If you filed a claim last year as part of the Siri class action suit against Apple, your payment is on the way. According to the settlement website, class payment distribution began on Jan. 23, and many users on Reddit report that funds have landed in their bank and payment apps over the last several days.

If you see a deposit from “Lopez Voice Assistant” or some variation, it’s not a scam. The settlement allowed class members to opt for payment via direct deposit (ACH) as well as electronic or paper check, which will be delivered through email or regular mail, respectively.

Some class members are reporting that they received their funds via a different method than they expected, so if you submitted a claim, keep an eye on your transactions as well as your mailboxes to confirm receipt. Note that payouts are being distributed in batches and may take a few days to arrive.

What is the Apple Siri settlement?

Last year, Apple agreed to a $95 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit over privacy concerns with Siri-enabled devices. Users whose devices may have activated and recorded conversations without their knowledge were able to claim compensation. Initially, the settlement was set to pay out $20 per device—iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, iPod touch, and Apple TV were all eligible—for up to five devices per individual claimant.

However, due to the final class size, the payout came to just $8.02 per device up to a maximum of $40.10.

If you have questions about the settlement and want to speak with an administrator, you can call 888-981-4106 and select option 0 on the main menu. You may have to leave a message and request a callback.

Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and death. These can be the consequences for vulnerable kids who get addicted to social media, according to more than 1,000 personal injury lawsuits that seek to punish Meta and other platforms for allegedly prioritizing profits while downplaying child safety risks for years.

Social media companies have faced scrutiny before, with Congressional hearings forcing CEOs to apologize, but until now, they’ve never had to convince a jury that they aren’t liable for harming kids.

This week, the first high-profile lawsuit—considered a “bellwether” case that could set meaningful precedent in the hundreds of other complaints—goes to trial. That lawsuit documents the case of a 19-year-old, K.G.M, who hopes the jury will agree that Meta and YouTube caused psychological harm by designing features like infinite scroll and autoplay to push her down a path that she alleged triggered depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidality.

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Amazon is rethinking its grocery business, and as part of that, it will shut down all of its remaining Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores. The company will convert some locations into Whole Foods Market stores. 

“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company wrote in a blog post. Amazon added that it would help workers at Go and Fresh stores to find positions elsewhere within the company.

For now, Amazon is focusing its grocery efforts on Fresh deliveries, Amazon Now (a 30-minutes-or-less delivery option it recently introduced to compete with DoorDash and Instacart) and Whole Foods. It plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods Market stores over the next few years. 

Amazon also says it will introduce new types of physical locations in the coming years. One concept it’s considering is a “supercenter” that would offer a broad selection of goods from Amazon, including household items, groceries and “general merchandise.” I dunno, that just sounds like a supermarket to me.

Meanwhile, the checkout-less Just Walk Out tech that the company implemented in Go and Fresh stores is still in use at third-party locations, including hospital cafeterias and sports arenas. Amazon has also deployed it in break rooms in dozens of its warehouses to help “employees maximize break time by grabbing meals without checkout delays.” It’s definitely not to keep closer tabs on workers, I’m sure.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/amazon-go-and-fresh-stores-are-closing-as-amazon-focuses-on-grocery-delivery-and-whole-foods-180448412.html?src=rss

Microsoft has quietly suppressed an unexplained anomaly on its network that was routing traffic destined for example.com — a domain reserved under RFC2606 specifically for testing purposes and not obtainable by any party — to sei.co.jp, a domain belonging to Japanese electronics cable maker Sumitomo Electric.

The misconfiguration meant anyone attempting to set up an Outlook account using an example.com email address could have inadvertently sent test credentials to Sumitomo Electric’s servers. Under RFC2606, example.com resolves only to IP addresses assigned to the Internet Assigned Names Authority. Microsoft confirmed it has “updated the service to no longer provide suggested server information for example.com” and said it is investigating.

Security researcher Dan Tentler of Phobos Group noted the company appears to have simply removed the problematic endpoint rather than fixing the underlying routing — “not found” errors now appear where the JSON responses previously occurred. Tinyapps.org, which noted the behavior earlier this month, said the misconfiguration had persisted for five years. Microsoft has not explained how Sumitomo Electric’s domain entered its configuration. The incident follows 2024’s revelation that a forgotten test account with admin privileges enabled Russia-state hackers to monitor Microsoft executives’ email for two months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI is releasing a new app called Prism today, and it hopes it does for science what coding agents like Claude Code and its own Codex platform have done for programming. 

