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06.03.2026 07:40 In a new blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has admitted that it received a letter from the Defense Department, officially labeling it a supply chain risk. He said he doesn’t “believe this action is legally sound,” and that his company sees “no choice” but to challenge it in court. Hours before Amodei published the post, the Pentagon announced that it notified the company that its “products are deemed a supply chain risk, effective immediately.”If you’ll recall, the Defense Department threatened to give the company the designation typically reserved for firms from adversaries like China if it didn’t agree to remove its safeguards over mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. President Trump then ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s tech.Amodei explained that the designation has a narrow scope, because it only exists to protect the government. That is why the general public, and even Defense Department contractors, can still use Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and its AI technologies. Microsoft told CNBC that it will continue using Claude after its lawyers had concluded that it can keep on working with Anthropic on non-defense related projects. The CEO has also admitted that his company had “productive conversations” with the department over the past few days. He said that they were looking at ways to serve the Pentagon that adheres to its two exceptions, namely that its technology not be used for mass surveillance and the development of fully autonomous weapons, and at ways to “ensure a smooth transition if that is not possible.” That confirms reports that Anthropic is back in talks with the agency in an effort to reach a new deal. In addition, he apologized for a leaked internal memo, wherein he reportedly said that OpenAI’s messaging about its own deal with the department is “just straight up lies.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-says-it-will-challenge-defense-departments-supply-chain-risk-designation-in-court-054459618.html?src=rss

06.03.2026 02:41 Today, X announced some updates to its creator subscriptions platform. The leading change gives participating accounts the option to make part of tweet threads only visible to subscribers. This new Creator Subscriptions feature is called Exclusive Threads, an ironic name choice given X's main text-based social media posting competitor is called Threads.Creator Subscriptions 2.0 is here: powerful new tools to grow your subscribers and earn more.Introducing Exclusive Threads — lock any post in a thread for subscribers only. Tease in the parent, monetize the rest. Subscribe buttons are now embedded directly in the conversation. pic.twitter.com/j8Bg3bMDiW— Creators March 5, 2026 The new tool allows a creator to tease paywalled content, rather than keeping all of the material behind a subscribers-only gate. A gif shared both by the X Creators account and by the company's head of product, Nikita Bier, show how it will look in practice. Buttons to sign up as a subscriber will be embedded into the post chain, with the hope that the need to see the rest of the thread will be a big enough draw for readers to pay up. X has been making a push to draw content creators, offering other recent features like a 'paid partnership' label for sponsored posts. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/xs-exclusive-threads-feature-lets-creators-paywall-the-end-of-tweet-threads-000246204.html?src=rss

06.03.2026 02:41 Amazon's website appears to be stabilizing after experiencing technical issues that kept users from logging in and prevented prices from displaying correctly. DownDetector reported a spike of outage reports around 2PM ET, but as of 5:56PM ET, user complaints have fallen significantly.The Amazon.com homepage currently loads, and Engadgets staff have been able to load product pages and view prices without any problems. During the peak of the site’s issues, neither were loading consistently, and clicking through in some cases showed an error page with text that says "Sorry, something went wrong on our end." Users also reported being unable to log into their accounts. “We're sorry that some customers may be experiencing issues while shopping,” Amazon said in a statement to Engadget. “We appreciate customers’ patience as we work to resolve the issue." The company shared a similar sentiment with customers on X, confirming that it’s aware there’s a problem and acknowledging that its working on a fix. Amazon has yet to confirm whether the issue is fully resolved.As a cloud provider through its Amazon Web Services business, Amazon has experienced its fair share of outages, including one in October 2025 that took out services like Snapchat and Amazon's own Alexa voice assistant for hours. The company's website experiencing issues without a larger AWS outage seems a bit more unusual, and might suggest the problem lies outside of its cloud infrastructure.Update, March 5, 5:56PM ET: Updated article to reflect improved performance on Amazon.com.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazoncom-is-on-the-mend-after-experiencing-technical-issues-211430657.html?src=rss

