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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch has introduced new policy and moderation updates that aim to help curb sexual harassment. The streaming platform announced in a blog post that it has made its sexual harassment policy “easier to understand” by more clearly outlining prohibited conduct. Twitch’s moderation tools will now also allow streamers to more easily filter out inappropriate chat messages.
Twitch says the policy itself is “largely unchanged,” but now better defines what the Amazon-owned company considers sexual harassment — including “non-physical behaviors of a sexual nature” that would make users feel degraded, uncomfortable, or generally unwelcome on the platform.
“We prohibit unwanted comments — including comments made using emojis/emotes — regarding someone’s appearance or body, sexual requests or advances, sexual objectification, and negative statements or attacks related to a person’s perceived sexual behaviors or activities, regardless of their gender,” Twitch said. “We also do not tolerate the recording or sharing of non-consensual intimate images or videos under any circumstances, and may report such content to law enforcement.”

Image: Twitch
AutoMod users should now see an additional filtering category specifically for sexual harassment.

Twitch streamers who use AutoMod, the platform’s built-in autonomous moderation feature, can also now enable a new category that filters “unwelcome comments about someone’s appearance, sexual requests or advances, and sexual objectification.” Like the previous categories launched for aggression and bullying, users can customize how strict they want the moderation to be and decide whether to report the users behind the messages. The new AutoMod category is available in English for now, with additional language support in the pipeline.
These updates are being made after it was revealed that popular streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm was banned from Twitch four years ago for using the platform’s now-defunct Whispers feature to send “inappropriate” messages to a minor. In general, female gamers still also disproportionately face abuse and sexual harassment from males online, with a Bryter survey finding that two in three experience toxic or threatening behavior, while over ten percent have received rape threats.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch has introduced new policy and moderation updates that aim to help curb sexual harassment. The streaming platform announced in a blog post that it has made its sexual harassment policy “easier to understand” by more clearly outlining prohibited conduct. Twitch’s moderation tools will now also allow streamers to more easily filter out inappropriate chat messages.

Twitch says the policy itself is “largely unchanged,” but now better defines what the Amazon-owned company considers sexual harassment — including “non-physical behaviors of a sexual nature” that would make users feel degraded, uncomfortable, or generally unwelcome on the platform.

“We prohibit unwanted comments — including comments made using emojis/emotes — regarding someone’s appearance or body, sexual requests or advances, sexual objectification, and negative statements or attacks related to a person’s perceived sexual behaviors or activities, regardless of their gender,” Twitch said. “We also do not tolerate the recording or sharing of non-consensual intimate images or videos under any circumstances, and may report such content to law enforcement.”

Image: Twitch
AutoMod users should now see an additional filtering category specifically for sexual harassment.

Twitch streamers who use AutoMod, the platform’s built-in autonomous moderation feature, can also now enable a new category that filters “unwelcome comments about someone’s appearance, sexual requests or advances, and sexual objectification.” Like the previous categories launched for aggression and bullying, users can customize how strict they want the moderation to be and decide whether to report the users behind the messages. The new AutoMod category is available in English for now, with additional language support in the pipeline.

These updates are being made after it was revealed that popular streamer Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm was banned from Twitch four years ago for using the platform’s now-defunct Whispers feature to send “inappropriate” messages to a minor. In general, female gamers still also disproportionately face abuse and sexual harassment from males online, with a Bryter survey finding that two in three experience toxic or threatening behavior, while over ten percent have received rape threats.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

CrowdStrike has published a post incident review (PIR) of the buggy update it published that took down 8.5 million Windows machines last week. The detailed post blames a bug in test software for not properly validating the content update that was pushed out to millions of machines on Friday. CrowdStrike is promising to more thoroughly test its content updates, improve its error handling, and implement a staggered deployment to avoid a repeat of this disaster.
CrowdStrike’s Falcon software is used by businesses around the world to help manage against malware and security breaches on millions of Windows machines. On Friday, CrowdStrike issued a content configuration update for its software that was supposed to “gather telemetry on possible novel threat techniques.” These updates are delivered regularly, but this particular configuration update caused Windows to crash.
CrowdStrike typically issues configuration updates in two different ways. There’s what’s called Sensor Content that directly updates CrowdStrike’s own Falcon sensor that runs at the kernel level in Windows, and separately there is Rapid Response Content that updates how that sensor behaves to detect malware. A tiny 40KB Rapid Response Content file caused Friday’s issue.
Updates to the actual sensor don’t come from the cloud, and typically include AI and machine learning models that will allow CrowdStrike to improve its detection capabilities over the long term. Some of these capabilities include something called Template Types, which is code that enables new detection and is configured by the type of separate Rapid Response Content that was delivered on Friday.

On the cloud side CrowdStrike manages its own system that performs validation checks on content before it’s released to prevent an incident like Friday from happening. CrowdStrike released two Rapid Response Content updates last week, or what it also calls Template Instances. “Due to a bug in the Content Validator, one of the two Template Instances passed validation despite containing problematic content data,” says CrowdStrike.
While CrowdStrike preforms both automated and manual testing on Sensor Content and Template Types, it doesn’t appear to do as much thorough testing on the Rapid Response Content that was delivered on Friday. A March deployment of new Template Types provided “trust in the checks performed in the Content Validator,” so CrowdStrike appears to have assumed the Rapid Response Content rollout wouldn’t cause issues.
This assumption led to the sensor loading the problematic Rapid Response Content into its Content Interpreter and triggering an out-of-bounds memory exception. “This unexpected exception could not be gracefully handled, resulting in a Windows operating system crash (BSOD),” explains CrowdStrike.
To prevent this from happening again, CrowdStrike is promising to improve its Rapid Response Content testing by using local developer testing, content update and rollback testing, alongside stress testing, fuzzing, and fault injection. CrowdStrike will also perform stability testing and content interface testing on Rapid Response Content.
CrowdStrike is also updating its cloud-based Content Validator to better check over Rapid Response Content releases. “A new check is in process to guard against this type of problematic content from being deployed in the future,” says CrowdStrike.
On the driver side, CrowdStrike will “enhance existing error handling in the Content Interpreter,” which is part of the Falcon sensor. CrowdStrike will also implement a staggered deployment of Rapid Response Content, ensuring that updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of its install base instead of an immediate push to all systems. Both the driver improvements and staggered deployments have been recommended by security experts in recent days.

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Image: The Verge

CrowdStrike has published a post incident review (PIR) of the buggy update it published that took down 8.5 million Windows machines last week. The detailed post blames a bug in test software for not properly validating the content update that was pushed out to millions of machines on Friday. CrowdStrike is promising to more thoroughly test its content updates, improve its error handling, and implement a staggered deployment to avoid a repeat of this disaster.

CrowdStrike’s Falcon software is used by businesses around the world to help manage against malware and security breaches on millions of Windows machines. On Friday, CrowdStrike issued a content configuration update for its software that was supposed to “gather telemetry on possible novel threat techniques.” These updates are delivered regularly, but this particular configuration update caused Windows to crash.

