 26 are running on just 16.6 percent of all devices, compared to around 70 percent for the various versions of iOS 18. The iOS 18.7 update alone—released at the same time as iOS 26.0 in September for people who wanted the security patches but weren’t ready to step up to a brand-new OS—appears to be running on nearly one-third of all iOS devices.

Those original reports were picked up and repeated because they tell a potentially interesting story of the “huge if true” variety: that users’ aversion to the Liquid Glass design is so intense and widely held that it’s actively keeping users away from the operating system. But after examining our own traffic numbers, as well as some technical changes made in iOS 26, it appears as though Statcounter’s data is dramatically undercounting the number of iOS 26 devices out in the wild.

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If you receive a warning on a LinkedIn post that your account has been restricted, don’t engage with it. Scammers are using LinkedIn branding in official-looking “reply” comments to spread phishing links intended to harvest users’ login credentials.

As reported by BleepingComputer, this impersonation campaign relies on fake company pages and LinkedIn’s official link shortener to trick users into “verifying” their identities on a domain run by threat actors. Here’s what to look for.

How LinkedIn reply comment phishing works

Scammers are replying to posts on LinkedIn with messages claiming that users have in some way violated the platform’s policies. The comments include a link, which users are urged to click to prevent their accounts from being further restricted or suspended.

In some cases, the link’s preview text states “We take steps to protect your account when we detect signs of potential unauthorized access. This may include logins from unfamiliar locations or…” which may convince users to overlook the link itself, which clearly does not lead to a page on a valid LinkedIn domain. In others, the scammers have further masked the phishing site using LinkedIn’s official URL shortener, lnkd.in, which is even less likely to raise suspicion, especially if the link preview doesn’t generate on certain devices.

If you click through the link, you’ll land on a phishing page that uses LinkedIn branding and contains more information about the supposed account restriction with a button to “Verify your identity.” That leads to another page that closely spoofs LinkedIn’s standard sign-in interface and is designed to steal your credentials.

The reply comments themselves utilize LinkedIn’s logo and branding and are connected to company pages with variations on the platform’s name—”Linked Very,” for example. These are obviously fake at first glance, as they don’t have any of the robust content (such as posts, employees, or followers) you’d expect from the real LinkedIn. But users could feasibly follow the phishing link without further investigation into the commenter.

Don’t interact with urgent reply comments on LinkedIn

As always, any urgent message or comment about your account security or status, no matter how official-sounding, should raise red flags. A second look at these replies make it clear that they are not from the real LinkedIn, which won’t send communication about account or policy violations in a public manner nor urge you to click links in comments or private messages.

Many people who stop using weight loss drugs will return to their previous weight within two years, a new review of existing research has found. CNN adds: This rate of weight regain is significantly faster than that seen in those who have lost weight by changing other lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, rather than relying on GLP-1 medications, researchers from the University of Oxford report in a paper published Wednesday in The BMJ journal.

GLP-1, which stands for glucagon-like peptide-1, is a hormone naturally made by the body that helps signal to the brain and the gut that it’s full and doesn’t need to eat any more. Weight loss drugs mimic the action of this hormone by increasing the secretion of insulin to lower blood sugar. They also slow the movement of food through the digestive tract, which helps people feel full more quickly and for longer, and they work in the brain to reduce appetite.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pairing Bluetooth devices can be a pain, but Google Fast Pair makes it almost seamless. Unfortunately, it may also leave your headphones vulnerable to remote hacking. A team of security researchers from Belgium’s KU Leuven University has revealed a vulnerability dubbed WhisperPair that allows an attacker to hijack Fast Pair-enabled devices to spy on the owner.

Fast Pair is widely used, and your device may be vulnerable even if you’ve never used a Google product. The bug affects more than a dozen devices from 10 manufacturers, including Sony, Nothing, JBL, OnePlus, and Google itself. Google has acknowledged the flaw and notified its partners of the danger, but it’s up to these individual companies to create patches for their accessories. A full list of vulnerable devices is available on the project’s website.

The researchers say that it takes only a moment to gain control of a vulnerable Fast Pair device (a median of just 10 seconds) at ranges up to 14 meters. That’s near the limit of the Bluetooth protocol and far enough that the target wouldn’t notice anyone skulking around while they hack headphones.

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The intriguing Africanfuturist heist game, Relooted, is out on February 10. Developed by independent South African studio Nyamakop, the game focuses on a ragtag crew from Johannesburg that liberates real-life African artifacts from a series of fictionalized Western museums.

Relooted is best described as a 2.5d side-scrolling action platformer with stealth and puzzle elements. You have to carefully plan each heist with your fellow teammates, knowing where to place each crew member and how you’re going to get in and out in one piece. Once you’ve grabbed the artifact you’re looking for in each mission, an alarm will sound and you have a limited amount of time to escape, so good preparation is vital.

The studio’s previous game, the platformer Semblance, was significant for being the first South Africa-developed IP to come to a Nintendo console when it launched on Switch in 2018. At E3 that same year, Nyamakop programmer Cukia Kimani and designer Ben Myres talked to Engadget about the difficulties of getting your game in front of the major platform-holders as an indie developer based in sub-Saharan Africa. Without notable local industry events or reps in the country, the developers had to do a lot of globe-trotting in order to get their game noticed.

At the time of writing there’s no Switch or Switch 2 release lined up for Relooted, but the game is coming to PC and Xbox consoles next month.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/heist-game-relooted-gets-a-release-date-173456541.html?src=rss

Amazon wants a federal judge to reject Saks Global’s bankruptcy financing plan, writing in court papers the beleaguered department store “burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year” and failed to hold up their agreement. From a report: When Saks acquired Neiman Marcus for $2.7 billion in December 2024, Amazon invested $475 million into the venture on the grounds the retailer would start selling its products on Amazon’s website and the tech company would offer technology and logistics expertise.

“That equity investment is now presumptively worthless,” Amazon’s attorneys wrote in a Wednesday filing, hours after Saks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “Saks continuously failed to meet its budgets, burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year, and ran up additional hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices owed to its retail partners.”

As part of the deal, Saks launched a branded “Saks at Amazon” storefront on the e-commerce company’s website featuring a range of luxury fashion and beauty items. It also agreed to pay a referral fee for Saks-branded goods sold on the platform, guaranteeing at least $900 million in payments to Amazon over eight years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Verizon is offering a very small mea culpa after Wednesday’s massive outage, which drew more than 1.5 million reports on Downdetector and lasted hours. The carrier posted on X that it will offer a $20 credit, but customers must redeem it in the myVerizon app.

“This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened. No credit really can,” the company wrote. “But it’s a way of acknowledging your time and showing that this matters to us.” Incensed customers have largely replied with incredulity, both at the miniscule amount, and that it isn’t being applied automatically.

Engadget has reached out to Verizon seeking clarity on whether this credit can be claimed by contacting the carrier or only through the app. We will update this piece if we hear back.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/how-to-claim-verizons-20-credit-for-wednesdays-service-outage-171909695.html?src=rss