06.03.2026 02:41 Today the US Senate unanimously passed proposed legislation known as COPPA 2.0. This measure, fully named the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, aims to create new protections for younger users online, such as blocking platforms from collecting their personal data without consent. COPPA 2.0 is a modernized take on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, attempting to address recent changes in common online activities, like targeted advertising, that could prove harmful to minors. Lawmakers have made several attempts to get this bipartisan bill through. While it has made varying amounts of headway in the Senate, none of the COPPA 2.0 bills to date have gotten past the House of Representatives. Industry groups such as NetChoice have previously opposed COPPA 2.0 and other measures around minors' online activity such as KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act. NetChoice members include Google, YouTube, Meta, Reddit, Discord, TikTok and X."This bill expands the current law protecting our kids online to ensure companies cannot collect personal information from anyone under the age of 17," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement about the latest result. "This is a big step forward for protecting our kids. We hope the House can join us. They haven’t thus far."However, there has been a bigger push both domestically and internationally toward restrictions on when and how younger people engage online. Several states — Utah, California and Washington to name a few — have enacted laws requiring some level of age verification, either to access mature content online or to use social media apps at all. Many of these efforts have raised concerns about privacy regarding where and how people's personal information is stored and protected. COPPA 2.0 might wind up benefitting from the privacy debates since it emphasizes giving teens and parents ways to protect themselves from having their data used against them rather than asking adults to give up data in order to use the internet as usual.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/coppa-20-passes-the-senate-again-unanimously-this-time-215044656.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is gearing up to spill the beans on Microsoft’s next-generation console. In a post on X today, she revealed that the system is codenamed “Project Helix.” Confirming previous rumors, she says it will “lead in performance” and play both console and PC games. Sharma also notes that she’ll be discussing the system at GDC next week with partners and developers. The next-gen console tease follows Sharma’s appointment as Xbox CEO a few weeks ago, after former Xbox head Phil Spencer stepped down. Last year, it was clear that things were rocky for Microsoft’s storied gaming brand, and the executive shakeup certainly didn’t help much. But it’ll be interesting to hear more details about Project Helix at GDC — is it simply a PC masquerading as a console? What sort of performance benchmarks is Microsoft trying to reach, and will we get any hints about hardware?For the first time, in a long time, there’s something intriguing happening in the land of Xbox. Much like the first Xbox, Microsoft could end up cutting this generation short to quickly prep a successor. And if the rumors about a PlayStation 6 delay end up being true, it could give Microsoft a few years with new hardware ahead of Sony. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-ceo-confirms-next-gen-project-helix-console-will-play-pc-games-204654357.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 It feels like we could all use a little boost of joy and optimism right now, so it's a perfect coincidence that a Games Done Quick event is on the horizon. Frost Fatales 2026 is running from March 8 through March 14. This week-long livestream will be raising money for the National Women's Law Center, a nonprofit working toward gender justice for women and girls. GDQ events have been branching out with more ways to tune in for the speedrunning fun. Frost Fatales 2026 will be a streaming on the GDQ Twitch channel as usual, but the organization is also now broadcasting on YouTube, and you can watch the live feed there next week as well. Each day’s pre-show kicks off at 12:30PM ET. Frost Fatales is the winter charity event from the Frame Fatales, a community for women and femmes in speedrunning that operates under the GDQ banner. The group has raised more than $1 million for philanthropic organizations since its first event in 2019. The schedule for next week has a mix of speedrun standards alongside and newer releases, plus some more offbeat categories that promise to be a highly entertaining watch. The event kicks off on Sunday with western flair in Red Dead Redemption 2. Horror fans have a good selection on Tuesday night with Silent Hill f, Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil Village. The Kirby Air Riders run on Friday night will highlight a bunch of community members for max wholesome vibes. Peak, a notable new game from 2025, is already getting speedruns, which you can watch Saturday afternoon before a bingo race of recent indie hit UFO 50 in the evening and the final run of Titanfall 2 to close the event. Fatales events aren't a 24/7 affair like Awesome and Summer Games Done Quick, so be sure to check the schedule for all the highlights.Or, if you simply can’t wait until Sunday to dive into some great speedruns, Games Done Quick recently launched GDQ TV. This dedicated Twitch channel is always on and highlights some notable moments and runs from the entirety of the GDQ archive.