CrowdStrike typically issues configuration updates in two different ways. There’s what’s called Sensor Content that directly updates CrowdStrike’s own Falcon sensor that runs at the kernel level in Windows, and separately there is Rapid Response Content that updates how that sensor behaves to detect malware. A tiny 40KB Rapid Response Content file caused Friday’s issue.

Updates to the actual sensor don’t come from the cloud, and typically include AI and machine learning models that will allow CrowdStrike to improve its detection capabilities over the long term. Some of these capabilities include something called Template Types, which is code that enables new detection and is configured by the type of separate Rapid Response Content that was delivered on Friday.

On the cloud side CrowdStrike manages its own system that performs validation checks on content before it’s released to prevent an incident like Friday from happening. CrowdStrike released two Rapid Response Content updates last week, or what it also calls Template Instances. “Due to a bug in the Content Validator, one of the two Template Instances passed validation despite containing problematic content data,” says CrowdStrike.

While CrowdStrike preforms both automated and manual testing on Sensor Content and Template Types, it doesn’t appear to do as much thorough testing on the Rapid Response Content that was delivered on Friday. A March deployment of new Template Types provided “trust in the checks performed in the Content Validator,” so CrowdStrike appears to have assumed the Rapid Response Content rollout wouldn’t cause issues.

This assumption led to the sensor loading the problematic Rapid Response Content into its Content Interpreter and triggering an out-of-bounds memory exception. “This unexpected exception could not be gracefully handled, resulting in a Windows operating system crash (BSOD),” explains CrowdStrike.

To prevent this from happening again, CrowdStrike is promising to improve its Rapid Response Content testing by using local developer testing, content update and rollback testing, alongside stress testing, fuzzing, and fault injection. CrowdStrike will also perform stability testing and content interface testing on Rapid Response Content.

CrowdStrike is also updating its cloud-based Content Validator to better check over Rapid Response Content releases. “A new check is in process to guard against this type of problematic content from being deployed in the future,” says CrowdStrike.

On the driver side, CrowdStrike will “enhance existing error handling in the Content Interpreter,” which is part of the Falcon sensor. CrowdStrike will also implement a staggered deployment of Rapid Response Content, ensuring that updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of its install base instead of an immediate push to all systems. Both the driver improvements and staggered deployments have been recommended by security experts in recent days.

Read More 

Trucks near a warehouse in San Bernardino County, California | Image: Wes Reel  / The Verge

The data is in, and it shows a significant rise in air pollution where e-retailers build their warehouses, and the neighborhoods hit the hardest have more people of color living in them.
Warehouses have mushroomed across the US with the rise of e-commerce — creeping closer to Americans’ homes and becoming more common than office buildings. They’re there to store, sort, and send off packages that wind up at our doorsteps seemingly out of thin air. In reality, that flurry of activity sends fleets of trucks and delivery vehicles through communities, affecting neighborhoods closest to warehouses the most.
“I would argue that it’s a very meaningful, impactful amount.”
The first nationwide study of its kind linked truck traffic from warehouses to an increase in an air pollutant called nitrogen dioxide. Nitrogen dioxide is a key ingredient in smog and, on its own, can aggravate respiratory diseases, including asthma. Neighborhoods downwind of warehouses, less than 5 miles (roughly 7 kilometers) away, experienced a nearly 20 percent increase in NO2 pollution compared to neighborhoods upwind of warehouses.
“I would argue that it’s a very meaningful, impactful amount [of NO2 pollution],” says lead study author Gaige Kerr, an assistant research professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. The spike in pollution is essentially equivalent to wiping out several years’ worth of efforts to improve air quality under the Clean Air Act, according to Kerr. (Kerr also serves as a consultant for the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, the Department of Justice, and the California Air Resources Board.)

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, encompasses the locations of nearly 150,000 large warehouses across the contiguous US gathered from a commercial database. They found a 117 percent increase in the total number of new warehouses built between 2010 and 2021. And compared to older warehouses, newly constructed facilities are bigger — with far more loading docks and parking spaces to accommodate more vehicles around the clock. Clusters of warehouses also became more common — crowding out residents in some towns, The Verge has previously reported. Truck traffic and NO2 pollution increased with the number of loading docks and parking spaces.

Distribution of US warehouses and trends in warehouse characteristics

Communities of color are particularly vulnerable to air pollution from warehouse traffic, the researchers found. The proportion of Asian and Hispanic residents was close to 290 percent and 240 percent higher, respectively, in areas with the most warehouses compared to the median nationwide. Notably, just 10 counties in California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Arizona, and Ohio were home to 20 percent of all the warehouses.

A big breakthrough in satellite remote sensing enabled a closer look at nitrogen dioxide for this study. There aren’t enough ground sensors for NO2 in the US to capture differences in pollution levels from block to block. But the study authors were able to gather data on nitrogen dioxide in 2021 from a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite instrument that takes daily readings as it orbits around the planet.
That gives scientists and health advocates an unprecedented look at tailpipe pollution surrounding warehouses. But it might still lead to an underestimate of the problem, the study notes. The satellite takes readings once a day in the afternoon, local time. But warehouse traffic tends to peak in the morning. The researchers are hopeful that a new satellite instrument from NASA, launched last year to monitor air pollution, could provide even more precise data. Unlike the ESA satellite, NASA’s instrument will stay in geostationary orbit to take hourly readings over North America. (NASA funded the study published today.)
Neighborhood activists have fought for years to stop warehouses from being built too close to homes and have called on e-retailers to switch to electric vehicles to alleviate pollution. They’ve also pushed some local regulators to consider regulating emissions near warehouses more similarly to factories or other industrial facilities with smokestacks. Warehouses have been a blind spot for many regulators in the past because the buildings themselves don’t create pollution — they attract pollution from trucks, trains, and cargo planes. But a growing body of research like this study is helping to make the potential environmental and health costs of e-commerce more clear.

Trucks near a warehouse in San Bernardino County, California | Image: Wes Reel  / The Verge

The data is in, and it shows a significant rise in air pollution where e-retailers build their warehouses, and the neighborhoods hit the hardest have more people of color living in them.

Warehouses have mushroomed across the US with the rise of e-commerce — creeping closer to Americans’ homes and becoming more common than office buildings. They’re there to store, sort, and send off packages that wind up at our doorsteps seemingly out of thin air. In reality, that flurry of activity sends fleets of trucks and delivery vehicles through communities, affecting neighborhoods closest to warehouses the most.

The first nationwide study of its kind linked truck traffic from warehouses to an increase in an air pollutant called nitrogen dioxide. Nitrogen dioxide is a key ingredient in smog and, on its own, can aggravate respiratory diseases, including asthma. Neighborhoods downwind of warehouses, less than 5 miles (roughly 7 kilometers) away, experienced a nearly 20 percent increase in NO2 pollution compared to neighborhoods upwind of warehouses.