Prism builds on Crixet, a cloud-based LaTeX platform the company is announcing it acquired today. For the uninitiated, LaTeX is a typesetting system for formatting scientific documents and journals. Nearly the entire scientific community relies on LaTeX, but it can make some tasks, such as drawing diagrams through TikZ commands, time-consuming to do. Beyond that, LaTeX is just one of the software tools a scientist might turn to when preparing to publish their research.   

That’s where Prism comes into the picture. Like Crixet before it, the app offers robust LaTeX editing and a built-in AI assistant. Where previously it was Crixet’s own Chirp agent, now it’s GPT-5.2 Thinking. OpenAI’s model can help with more than just formatting journals — in a press demo, an OpenAI employee used it to find and incorporate scientific literature that was relevant to the paper they were working on, with GPT-5.2 automating the process of writing the bibliography. 

“None of this absolves the scientist of the responsibility to verify that their references are correct, but it can certainly speed up the process,” said Kevin Weil, vice president of science for OpenAI, when asked during the demo the possibility of ChatGPT generating fake citations. 

“We’re conscious that, as AI becomes more capable, there are concerns around volume, quality and trust in the scientific community,” he later added. “Our view is that the right response is not to keep AI at arm’s length or let it operate invisibly in the background; it’s to integrate it directly into scientific workflows in ways that preserve accountability and keep researchers in control.” 

Later in the same demo, the OpenAI employee used Prism to generate a lesson plan for a graduate course on general relativity, as well as a set of problems for students to solve. OpenAI envisions these features helping scientists and professors spend less time on the more tedious tasks in their professions. 

Prism is available to anyone with a personal ChatGPT account. It includes support for unlimited projects and collaborators. OpenAI plans to bring the software to organizations on ChatGPT Business, Team, Enterprise and Education plans soon. Crixet won’t be offered separately.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-releases-prism-a-claude-code-like-app-for-scientific-research-180000454.html?src=rss

Google AI Plus, the company’s most affordable AI subscription plan, is now rolling out in the US. It will cost you $8 a month for its features, though you can get it for $4 a month for the first two months for a limited time only. AI Plus gives you access to 200GB of storage, as well as access to the Gemini 3 Pro model, Deep Research and Nano Banana Pro inside the Gemini app. Nano Banana Pro generates images that look so realistic, they’re nearly indistinguishable from ordinary photos snapped on phones. Google even had to limit its usage due to high demand.

A subscription to AI Plus also expands your access to Google’s AI filmmaking tool Flow, its image-to-video creator tool Whisk and its research assistant tool NotebookLM. In addition to the US, the plan is now making its way to 34 more countries, making it available in all regions where Google is selling its AI services. In the US, the new option costs less than half of a $20 AI Pro subscription, which comes with 2TB of storage and access to more tools like code assist. Google’s most expensive AI plan, the AI Ultra, costs a whopping $250 a month and comes with 30TB of storage, along with all the AI tools the company can offer. Take note that if you’re paying for a Google One Premium 2TB subscription, you’ll also get all of AI Plus’ features over the next few days.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-ai-plus-is-now-available-in-the-us-for-8-a-month-180000175.html?src=rss

Meta’s WhatsApp just introduced something called Strict Account Settings, a tool “that further protects your account from highly sophisticated cyber attacks.” This is a one-click button in the settings that automatically initiates a series of defenses.

So what does it do? It blocks media and attachments from unknown senders, disables link previews and silences calls from unknown senders. This results in a more restrictive experience, but hopefully a safer one.

The company says this isn’t necessarily for regular users, as conversations are already protected by end-to-end encryption. Instead, this is being pitched as a tool for “journalists or public-facing figures” that “may need extreme safeguards against rare and highly sophisticated cyberattacks.”

Strict Account Settings will be rolling out globally in the coming weeks. Users will find the tool in the Privacy settings.

WhatsApp is just the latest tech platform to offer enhanced security tools for high-risk users. Apple introduced Lockdown Mode back in 2022 and Android introduced its Advanced Protection Mode last year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/whatsapp-introduces-an-advanced-security-mode-to-protect-against-hackers-174144598.html?src=rss

Large swathes of the US were blanketed in snow and ice over the weekend, and what better way to spend a snow day than going down a YouTube rabbit hole? Everyone has their favorite oddity: ASMR, jazzy pop song covers, cooking channels, or what have you. But DIY enthusiasts in particular are missing out if they’re not watching Drain Cleaning Australia, featuring an Australian plumber known only as Bruce as he goes about his daily business of shooting high-powered water jets into stubborn clogged drainage systems. It’s “the YouTube channel you never knew you needed.” And it’s done so well that he’s now launched a second channel, Bruce the Plumber.