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/how-to-watch-frost-fatales-2026-kicking-off-on-march-8-201826864.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 If your Playdate wishlist is anything like mine , here's a good excuse to actually go ahead and free some of those games from limbo: Panic is running a two-week-long sale on the Playdate Catalog to celebrate its three-year anniversary. Sure, the majority of Playdate games are pretty cheap as is, but they can still add up when you're on a wild purchasing spree. Ask me how I know! The sale will be running from March 5 until March 19 at 1PM ET , so take advantage of the discounts while you can. There are 423 games available in the Catalog now, according to Panic, so if you're having trouble deciding on which you should go for, I've got you covered with a few recommendations right here. Season Two If $39 felt like too much to drop on Season Two when it came out last summer, now's the time to get it. Playdate's second season had only half the number of games as its first, but it still felt like a much stronger collection. Each of its 12 games is really solid, and there's plenty of variety in terms of genre and style, from puzzles and hours-long adventures to fast-paced action games that are great for bursts of intense play. And, it comes with Blippo+ — an oddball cable TV simulator that's unlike anything out there right now. All of these games are worth playing, but there were definitely some standouts from the bunch: The Whiteout, a post-apocalyptic adventure that'll surely hit even harder now considering the winter we've had; the puzzle platformer Taria Como; the arcade action game Fulcrum Defender; the climbing adventure, Tiny Turnip. I also really enjoyed Dig! Dig! Dino! for something on the chiller side. Outside Parties I have not been able to shut up about this game since it came out. It's unique, it's creepy, it's completely engrossing and it really pushes the limits of what the Playdate can do. Outside Parties is a horror scavenger hunt, presenting you with one massive picture to scrutinize and find hidden scenes within, using the crank to adjust the brightness constantly so you can find anything that may be buried in shadow. As you find these targets, more and more of the game's story comes to light through eerie audio clips. It is such a cool experience and the atmosphere of it all is incredible. You'll get many hours of playtime out of this one too, with over 150 targets to find and lots of lore to uncover. Crankstone A full-blown western for the Playdate! Crankstone is a gallery shooter with minigames mixed throughout, and between the aesthetic, the music and the activities, it's a lot of fun. You can choose the story mode to get right into the shooting and defending the town from outlaws, or head to the saloon to pick from the handful of mini games individually, including some fast-paced "spot the correct card" deck shuffling games and a few mimicry games involving the crank. It's like a wild west theme park crammed into the Playdate, which is to say, it's wonderful. Echo: The Oracle's Scroll This is one of my all-time favorite Playdate games. Echo: The Oracle's Scroll is a metroidvania without the usual combat, focusing entirely on exploration and puzzle-solving in a vast network of subterranean kingdoms. In this game, the Blight has forced civilization underground, and you play as a child who has been sent on a mission to deliver a scroll from the bottom-most territory, where the humans live, up to The Archives. There are all sorts of treacherous environments underground, including magma lakes and areas filled with hostile vegetation, making for what is at times a challenging platformer that requires lots of creativity to make your way through. The tone is a bit somber, but quirky characters — like a frog prince with a bouncy belly — keep things from getting too dark. Carte Blanche This one's for lovers of classic card games. There are six games in this virtual card game parlor : Cribbage, Gin Rummy, Spades, Cassino and Spite Malice. It's great for if you already know what you're doing, but I found Carte Blanche to be a really good introduction to these games for absolute beginners too, thanks to the easy-to-follow tutorials. When you win games, you'll be rewarded with coins that you can spend at Blanche's slot machine, which is stocked with little trinkets she's collected. Other games to try These are just the games I've been enjoying lately, but there are tons of other Playdate games worth checking out during the sale, like these cheese games and Spilled Mushrooms. And if you need even more recommendations, take a look through our list of the best Playdate games, where you'll find gems like Summit and Bwirds. There are quite a few I'm planning to finally spring from my wishlist too, including The Shape That Waits, Xeno Escape and Loona Landa. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-playdate-catalogs-3-year-anniversary-sale-is-here-181500105.