“I would argue that it’s a very meaningful, impactful amount [of NO2 pollution],” says lead study author Gaige Kerr, an assistant research professor at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. The spike in pollution is essentially equivalent to wiping out several years’ worth of efforts to improve air quality under the Clean Air Act, according to Kerr. (Kerr also serves as a consultant for the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, the Department of Justice, and the California Air Resources Board.)

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, encompasses the locations of nearly 150,000 large warehouses across the contiguous US gathered from a commercial database. They found a 117 percent increase in the total number of new warehouses built between 2010 and 2021. And compared to older warehouses, newly constructed facilities are bigger — with far more loading docks and parking spaces to accommodate more vehicles around the clock. Clusters of warehouses also became more common — crowding out residents in some towns, The Verge has previously reported. Truck traffic and NO2 pollution increased with the number of loading docks and parking spaces.

Distribution of US warehouses and trends in warehouse characteristics

Communities of color are particularly vulnerable to air pollution from warehouse traffic, the researchers found. The proportion of Asian and Hispanic residents was close to 290 percent and 240 percent higher, respectively, in areas with the most warehouses compared to the median nationwide. Notably, just 10 counties in California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Arizona, and Ohio were home to 20 percent of all the warehouses.

A big breakthrough in satellite remote sensing enabled a closer look at nitrogen dioxide for this study. There aren’t enough ground sensors for NO2 in the US to capture differences in pollution levels from block to block. But the study authors were able to gather data on nitrogen dioxide in 2021 from a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite instrument that takes daily readings as it orbits around the planet.

That gives scientists and health advocates an unprecedented look at tailpipe pollution surrounding warehouses. But it might still lead to an underestimate of the problem, the study notes. The satellite takes readings once a day in the afternoon, local time. But warehouse traffic tends to peak in the morning. The researchers are hopeful that a new satellite instrument from NASA, launched last year to monitor air pollution, could provide even more precise data. Unlike the ESA satellite, NASA’s instrument will stay in geostationary orbit to take hourly readings over North America. (NASA funded the study published today.)

Neighborhood activists have fought for years to stop warehouses from being built too close to homes and have called on e-retailers to switch to electric vehicles to alleviate pollution. They’ve also pushed some local regulators to consider regulating emissions near warehouses more similarly to factories or other industrial facilities with smokestacks. Warehouses have been a blind spot for many regulators in the past because the buildings themselves don’t create pollution — they attract pollution from trucks, trains, and cargo planes. But a growing body of research like this study is helping to make the potential environmental and health costs of e-commerce more clear.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Years after Twitter replaced the pistol emoji with a green-and-orange water gun, X has decided to change it back to a regular handgun. An X employee announced the change in a post last week.
The company hasn’t explained the change, but it feels on-brand for Elon Musk’s social network. Twitter originally switched its emoji to display a water gun in 2018, following others like Google and Facebook. (Apple made the switch in 2016; Microsoft was a brief hold-out.)

We’ve embedded a screenshot of the X post, so you can see the gun image. (On some devices, the actual post still shows a water gun when embedded.)

Eventually, the Unicode Consortium, which decides which emoji get made in the first place, followed the platforms’ lead and officially renamed the pistol emoji as “water pistol”:

The current entry for the “water pistol” emoji. You can also find references to it here and here.

Emoji are universal insofar as they share common designations across platforms (U+1F52B is the water pistol), which are decided by the Unicode Consortium. But it’s up to each platform owner to decide how they’re visually represented. That’s how we got the Great Cheeseburger Emoji Debacle that was resolved in November 2017.
You’ll only see the gun if you’re looking at X on the web — as of this writing, it doesn’t appear to have updated in mobile versions of the app, though that’s apparently on its way at some point.

Image: The Verge

Years after Twitter replaced the pistol emoji with a green-and-orange water gun, X has decided to change it back to a regular handgun. An X employee announced the change in a post last week.

The company hasn’t explained the change, but it feels on-brand for Elon Musk’s social network. Twitter originally switched its emoji to display a water gun in 2018, following others like Google and Facebook. (Apple made the switch in 2016; Microsoft was a brief hold-out.)

We’ve embedded a screenshot of the X post, so you can see the gun image. (On some devices, the actual post still shows a water gun when embedded.)

Eventually, the Unicode Consortium, which decides which emoji get made in the first place, followed the platforms’ lead and officially renamed the pistol emoji as “water pistol”:

The current entry for the “water pistol” emoji. You can also find references to it here and here.

Emoji are universal insofar as they share common designations across platforms (U+1F52B is the water pistol), which are decided by the Unicode Consortium. But it’s up to each platform owner to decide how they’re visually represented. That’s how we got the Great Cheeseburger Emoji Debacle that was resolved in November 2017.

You’ll only see the gun if you’re looking at X on the web — as of this writing, it doesn’t appear to have updated in mobile versions of the app, though that’s apparently on its way at some point.