I stumbled upon the Drain Cleaning Australia channel via Amy Poehler‘s Good Hang podcast episode with Kate McKinnon, who is a big fan and does a dead-on delivery of Bruce’s trademark lines (“You little rippah!”). Bruce never appears in his videos, apart from his hands and the occasional shadow as he films various challenging jobs with his intrepid smartphone. He seems to have struck a good balance between online popularity and protecting his personal privacy. (Bruce did not respond to our interview request. It’s okay, mate, we know all those drains Down Under aren’t going to unclog themselves.)

Armed with his trusty collection of jet nozzles and “Mister Plungey,” Bruce has removed all manner of nasty things from drains over the years: masses of human hair from shower drains; tree roots; plastic bags and other refuse that somehow found their way into drainage systems; and the less said about the many clogged toilets, the better.

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It’s possible the one thing that could universally break smartphone addiction is making social media pay-to-play. Right now, there is zero friction involved in opening Instagram or TikTok, and getting sucked into their algorithms. But add a paywall to those apps, and all of a sudden, I don’t have any interest in logging on.

If that sounds like it’d work on you too, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Meta will soon test a subscription model for Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. The bad news is that these subscriptions won’t be required to actually access the app, or the core features you already know. That will remain free, so we will remain hopelessly addicted.

What is Meta including in its “premium experience” subscription?

The details are light at the moment, especially concerning WhatsApp and Facebook. Meta told TechCrunch that the subscriptions will offer “exclusive features” on its apps, and will “unlock more productivity and creativity, along with expanded AI capabilities.” That will include more controls over how you share and connect with other users. Again, pretty vague.

Perhaps part of this cloak-and-dagger approach is that Meta isn’t really sure how it wants to roll out these subscriptions. The company explained to TechCrunch that it was testing a “variety of subscription features and bundles,” and that each app’s subscription will feel unique from the others.

While Meta isn’t revealing much at this point, we might have a glimpse at what the company has in store for Instagram. Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi posted on X that Instagram’s paid subscription will include the option to create as many audience lists as you want, view a list of people you follow who don’t follow you back, and—perhaps more enticing to some—look at another user’s story without them knowing you saw it. Would you pay a monthly subscription to be able to lurk in other people’s Instagram stories? (It’s possible to do this already, by the way.)

There’s another feature set that Meta plans to test subscriptions for that likely includes all three of these apps: AI features. Meta will experiment with subs for Vibes, the company’s short-form AI video app built into Meta AI. The services has been free since it launched last fall, and will likely continue to be free, but Meta may charge for “additional video creation opportunities.”

As much as I’m reluctant to say so, this really is Meta doing subscriptions right. I wouldn’t pay for any of these features, but it’s not like the company is taking away previously free features and locking them behind a subscription. If companies like Meta want to integrate a subscription model, they need to offer new features and abilities to justify the price. I might not think these anticipated features are worth it, but at least the current apps as they exist will remain free—even if charging for them would get me to stop using them for good.

Yahoo has announced a new AI-powered “answer engine”, dubbed Yahoo Scout. The new tool is available now in beta and is powered by Anthropic’s Claude.

The company says Scout “synthesizes” info from the web, as well as Yahoo’s own data and content when constructing responses to user’s natural-language search queries. Yahoo says the interface will include interactive digital media, structured lists and tables and visible source links aimed at making answers easier to verify. (Disclosure: Yahoo is the parent company of Engadget.)

Alongside Scout, Yahoo is announcing an “intelligence platform” across its varied products. This will include features like AI summaries in Yahoo Mail, “key takeaways” in Yahoo News and game breakdowns in Yahoo Sports. Scout will also integrate into Yahoo Shopping to offer insights and shoppable links, and Yahoo Finance, where it can populate company financials, analyst ratings and explain stock moves as they occur. Yahoo says the answer engine behind Scout will become more personalized and focus on “deeper experiences” as time goes on.

Google offered a glimpse of generative AI in search back in 2023, and the company’s AI Mode for search was made widely available in the US last year. The company has been similarly at work integrating its AI model across its product portfolio, including Gmail and shopping.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/yahoo-is-adding-generative-ai-to-its-search-engine-172706249.html?src=rss

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday set their symbolic Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds before midnight — the closest the timepiece has ever been to the theoretical point of annihilation since scientists created it during the Cold War in 1947.

The clock now stands four seconds nearer than last year’s setting, and this marks the third time in four years that the Bulletin has moved it closer to midnight. The Chicago-based nonprofit pointed to aggressive behavior by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, fraying nuclear arms control frameworks, ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, unregulated AI integration into military systems, and climate change.