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 Who needs Half-Life 3 or Beyond Good Evil 2? Roku, in an attempt to gamify content discovery on its platform, has cooked up a gaming announcement for the ages. Behold: Roklue. Yes, that's a real name that someone with a job title and salary came up with.Roklue will quiz players on "the movies and TV shows that everyone is talking about," along with classic "beloved favorites." When it references a movie or show, it will provide a link for you to tune in on your device. The initial version is an Oscar season tie-in that debuts on Saturday. This inaugural version is produced by B17 Entertainment, a Sony-owned company.Roku says it will rotate thematic content throughout the year. Variety reports that those will center around music festivals, the Emmys and holidays.Apart from that name, which should come with a gag-reflex warning, Roklue sounds harmless enough. You play a trivia game to find new stuff to stream; Roku grows its engagement. Win-win. But with corporate schemes like this, it's always worth wondering where further monetization might eventually come into play. Think something like linking to series on platforms you don't yet subscribe to. On March 7, you'll find the free Roklue game on your Roku home screen, no download required.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/roku-is-launching-a-trivia-game-called-roklue-190000386.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 Netflix has acquired an AI filmmaking startup called InterPositive, according to a report by Variety. This is a company that was founded by actor Ben Affleck back in 2022. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it. Affleck has been operating the company in stealth mode for the past few years, so this is pretty much it's big coming-out party. The terms of the acquisition haven't been disclosed, but Affleck will remain on as a senior advisor to Netflix. Additionally, the entire staff will be absorbed into the streaming platform. Affleck says he started the company after "observing the early rise of AI in production" and realizing how the "models came up short." The company makes tools that generate AI models based on an existing production's dailies. This lets filmmakers use the model in the post-production process to do stuff like mix and color, relight shots and add visual effects. Affleck adds that this tech is "not about text-prompting or generating something from nothing." Netflix says the company will keep "filmmakers at the center of the process." The company recently used generative AI tools to whip up a VFX shot in a show called The Eternaut. It's also been using AI to make ads more intrusive. We'll have to wait and see if creators do indeed remain at the center of things. Netflix will offer access to InterPositive's tech to creative partners but has no plans to sell it commercially. To Affleck's credit, he seems to have a nuanced understanding of modern AI tools. "We also need to preserve what makes storytelling human, which is judgment," he said. "The kind that takes decades to build, experience to hone and that only people can have. I knew I had a responsibility to my peers and our industry, to protect the power of human creativity and the people behind it." However, it's worth reiterating that the company is no longer in Affleck's hands, as he is now just an advisor.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/netflix-just-bought-an-ai-startup-founded-by-ben-affleck-184536640.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 Meta is facing a class action lawsuit for false advertising related to its AI glasses following reports about the company's use of human contractors to review footage captured from users' glasses. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that Meta's claims about the devices' privacy features have misled users. The lawsuit comes after a Swedish newspaper reported that subcontractors in Kenya have raised concerns about viewing footage recorded via Ray-Ban Meta glasses. According to Svenska Dagbladet, workers have reported witnessing "intimate" material, including bathroom visits, sexual encounters and other private details as part of their job labeling objects in videos captured on users' smart glasses."This nationwide class action seeks to hold Meta responsible for its affirmatively false advertising and failure to disclose the true nature of surveillance and its connection to the company’s AI data collection pipeline," the lawsuit, filed by Clarkson Law Firm, states. The filing names two individuals who live in California and New Jersey who purchased Meta's smart glasses. It says that both "relied" on Meta's marketing claims about the glasses' privacy protecting features and that they would not have purchased them if they knew about the company's use of contractors. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and injunctive relief.A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to Engadget that data from its smart glasses can be shared with human contractors in some cases. The company declined to comment on the claims in the lawsuit."Ray-Ban Meta glasses help you use AI, hands free, to answer questions about the world around you," the spokesperson said. "Unless users choose to share media they've captured with Meta or others, that media stays on the user's device. When people share content with Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data for the purpose of improving people's experience, as many other companies do. We take steps to filter this data to protect people's privacy and to help prevent identifying information from being reviewed."What the company doesn't explicitly say there is that there is no way to use the smart glasses' "multimodal" features without sharing the captures of your surroundings with the