Read More 

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) will finally get its moment on the Senate floor this week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced he’d move for a procedural vote on the bill as soon as Thursday. It fulfills a promise Schumer made to parent advocates who have championed the bill, which would impose a duty of care for online platforms to mitigate certain risks to kids. But the timing means that even if KOSA passes the Senate before the week is out, the House itself will only have a week to consider the measure, since the August recess is close at hand.
At a press conference Tuesday, advocates and bill sponsors urged other senators to quickly vote to pass the bill, without other amendments that could stall its progress once again. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a lead sponsor of the bill along with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), said he hoped the floor vote would be “quick and clean” and “without amendments.”
The plea underscores the time crunch the bill faces to reach the president’s desk before the August recess. That’s an important timeline not just because it would be nice for the sponsors to have it squared away before vacation, but also because it is notoriously difficult to pass meaningful legislation after August in an election year.
There are some potential hurdles the bill could face in beating the clock. Lawmakers in the Senate could propose amendments that slow down its progress or invite new opposition. Asked at the press conference whether the sponsors are hoping that other senators don’t seek to tack their own kids online safety bills onto the measure, Blumenthal reiterated, “my hope is that we will have no amendments.” Schumer already sought to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which would have expedited the process. But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) stated he’d oppose that route, due to concerns about the bill’s potential impact on LGBTQ+ content.
If it does clear the Senate, the House’s Republican leadership would need to take it up. Republican leadership recently scuttled an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing where the House version of KOSA was set to be discussed, due to concerns with a separate privacy bill. The ranking member on that committee, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), has expressed concerns about KOSA. If it passes out of the committee, House leadership would still need to prioritize time for KOSA to get a vote on the floor in short order.
Blackburn said they’d had conversations with members in the House, and “visited with House leadership.” She added that, “we look forward to them moving it forward very soon.”
In a statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), said he is “looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate. Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online. I am committed to working to find consensus in the House.”
Even with possible hurdles ahead, advocates at the press conference appeared relieved, excited, and focused on finishing the job in both the Senate and House.
“It’s no secret,” Schumer said, “it’s been a long and bumpy road. But one thing I always knew for sure is that it would be worth it.”
Ava Smithing, advocacy and operations director at the Young People’s Alliance, who’s shared her story with lawmakers about how social media algorithms steered her toward eating disorder content, said it’s “a very exhausting process having to retell really deeply personal stories again, and again, and again.” But with Schumer’s announcement, “today feels rewarding, and like those conversations and those long days aren’t going to be unanswered.”
“This floor vote is a momentous occasion after a two year-long effort,” said ParentsSOS Co-Founder Maurine Molak, whose son David died by suicide at age 16 after experiencing cyberbullying. “It seems our elected leaders have heard us, and they are ready to help. They are ready to save children’s lives.” Molak added, “while I would do anything to have my son back, seeing this bill across the finish line is my second-greatest wish.”
Tracy Ann Bancroft, whose son has suffered from an eating disorder to which she believes social media was “a major contributing factor,” said that it’s not too late to act. “We need this legislation passed urgently,” Bancroft said.
The bill was first introduced in 2022 and faced a barrage of criticism from a variety of groups including LGBTQ+ organizations, that feared the duty of care it imposed on social media companies to mitigate harms to kids could be weaponized to target positive resources for marginalized teens. But the sponsors have since quelled concerns for many with changes to the bill’s language including specifying it’s aimed at design features and that elements can’t be enforced by state attorneys general.
But the bill still has its share of critics. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Director of Federal Affairs India McKinney, for example, called KOSA in a statement, “an unconstitutional censorship bill that would give the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially state Attorneys General, the power to restrict protected online speech they find objectionable.” According to McKinney, “Platforms will respond to KOSA’s vague new liability standard by censoring users’ lawful speech on topics that KOSA deems harmful. KOSA is ambiguous enough that different administrations could censor content all along the political spectrum, from guns to vaccines to transgender issues to abortions.” Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer said on X that, “Schumer is throwing LGBTQ youth under the bus for a bill that won’t even pass the House just so he can say he’s ‘protecting the kids’ ahead of the election.”
But Smithing, who said her group withheld support of KOSA until its most recent changes, pointed the limitation section of the duty of care, which lets minors search for what they want and receive “evidence-informed information.” Specifying the bill is aimed at design features, Smithing said, “helps us feel confident that this bill is not about content,” she said.
Smithing said she’s feeling optimistic. “I’ve been really tapping into this feeling of delusional optimism over the past couple of months. Like if I keep pushing forward, something good will happen,” Smithing said. “And today feels like a day where a little bit of that optimism was realized and a little bit of that delusion was set to the side.”
If the bill becomes law, it will likely face challenges in the courts, which now must contend with a new Supreme Court opinion, which made clear that social media curation and content moderation is expressive. Blumenthal said he is confident KOSA could survive any challenges. “I think this bill is constitutionally bulletproof,” he said.

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) will finally get its moment on the Senate floor this week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced he’d move for a procedural vote on the bill as soon as Thursday. It fulfills a promise Schumer made to parent advocates who have championed the bill, which would impose a duty of care for online platforms to mitigate certain risks to kids. But the timing means that even if KOSA passes the Senate before the week is out, the House itself will only have a week to consider the measure, since the August recess is close at hand.

At a press conference Tuesday, advocates and bill sponsors urged other senators to quickly vote to pass the bill, without other amendments that could stall its progress once again. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a lead sponsor of the bill along with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), said he hoped the floor vote would be “quick and clean” and “without amendments.”

The plea underscores the time crunch the bill faces to reach the president’s desk before the August recess. That’s an important timeline not just because it would be nice for the sponsors to have it squared away before vacation, but also because it is notoriously difficult to pass meaningful legislation after August in an election year.

There are some potential hurdles the bill could face in beating the clock. Lawmakers in the Senate could propose amendments that slow down its progress or invite new opposition. Asked at the press conference whether the sponsors are hoping that other senators don’t seek to tack their own kids online safety bills onto the measure, Blumenthal reiterated, “my hope is that we will have no amendments.” Schumer already sought to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which would have expedited the process. But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) stated he’d oppose that route, due to concerns about the bill’s potential impact on LGBTQ+ content.

If it does clear the Senate, the House’s Republican leadership would need to take it up. Republican leadership recently scuttled an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing where the House version of KOSA was set to be discussed, due to concerns with a separate privacy bill. The ranking member on that committee, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), has expressed concerns about KOSA. If it passes out of the committee, House leadership would still need to prioritize time for KOSA to get a vote on the floor in short order.

Blackburn said they’d had conversations with members in the House, and “visited with House leadership.” She added that, “we look forward to them moving it forward very soon.”

In a statement, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), said he is “looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate. Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online. I am committed to working to find consensus in the House.”

Even with possible hurdles ahead, advocates at the press conference appeared relieved, excited, and focused on finishing the job in both the Senate and House.

“It’s no secret,” Schumer said, “it’s been a long and bumpy road. But one thing I always knew for sure is that it would be worth it.”

Ava Smithing, advocacy and operations director at the Young People’s Alliance, who’s shared her story with lawmakers about how social media algorithms steered her toward eating disorder content, said it’s “a very exhausting process having to retell really deeply personal stories again, and again, and again.” But with Schumer’s announcement, “today feels rewarding, and like those conversations and those long days aren’t going to be unanswered.”

“This floor vote is a momentous occasion after a two year-long effort,” said ParentsSOS Co-Founder Maurine Molak, whose son David died by suicide at age 16 after experiencing cyberbullying. “It seems our elected leaders have heard us, and they are ready to help. They are ready to save children’s lives.” Molak added, “while I would do anything to have my son back, seeing this bill across the finish line is my second-greatest wish.”

Tracy Ann Bancroft, whose son has suffered from an eating disorder to which she believes social media was “a major contributing factor,” said that it’s not too late to act. “We need this legislation passed urgently,” Bancroft said.

The bill was first introduced in 2022 and faced a barrage of criticism from a variety of groups including LGBTQ+ organizations, that feared the duty of care it imposed on social media companies to mitigate harms to kids could be weaponized to target positive resources for marginalized teens. But the sponsors have since quelled concerns for many with changes to the bill’s language including specifying it’s aimed at design features and that elements can’t be enforced by state attorneys general.

But the bill still has its share of critics. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Director of Federal Affairs India McKinney, for example, called KOSA in a statement, “an unconstitutional censorship bill that would give the Federal Trade Commission, and potentially state Attorneys General, the power to restrict protected online speech they find objectionable.” According to McKinney, “Platforms will respond to KOSA’s vague new liability standard by censoring users’ lawful speech on topics that KOSA deems harmful. KOSA is ambiguous enough that different administrations could censor content all along the political spectrum, from guns to vaccines to transgender issues to abortions.” Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer said on X that, “Schumer is throwing LGBTQ youth under the bus for a bill that won’t even pass the House just so he can say he’s ‘protecting the kids’ ahead of the election.”

But Smithing, who said her group withheld support of KOSA until its most recent changes, pointed the limitation section of the duty of care, which lets minors search for what they want and receive “evidence-informed information.” Specifying the bill is aimed at design features, Smithing said, “helps us feel confident that this bill is not about content,” she said.