“In terms of nuclear risks, nothing in 2025 trended in the right direction,” said Alexandra Bell, the Bulletin’s president and CEO. The last remaining nuclear arms pact between the US and Russia, the New START treaty, expires on February 5.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It can be hard sometimes to keep up with the deluge of generative AI in Google products. Even if you try to avoid it all, there are some features that still manage to get in your face. Case in point: AI Overviews. This AI-powered search experience has a reputation for getting things wrong, but you may notice some improvements soon. Google says AI Overviews is being upgraded to the latest Gemini 3 models with a more conversational bent.

In just the last year, Google has radically expanded the number of searches on which you get an AI Overview at the top. Today, the chatbot will almost always have an answer for your query, which has relied mostly on models in Google’s Gemini 2.5 family. There was nothing wrong with Gemini 2.5 as generative AI models go, but Gemini 3 is a little better by every metric.

There are, of course, multiple flavors of Gemini 3, and Google doesn’t like to be specific about which ones appear in your searches. What Google does say is that AI Overviews chooses the right model for the job. So if you’re searching for something simple for which there are a lot of valid sources, AI Overviews may manifest something like Gemini 3 Flash without running through a ton of reasoning tokens. For a complex “long tail” query, it could step up the thinking or move to Gemini 3 Pro (for paying subscribers).

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At the start of December, Samsung announced its first triple-folding phone, which opens not just once, but twice, unfurling into a massive 10-inch display. It’s not the first triple-folding phone to hit the market, but since Huawei is technically banned from operating in the U.S., it’s the first planned to officially arrive Stateside. Now the phone, called the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold, finally has an official release date. But it also has an official price, and it’s eye-watering.

Folding phones have historically been pretty expensive, but with a retail price of $2,900, the Galaxy Z TriFold is nearly $1,000 more expensive that the company’s current folding flagship, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. Granted, being able to fold it out to a 10-inch display is kind of like stuffing a laptop in your pocket, but then, you can get an actual laptop (a really good one!) for less than half the cost.

If the idea of laying down more than three grand after tax isn’t deterring you, the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold goes on sale on Jan. 30, and can be bought either online or in-person at one of Samsung’s Experience Stores, with seven locations across California, Minnesota, New York, and Texas. If you happen to have a physical store near you, it might be worth checking in on their stock—Samsung won’t be taking preorders for this phone, and despite the high price, it sold out within minutes during its South Korean launch.

While Samsung does sell a 1TB model overseas, the base model will be all U.S. customers can buy at launch. This version of the TriFold comes in black and offers 512GB of storage. It’s decked out with a high resolution 2,160 x 1,584 inner display, a 2520 x 1,080 outer display, the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 16GB of RAM, and a powerful 200MP main camera (although the other lenses aren’t as powerful as those found on non-folding phones). And yes, the screens are both AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate.

The novelty might be worth it for some, and I suppose if you buy the TriFold instead of a phone and a tablet separately, that could help justify the price. Still, you can get a non-folding Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra for $1,050 right now, add an iPad Pro for $899, and still save $1,000 over the cost of this new gadget.

If you’re on the fence, the aforementioned Samsung Experience stores do offer demos of the TriFold so you can try before you buy, although the sparse selection of locations means that won’t be an option for many.

More affordable folding phones than the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold

Pretty much every folding phone on the market right now is expensive, but if you must have a folding phone but you can’t justify the cost of a triple-folding model, there are other, cheaper options available.

The most obvious alternative is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is still pricey at its $2,000 retail price, though you can pay less if you can score a deal or special promotion. It’ll net you most of the same specs as the TriFold, although the inner screen maxes out at 8-inches instead of 10-inches. It’s still not a bad deal, since those extra two inches would come at $450 a pop. Currently, I’ve managed to track down an Amazon deal selling them for $1,600, although supply is limited.

If you’re stuck paying full price, you might instead prefer the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which starts at $1,800. That’ll also give you an 8-inch inner screen, although Google’s Tensor chips have a history of not being quite as strong as the Snapdragon chips that come with the Galaxy series, and the main camera is a far cry below the 200MP one found on both the Z Fold 7 and the TriFold.

There are also flip phones, although these aren’t really a replacement for folding phones. Instead of opening horizontally for a larger screen, they open vertically to reveal a standard phone-sized screen. In that way, they’re better for portability than they are for extra features, but they are a lot cheaper—the most recent Motorola Razr is currently on sale for $400 (MSRP $700), while the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 is on sale for $900 (MSRP $1,100).

Finally, you might consider waiting for the rumored iPhone Fold, which is expected to come out later this year. Initial rumors put the price somewhere between $2,100 to $2,500, and while price definitely includes the Apple Tax, it’s still much cheaper than the TriFold.