company. As I noted in my review of the second-generation Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses last year: "images of your surroundings processed for the glasses' multimodal features like Live AI can be used for training purposes ." So while Meta claims that users' own recordings are kept private, footage that is captured but not stored locally for users — like video when Live AI is in use — can be sent to contractors who help train the company's AI models. Meta's privacy policy doesn't specifically mention the use of human contractors, though it states that such data can be used for training purposes. "The undisclosed human review pipeline renders the Meta AI Glasses’ privacy features materially misleading, transforms the product from a personal device into a surveillance conduit, and exposes consumers to unreasonable risks of dignitary harm, emotional distress, stalking, extortion, identity theft, and reputational injury," the lawsuit says. "Indeed, Meta employees and contractors have described viewing credit card numbers, nudity, sexual activity, and identifiable faces in the footage they reviewed, and reported that Meta’s purported anonymization safeguards do not reliably function."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-hit-with-a-class-action-lawsuit-over-smart-glasses-privacy-claims-182846817.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 OpenAI is releasing a new model today, and like GPT-5.2 before it, GPT-5.4 is all about professional work. OpenAI is calling GPT-5.4 its most capable frontier model for tasks like coding and data analysis. OpenAI claims the new model produced presentations with stronger, more varied aesthetics and made more effective use of its image generation tools.It's also the first model from OpenAI built with native computer-use capabilities, making it better at carrying out tasks across several apps at the same time. When it comes to computer use, one noticeable improvement OpenAI has recorded is the way GPT-5.4 issues mouse and keyboard commands. It's significantly better at navigating a desktop environment than its predecessor. When users turn to GPT-5.4 in ChatGPT, where it will now be the default model for the chatbot's Thinking mode, the system will outline how it plans to tackle a request, giving people the opportunity to tell it to adjust course as it's generating a response. At the same time, the new model offers better web research capabilities, especially when it comes to "highly specific" queries, according to OpenAI. "Together, these improvements mean higher-quality answers that arrive faster and stay relevant to the task at hand," the company states. Separately, OpenAI claims GPT-5.4 is its most factual model yet, noting, relative to GPT-5.2, it's 18 percent less likely to generate a response with any errors. Here's hoping it knows not to turn to Grokipedia for information, something its predecessor was known to do. As mentioned, GPT-5.4 will be available in ChatGPT when users select the chatbot's Thinking mode, and as GPT-5.4 Pro from the model picker. As such, this isn't a release for Free and Go users — or even Plus subscribers, for that matter. It's more for enterprise customers, and developers who rely on the company's Codex app. On that note, for API customers, OpenAI claims GPT-5.4 is its most token efficient reasoning model to date, though those tokens will cost more than their GPT-5.2 counterparts. For instance, OpenAI is pricing one million input tokens at $2.50, up from $1.75 with GPT-5.2. The fact that OpenAI has increasingly shifted its strategy to focus on professionals shouldn't be surprising. When Microsoft announced last September it would add Anthropic's models to Copilot 365 , there were reports that suggested the company made the decision because it found Claude was better at tasks like generating spreadsheets and presentations. Reporting from The Information suggests OpenAI is generating about $25 billion in annualized revenue. However, the company is still far from being profitable, and with more than $1.4 trillion in data center commitments on the books, it's reliant on funding from investors to keep the lights on. Seen in that context, productivity represents a place where it might have a chance to build a sustainable business. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/i-hope-you-like-spreadsheets-because-gpt-54-loves-them-180000444.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 It might sound like the stuff of daydreams now, but once upon a time it was briefly the very real intention of Sony and Nintendo to collaborate on a console. Nicknamed the Nintendo PlayStation, the idea was that a new CD-ROM format backed by Sony would be added to the cartridge-based Super NES, resulting in a hybrid console that could play both. The partnership didn’t last long, though, with Nintendo backing out before it ever really got off the ground, announcing that it would instead be working with Philips. Sony decided to make the PlayStation on its own instead, in an act of revenge that you have to say paid off in the long run, and we never did get to see Crash Bandicoot running around the Mushroom Kingdom. Still, the short-lived Nintendo PlayStation remains a fascinating what-if scenario in video game history, and the USA’s National Video Museum has acquired the original development kit. BREAKING: The NVM has acquired the mythical Nintendo Playstation!