Smithing said she’s feeling optimistic. “I’ve been really tapping into this feeling of delusional optimism over the past couple of months. Like if I keep pushing forward, something good will happen,” Smithing said. “And today feels like a day where a little bit of that optimism was realized and a little bit of that delusion was set to the side.”

If the bill becomes law, it will likely face challenges in the courts, which now must contend with a new Supreme Court opinion, which made clear that social media curation and content moderation is expressive. Blumenthal said he is confident KOSA could survive any challenges. “I think this bill is constitutionally bulletproof,” he said.

Read More 

Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Will the Tesla robotaxi have a steering wheel or not? Elon Musk won’t say.
The Tesla CEO dodged several questions during an earnings call Tuesday about the status of the company’s long-promised autonomous vehicle, including whether it would have traditional controls like pedals and steering wheels.
It’s an increasingly important question left hovering over Tesla’s robotaxi plans, which have been already been delayed to allow more work on the prototype. Theoretically, a steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle could take months, if not years, to be approved for public roads. A more traditional looking vehicle, meanwhile, could be released a lot sooner.
Theoretically, a steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle could take months, if not years, to be approved.
That’s because Tesla would need approval from the federal government to deploy a more radically designed robotaxi, which it acknowledges in its letter to shareholders.
“Though timing of Robotaxi deployment depends on technological advancement and regulatory approval, we are working vigorously on this opportunity given the outsized potential value,” the company.
And yet when asked specifically about which regulatory approval Tesla would be seeking, Musk declined to answer.
Specifically, he was asked whether Tesla would seek an exemption from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to deploy a vehicle without traditional controls. His response was to compare Tesla’s “generalized solution” with Waymo’s more “localized” one, which he described as “quite fragile.”
“Our solution is a general solution that would work anywhere,” he added. “It would even work on a different Earth.”
Right now, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) require cars to have basic, human controls, like steering wheels, pedals, sideview mirrors, and so on. These standards specify how vehicles must be designed before they can be sold in the US. If a proposed new vehicle doesn’t comply with all existing FMVSS, manufacturers can apply for an exemption. But the government only offers 2,500 exemptions per company per year.
“It would even work on a different Earth.”
The cap on exemptions theoretically would prevent any AV company — Tesla included — from deploying purpose-built autonomous vehicles en masse. AV supporters have tried to pass legislation to lift the cap to allow for more driverless vehicles on public roads, but the bill is stalled in Congress over questions about liability and readiness of the technology.
So far, only one company has been granted an FMVSS exemption: Nuro, which uses them to deploy a small number of driverless delivery robots in Texas and California. Cruise, which is owned by GM, requested an FMVSS exemption for its steering wheel- and pedal-less Origin shuttle — but it was never approved and now the Origin is on hold indefinitely. Amazon’s Zoox said its autonomous shuttle was “self-certified,” which prompted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an investigation into what that means.
Other companies have opted to skip this step completely. Waymo’s driverless vehicles all have traditional controls, despite operating on public roads without safety drivers. The company has said it would eventually introduce a steering wheel-free vehicle, but it has yet to say when or whether it would seek an FMVSS exemption.
All of which is to say that Tesla is facing similar regulatory hurdles, depending on whether it decides to ditch the traditional controls or not. There have been hints dropped along the way, such as design drawings showing the vehicle as a steering wheel-free zone.
Critics have dismissed the Tesla robotaxi has vaporware, pointing out that Waymo is doing close to 50,000 passenger trips every week, while Musk continues to make vague promises about a vehicle that hasn’t been seen and may never really exist.
Musk is certainly betting the company on it, repeatedly hammering the point that Tesla is fundamentally an AI company, and not a traditional car company. And yet he is unwilling to be transparent about the very real hurdles the company will likely face as it races to make this vision a reality.
We’ll have to wait until October to get a real answer — or maybe even later, pending further delays.

Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

Will the Tesla robotaxi have a steering wheel or not? Elon Musk won’t say.

The Tesla CEO dodged several questions during an earnings call Tuesday about the status of the company’s long-promised autonomous vehicle, including whether it would have traditional controls like pedals and steering wheels.

It’s an increasingly important question left hovering over Tesla’s robotaxi plans, which have been already been delayed to allow more work on the prototype. Theoretically, a steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle could take months, if not years, to be approved for public roads. A more traditional looking vehicle, meanwhile, could be released a lot sooner.

That’s because Tesla would need approval from the federal government to deploy a more radically designed robotaxi, which it acknowledges in its letter to shareholders.

“Though timing of Robotaxi deployment depends on technological advancement and regulatory approval, we are working vigorously on this opportunity given the outsized potential value,” the company.

And yet when asked specifically about which regulatory approval Tesla would be seeking, Musk declined to answer.

Specifically, he was asked whether Tesla would seek an exemption from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to deploy a vehicle without traditional controls. His response was to compare Tesla’s “generalized solution” with Waymo’s more “localized” one, which he described as “quite fragile.”

“Our solution is a general solution that would work anywhere,” he added. “It would even work on a different Earth.”

Right now, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) require cars to have basic, human controls, like steering wheels, pedals, sideview mirrors, and so on. These standards specify how vehicles must be designed before they can be sold in the US. If a proposed new vehicle doesn’t comply with all existing FMVSS, manufacturers can apply for an exemption. But the government only offers 2,500 exemptions per company per year.

The cap on exemptions theoretically would prevent any AV company — Tesla included — from deploying purpose-built autonomous vehicles en masse. AV supporters have tried to pass legislation to lift the cap to allow for more driverless vehicles on public roads, but the bill is stalled in Congress over questions about liability and readiness of the technology.

So far, only one company has been granted an FMVSS exemption: Nuro, which uses them to deploy a small number of driverless delivery robots in Texas and California. Cruise, which is owned by GM, requested an FMVSS exemption for its steering wheel- and pedal-less Origin shuttle — but it was never approved and now the Origin is on hold indefinitely. Amazon’s Zoox said its autonomous shuttle was “self-certified,” which prompted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to open an investigation into what that means.

Other companies have opted to skip this step completely. Waymo’s driverless vehicles all have traditional controls, despite operating on public roads without safety drivers. The company has said it would eventually introduce a steering wheel-free vehicle, but it has yet to say when or whether it would seek an FMVSS exemption.

All of which is to say that Tesla is facing similar regulatory hurdles, depending on whether it decides to ditch the traditional controls or not. There have been hints dropped along the way, such as design drawings showing the vehicle as a steering wheel-free zone.

Critics have dismissed the Tesla robotaxi has vaporware, pointing out that Waymo is doing close to 50,000 passenger trips every week, while Musk continues to make vague promises about a vehicle that hasn’t been seen and may never really exist.

Musk is certainly betting the company on it, repeatedly hammering the point that Tesla is fundamentally an AI company, and not a traditional car company. And yet he is unwilling to be transparent about the very real hurdles the company will likely face as it races to make this vision a reality.

We’ll have to wait until October to get a real answer — or maybe even later, pending further delays.