05.03.2026 22:11 Google is living up to its word and posting warning labels for battery-killing apps. 9to5Google spotted Google's rollout announcement, which the company previously said would arrive on March 1.The label says, “This app may use more battery than expected due to high background activity.” If you don't yet see the warnings, they may not have reached you yet. Google says the banners will "roll out gradually to impacted apps" in the coming weeks.Play Store battery warningGoogleWarning labels aren’t the only stick in Google’s fight against infringing apps. They may also be excluded from discovery services like Play Store recommendations.Google's definition of battery-draining apps centers around Android's "partial wake lock" mechanism. This service allows an app to keep the phone's processor running even while the screen is off. There are logical exceptions where apps do need this: audio playback, location access, etc. But the company apparently sees too many abusing that API for other reasons. And Google wouldn't want people to assume the problem is with the hardware and switch to an iPhone — because then we’re talking about money.If you're a developer, Google's technical documentation offers much more detail. For everyone else, keep an eye out for those Play Store labels and consider steering clear of those apps until their devs clean things up.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-begins-calling-out-battery-killing-android-apps-170650936.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 Google has pledged "at least" $50 million through 2030 on "projects designed to eliminate superpollutants." The company will be joined by a handful of other companies including Amazon and Salesforce in the newly formed Superpollutant Action Initiative. In total, these companies have committed $100 million to the project, hoping to "accelerate the reduction" of superpollutants like methane, black carbon and refrigerant gases. Google says these are responsible for close to half of all planetary warming. "Superpollutants are a major part of the equation to limit atmospheric warming. Experts agree that eliminating them where we can is one of the most powerful levers we have to deliver near-term impact, playing a vital and complementary role to removing CO2," said Randy Spock, Google's carbon credits and removals lead. The gases break down faster than CO2 but can trap heat thousands of times more efficiently, and the coalition claims that aggressive action could prevent more than half a degree Celsius of warming by 2050. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported $132 billion in net income in 2025. Google's five-year, $50 million pledge works out to about three hours of that. The company is also set to spend billions building massive data centers for AI that it claims are more resource conscious than others. So far, Google’s AI infrastructure buildout drove an 11 percent rise in the company's total emissions last year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-pledges-roughly-three-hours-of-its-annual-profit-to-fight-climate-change-164808010.html?src=rss

05.03.2026 22:11 The Canadian government says that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has agreed to take steps to immediately strengthen safety protocols, according to a report by Wall Street Journal. This follows a mass shooting incident at a high school in which OpenAI flagged the suspect and suspended his account, but did not alert authorities. These changes look to primarily involve law enforcement, with commitments to notify police about potentially suspicious use of ChatGPT. We don't have any confirmation from the company at this time, but Canada's Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says he "asked OpenAI to take several actions, which Altman has agreed to do." Please see my statement.