Read More 

Image: TP-Link

TP-Link has debuted the Archer BE3600, a $99 Wi-Fi 7 router that is the cheapest one we’ve seen released in the US so far since the first routers supporting the new standard started arriving last year.
It doesn’t have the new 6GHz band like its pricier cousins or even many of the Wi-Fi 6E routers already on the market, though. As a result, for many people, TP-Link’s new router probably won’t get you your downloads a lot faster — if at all — than would a much older router.

The new tricks can mean a little throughput boost or a more stable connection than routers built to older specs in congested areas, though, thanks to the way Wi-Fi 7 handles its data streams. But without the one-two 6GHz punch of wider data channels and much more unoccupied space, you simply won’t see many of the multi-gigabit benefits hyped in Wi-Fi 7 marketing, and if you have a multi-gig internet connection, you should probably connect it to something a little more upmarket.
There are things to like here, though. Two of its five ethernet ports offer 2.5Gbps connections, which is rare at this price. It also supports Multi-Link Operation, which won’t be so much a throughput benefit (again: no 6GHz band) but could mean a more stable connection for a Wi-Fi 7-capable phone or VR headset — if one band fails or is too busy, your future device can fall back onto the other one. And it supports the Wi-Fi Alliance’s EasyMesh standard, meaning it can make mesh netwok with routers from other brands that also support the standard.
The most significant thing about this router seems to be that it offers Wi-Fi 7 for less than $100. That’s a first, and by a fair amount — the low end right now is otherwise generally around $300 (see TP-Link’s Deco BE63 or Archer BE550).

Image: TP-Link
Good port selection for such a cheap router.

Image: TP-Link

TP-Link has debuted the Archer BE3600, a $99 Wi-Fi 7 router that is the cheapest one we’ve seen released in the US so far since the first routers supporting the new standard started arriving last year.

It doesn’t have the new 6GHz band like its pricier cousins or even many of the Wi-Fi 6E routers already on the market, though. As a result, for many people, TP-Link’s new router probably won’t get you your downloads a lot faster — if at all — than would a much older router.

The new tricks can mean a little throughput boost or a more stable connection than routers built to older specs in congested areas, though, thanks to the way Wi-Fi 7 handles its data streams. But without the one-two 6GHz punch of wider data channels and much more unoccupied space, you simply won’t see many of the multi-gigabit benefits hyped in Wi-Fi 7 marketing, and if you have a multi-gig internet connection, you should probably connect it to something a little more upmarket.

There are things to like here, though. Two of its five ethernet ports offer 2.5Gbps connections, which is rare at this price. It also supports Multi-Link Operation, which won’t be so much a throughput benefit (again: no 6GHz band) but could mean a more stable connection for a Wi-Fi 7-capable phone or VR headset — if one band fails or is too busy, your future device can fall back onto the other one. And it supports the Wi-Fi Alliance’s EasyMesh standard, meaning it can make mesh netwok with routers from other brands that also support the standard.

The most significant thing about this router seems to be that it offers Wi-Fi 7 for less than $100. That’s a first, and by a fair amount — the low end right now is otherwise generally around $300 (see TP-Link’s Deco BE63 or Archer BE550).

Image: TP-Link
Good port selection for such a cheap router.

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Image: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios

Beneath the dick jokes and solid X-Men cameos, Deadpool & Wolverine feels like Marvel’s way of admitting how much of a mess its multiverse era has been. Though we’ve all poked fun at 20th Century Fox’s old X-Men films for the dubious wigs and middling stories that became rules rather than exceptions, the franchise played a significant role in defining the modern comic book movie genre. Without the live-action, leather-clad mutants of the ’90s and their box office success, Marvel Studios might not exist as we know it today. And for years, the ironic thing about the MCU as a project was how complicated rights issues kept Disney from being able to use some of Marvel’s most iconic IP.
Having access to the X-Men didn’t guarantee that many of the Marvel-branded cape features Fox released through the early aughts were particularly good. But it allowed the studio to take chances on Deadpool and Logan, two films whose freshness felt, at least in part, rooted in their being created outside of the Disney machine. Marvel’s desire for that kind of novelty is self-evident in director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine — the studio’s first R-rated film and major X-Men vehicle. But for all of its big-ticket fan service and willingness to poke fun at how much of a drag the MCU’s become, Deadpool & Wolverine feels like a sign that the days of genuinely exciting Marvel movies might just be behind us.
As a fourth wall-breaking character familiar with the haphazard way he made it to the big screen, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) has always been aware of the MCU’s existence and the legal reasons he couldn’t be a part of it. Much like Deadpool & Wolverine’s target audience, though, Wade keeps up with the industry trades, and news of Disney’s Fox acquisition has left him thinking differently about himself as the film first opens.

It’s not exactly that Wade’s unhappy in his quiet, post-Deadpool 2 life working as a car salesman with Peter (Rob Delaney), living with Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). He’s comfortable occasionally hanging out with the X-Men’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), the same way he’s cool just being friends with his ex-fiancee Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). It’s just that now that Wade knows he’s in play, he can’t help but feel like he could be doing more with himself if Kevin Feige let him become an Avenger like Captain America or Thor.
Deadpool & Wolverine assumes you’re so invested in the MCU that simply mentioning Loki’s Time Variance Authority is enough to make the new film’s fiddly ties to the Disney Plus show make sense. But for more casual viewers — those who only check in for Marvel’s bigger events — the connections will be much less clear. The way the movie hurriedly introduces TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) just minutes into its first act to explain the importance of one universe’s Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) feels likely to muddle what’s going on, rather than clarify how Deadpool & Wolverine is supposed to fit into the larger picture.
Though Fox’s Deadpool movies were anything but grounded, there was a cohesion that made it easy to understand how characters got from point A to point B and what motivated them to do the things they did. Here, Wade spends quite a bit of time mugging to the camera about how excited he is to finally be in Disneyland cursing up a storm like an overeager teen new to the art of profanity. But the sheer number of dick jokes and digs at Marvel’s flops play like an ineffective distraction from how little story there is to latch onto as Wade dives into the multiverse in search of a Wolverine variant suitable to serve as the “anchor being” a dying reality needs to survive.
Very few of Deadpool & Wolverine’s small gags are funny enough to elicit laughter, but the movie feels like it’s onto something promising with its metatextual send-up of how prominent a part of the X-Men Wolverine became as a result of Fox’s films. Logan-centric movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine were part of what turned the franchise into an unintentional joke and made it surprising that Deadpool wound up working so well. But as accurate as Wade’s assessments of Fox’s missteps are, they ring somewhat hollow coming from a Feige-produced project given how Marvel Studios built the MCU with a very similar approach that positioned characters like Captain America and Iron Man as its load-bearing centerpieces.

Image: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios

Deadpool & Wolverine stops short of blaming Fox’s downfall on the popularity of Jackman’s Wolverine. But it’s an idea that’s baked into the essence of the blue and yellow-clad Logan variant who — relatably — spends most of the film seething about wanting to be left alone. And while the movie winds up being unexpectedly lacking in the way of big action set pieces, it gives Jackman just enough space to demonstrate emotionally why his older performances as Logan made it seem like there might never be a role quite so perfectly cast.
Something similar can be said for Reynolds whose latest outing as Wade is… annoying, but pitch-perfect for the character as he reckons with the reality of not exactly being the gravitational center of his own film. But whereas Jackman (the duo’s straight man) is well positioned to shine as the film moves between its comedic and dramatic modes, those tonal shifts often leave Reynolds feeling somewhat one note. It’s as if all Marvel’s really comfortable letting Deadpool do is point out something that’s just happened onscreen and tell you why it’s hilarious.
Similarly disappointing is how, despite all the screen presence Emma Corrin commands as classic X-Men villain Cassandra Nova with her nauseating brand of telepathy, she’s yet another instance of Marvel squandering a promising character in a film that doesn’t seem to know what to do with its antagonist beyond making her seem like someone with a far more interesting story to tell.

Image: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios

Deadpool & Wolverine feels like it’s starting to find itself right when its big cameos begin showing up as the film’s way of paying homage to all of the Fox projects that paved the way for it to eventually exist. It’s legitimately funny to imagine the fate of the universe being left up to Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Laura (Dafne Keen), Deadpool, and Wolverine of all people. But as was the case with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, every single one of Deadpool & Wolverine’s guest appearances feels engineered to keep viewers from thinking too long about the existential crisis Marvel is trying to laugh its way through.
Despite its insistence that it’s the long-awaited cavalry, Deadpool & Wolverine seems to understand that it could never hope to single-handedly get the MCU back on track. But with Marvel knowing that it has backed itself into something of a corner, the studio is clearly banking on nostalgia and hype to tide its stand over — all while it continues to find a more sustainable long-term path forward.
Deadpool & Wolverine also stars Karan Soni, Shioli Kutsuna, Wunmi Mosaku, and Lewis Tan. The movie hits theaters on July 26th.

Image: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios

Beneath the dick jokes and solid X-Men cameos, Deadpool & Wolverine feels like Marvel’s way of admitting how much of a mess its multiverse era has been.

Though we’ve all poked fun at 20th Century Fox’s old X-Men films for the dubious wigs and middling stories that became rules rather than exceptions, the franchise played a significant role in defining the modern comic book movie genre. Without the live-action, leather-clad mutants of the ’90s and their box office success, Marvel Studios might not exist as we know it today. And for years, the ironic thing about the MCU as a project was how complicated rights issues kept Disney from being able to use some of Marvel’s most iconic IP.

Having access to the X-Men didn’t guarantee that many of the Marvel-branded cape features Fox released through the early aughts were particularly good. But it allowed the studio to take chances on Deadpool and Logan, two films whose freshness felt, at least in part, rooted in their being created outside of the Disney machine. Marvel’s desire for that kind of novelty is self-evident in director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine — the studio’s first R-rated film and major X-Men vehicle. But for all of its big-ticket fan service and willingness to poke fun at how much of a drag the MCU’s become, Deadpool & Wolverine feels like a sign that the days of genuinely exciting Marvel movies might just be behind us.

As a fourth wall-breaking character familiar with the haphazard way he made it to the big screen, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) has always been aware of the MCU’s existence and the legal reasons he couldn’t be a part of it. Much like Deadpool & Wolverine’s target audience, though, Wade keeps up with the industry trades, and news of Disney’s Fox acquisition has left him thinking differently about himself as the film first opens.

It’s not exactly that Wade’s unhappy in his quiet, post-Deadpool 2 life working as a car salesman with Peter (Rob Delaney), living with Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). He’s comfortable occasionally hanging out with the X-Men’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), the same way he’s cool just being friends with his ex-fiancee Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). It’s just that now that Wade knows he’s in play, he can’t help but feel like he could be doing more with himself if Kevin Feige let him become an Avenger like Captain America or Thor.

Deadpool & Wolverine assumes you’re so invested in the MCU that simply mentioning Loki’s Time Variance Authority is enough to make the new film’s fiddly ties to the Disney Plus show make sense. But for more casual viewers — those who only check in for Marvel’s bigger events — the connections will be much less clear. The way the movie hurriedly introduces TVA agent Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen) just minutes into its first act to explain the importance of one universe’s Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) feels likely to muddle what’s going on, rather than clarify how Deadpool & Wolverine is supposed to fit into the larger picture.

Though Fox’s Deadpool movies were anything but grounded, there was a cohesion that made it easy to understand how characters got from point A to point B and what motivated them to do the things they did. Here, Wade spends quite a bit of time mugging to the camera about how excited he is to finally be in Disneyland cursing up a storm like an overeager teen new to the art of profanity. But the sheer number of dick jokes and digs at Marvel’s flops play like an ineffective distraction from how little story there is to latch onto as Wade dives into the multiverse in search of a Wolverine variant suitable to serve as the “anchor being” a dying reality needs to survive.

Very few of Deadpool & Wolverine’s small gags are funny enough to elicit laughter, but the movie feels like it’s onto something promising with its metatextual send-up of how prominent a part of the X-Men Wolverine became as a result of Fox’s films. Logan-centric movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine were part of what turned the franchise into an unintentional joke and made it surprising that Deadpool wound up working so well. But as accurate as Wade’s assessments of Fox’s missteps are, they ring somewhat hollow coming from a Feige-produced project given how Marvel Studios built the MCU with a very similar approach that positioned characters like Captain America and Iron Man as its load-bearing centerpieces.

Deadpool & Wolverine stops short of blaming Fox’s downfall on the popularity of Jackman’s Wolverine. But it’s an idea that’s baked into the essence of the blue and yellow-clad Logan variant who — relatably — spends most of the film seething about wanting to be left alone. And while the movie winds up being unexpectedly lacking in the way of big action set pieces, it gives Jackman just enough space to demonstrate emotionally why his older performances as Logan made it seem like there might never be a role quite so perfectly cast.

Something similar can be said for Reynolds whose latest outing as Wade is… annoying, but pitch-perfect for the character as he reckons with the reality of not exactly being the gravitational center of his own film. But whereas Jackman (the duo’s straight man) is well positioned to shine as the film moves between its comedic and dramatic modes, those tonal shifts often leave Reynolds feeling somewhat one note. It’s as if all Marvel’s really comfortable letting Deadpool do is point out something that’s just happened onscreen and tell you why it’s hilarious.

Similarly disappointing is how, despite all the screen presence Emma Corrin commands as classic X-Men villain Cassandra Nova with her nauseating brand of telepathy, she’s yet another instance of Marvel squandering a promising character in a film that doesn’t seem to know what to do with its antagonist beyond making her seem like someone with a far more interesting story to tell.

Deadpool & Wolverine feels like it’s starting to find itself right when its big cameos begin showing up as the film’s way of paying homage to all of the Fox projects that paved the way for it to eventually exist. It’s legitimately funny to imagine the fate of the universe being left up to Elektra (Jennifer Garner), Laura (Dafne Keen), Deadpool, and Wolverine of all people. But as was the case with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, every single one of Deadpool & Wolverine’s guest appearances feels engineered to keep viewers from thinking too long about the existential crisis Marvel is trying to laugh its way through.

Despite its insistence that it’s the long-awaited cavalry, Deadpool & Wolverine seems to understand that it could never hope to single-handedly get the MCU back on track. But with Marvel knowing that it has backed itself into something of a corner, the studio is clearly banking on nostalgia and hype to tide its stand over — all while it continues to find a more sustainable long-term path forward.

Deadpool & Wolverine also stars Karan Soni, Shioli Kutsuna, Wunmi Mosaku, and Lewis Tan. The movie hits theaters on July 26th.

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Illustration: The Verge

Google made nearly $85 million over the past few months as revenue from its Search and cloud computing businesses soared. That’s according to the quarter two earnings report released by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, on Tuesday, which says Search alone raked in $48.5 million.
Meanwhile, Google’s cloud division hit $10 million for the first time while also achieving $1 billion in operating profit. During an earnings call on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company’s generative AI solutions for Cloud customers “already generated billions in revenues and are being used by more than 2 million developers.”
“We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack,” Pichai says in a letter to investors. “Our longstanding infrastructure leadership and in-house research teams position us well as technology evolves and as we pursue the many opportunities ahead.”
Since becoming a $2 trillion company in April, Alphabet has managed to maintain that position. In May, Google began rolling out AI summaries in Search powered by its large language model (LLM), Gemini. But users quickly found that the tool provided bizarre answers for certain queries, leading Google to manually take them down.
This week, Google announced that it’s abandoning its long-delayed plans to phase out third-party cookies by default, something Safari and Firefox already do. Google Chrome will instead ask users to “make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing.”
Developing…

Illustration: The Verge

Google made nearly $85 million over the past few months as revenue from its Search and cloud computing businesses soared. That’s according to the quarter two earnings report released by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, on Tuesday, which says Search alone raked in $48.5 million.

Meanwhile, Google’s cloud division hit $10 million for the first time while also achieving $1 billion in operating profit. During an earnings call on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company’s generative AI solutions for Cloud customers “already generated billions in revenues and are being used by more than 2 million developers.”

“We are innovating at every layer of the AI stack,” Pichai says in a letter to investors. “Our longstanding infrastructure leadership and in-house research teams position us well as technology evolves and as we pursue the many opportunities ahead.”

Since becoming a $2 trillion company in April, Alphabet has managed to maintain that position. In May, Google began rolling out AI summaries in Search powered by its large language model (LLM), Gemini. But users quickly found that the tool provided bizarre answers for certain queries, leading Google to manually take them down.

This week, Google announced that it’s abandoning its long-delayed plans to phase out third-party cookies by default, something Safari and Firefox already do. Google Chrome will instead ask users to “make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing.”

Developing…

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Photo by Osmancan Gurdogan / Anadolu via Getty Images

Tesla published its second quarter earnings report, in which the company said it earned $1.48 billion in net income on $25.5 billion in revenue. That represents a 2 percent increase year over year compared to $24.9 billion in revenue in Q2 2023 but a 45 percent drop in net income.
Tesla’s gross margins were in the spotlight again, as bullish investors hoped to see improvements after years of steady decline. Rampant price cutting and cooling demand, as well as cheaper financing, have pushed the company’s once vaunted margins to their lowest point in six years.
“EV penetration returned to growth”
The company reported 18 percent gross margins based on generally accepted accounting practices, slightly more than the 17.4 percent reported last quarter but down slightly from Q2 2023.
In its letter to shareholders, Tesla celebrated the fact that “EV penetration returned to growth” globally, which the company said was attributable to improving sentiments from customers.

Q2 2024 Shareholder Update → https://t.co/sXBSeLiJIj— HighlightsWe continued to expand our vehicle lineup globally, with new trims of Model 3 & Y as well as new S3XY paint options.Vehicle- Refreshed Model 3 ramp continued successfully- We also continue to qualify more… pic.twitter.com/2UuLhlmjvD— Tesla (@Tesla) July 23, 2024

“We believe that a pure EV is the optimal vehicle design and will ultimately win over consumers as the myths on range, charging and service are debunked,” Tesla said.
The news comes after a better-than-expected delivery and production report earlier this month, which sent the company’s stock soaring. Tesla is producing and delivering fewer vehicles than it did a year ago — 4.76 percent and 14 percent, respectively — but it still beat expectations on Wall Street, which had been anticipating far worse numbers.
It has unquestionably been a whiplash of a quarter for the company. Tesla abandoned its plan to build a more affordable “Model 2” vehicle — and then recommitted to it. Musk announced a robotaxi reveal event for August but then delayed it until October. The company embarked on a massive series of layoffs, including the entire Supercharger team — and then hired many people back. Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology came under harsh scrutiny after a previous recall failed to prevent driver misuse. And Tesla shareholders again approved a massive pay package for Elon Musk, after a judge tossed out the first one.
On top of all that, Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president, inserting his companies into a fraught political environment that is likely to have repercussions for Tesla’s sales and brand reputation.
Developing…

Photo by Osmancan Gurdogan / Anadolu via Getty Images

Tesla published its second quarter earnings report, in which the company said it earned $1.48 billion in net income on $25.5 billion in revenue. That represents a 2 percent increase year over year compared to $24.9 billion in revenue in Q2 2023 but a 45 percent drop in net income.

Tesla’s gross margins were in the spotlight again, as bullish investors hoped to see improvements after years of steady decline. Rampant price cutting and cooling demand, as well as cheaper financing, have pushed the company’s once vaunted margins to their lowest point in six years.

The company reported 18 percent gross margins based on generally accepted accounting practices, slightly more than the 17.4 percent reported last quarter but down slightly from Q2 2023.

In its letter to shareholders, Tesla celebrated the fact that “EV penetration returned to growth” globally, which the company said was attributable to improving sentiments from customers.

“We believe that a pure EV is the optimal vehicle design and will ultimately win over consumers as the myths on range, charging and service are debunked,” Tesla said.

The news comes after a better-than-expected delivery and production report earlier this month, which sent the company’s stock soaring. Tesla is producing and delivering fewer vehicles than it did a year ago — 4.76 percent and 14 percent, respectively — but it still beat expectations on Wall Street, which had been anticipating far worse numbers.

It has unquestionably been a whiplash of a quarter for the company. Tesla abandoned its plan to build a more affordable “Model 2” vehicle — and then recommitted to it. Musk announced a robotaxi reveal event for August but then delayed it until October. The company embarked on a massive series of layoffs, including the entire Supercharger team — and then hired many people back. Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology came under harsh scrutiny after a previous recall failed to prevent driver misuse. And Tesla shareholders again approved a massive pay package for Elon Musk, after a judge tossed out the first one.

On top of all that, Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president, inserting his companies into a fraught political environment that is likely to have repercussions for Tesla’s sales and brand reputation.

Developing…

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