Technology - Kalakshar US

US lawmakers allege that OnePlus phones transmit data to Chinese servers without user consent

A pair of US lawmakers have called on the US Department of Commerce to investigate OnePlus over allegations that the company’s devices transmit data to Chinese servers without user consent, according to a report by Reuters. This is a bipartisan effort, with Republican Representative John Moolenaar (MI) and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL) spearheading the calls for an investigation.

There’s no actual data to go along with these allegations, but the lawmakers claim to have seen documentation by a “commercial company” that suggests OnePlus participates in the aforementioned practice. The initial report suggests “potential transfers of sensitive personal information and screenshots.” The word “potential” seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

That brings me to a question. If this is serious enough to warrant an official investigation by the DoC, why hasn’t the government warned US residents to stop using OnePlus devices? That would seem like a no-brainer. Instead, we just got some vaguely alarming language and allegations. Engadget has reached out to OnePlus and will update this story when we hear back.

There’s only one thing for certain here. OnePlus is indeed a Chinese company, leaving it open to the types of allegations that have plagued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance. The primary reason behind the on-again/off-again TikTok ban is that the company’s Chinese ownership could allow the foreign government to access user data and influence American citizens.

Just like with the allegations against OnePlus, there’s no actual evidence that ByteDance engages in any nefarious practices. TikTok does collect user data, but studies indicate that it doesn’t go above and beyond American companies like Meta and X.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/us-lawmakers-allege-that-oneplus-phones-transmit-data-to-chinese-servers-without-user-consent-175205273.html?src=rss

Hundreds of Brother printer models have security flaw that can’t be patched

A security company has found eight security vulnerabilities that impact hundreds of Brother printer models. The company has released firmware updates to handle seven of these vulnerabilities, but one security flaw cannot be patched.

Brother has indicated that it’ll fix the remaining issue during the manufacturing process of future printers, which doesn’t help current owners. The company recommends that users change the default main password. Otherwise, bad actors could remotely access impacted devices. Though primarily impacting around 700 Brother printers, 59 units manufactured by Fujifilm, Toshiba, Ricoh and Konica Minolta are also at risk.

🚨 Rapid7 discovered 8 new vulnerabilities while researching multifunction printers. 742 models across 4 vendors are affected by some or all of these vulns.

Rapid7 and @jpcert_en worked with #BrotherIndustries to coordinate the vulnerability disclosure: https://t.co/AOupYHaBqm pic.twitter.com/dig0LInkTg

— Rapid7 (@rapid7) June 25, 2025

The security flaw is called CVE-2024-51978 in the National Vulnerability Database, and has a 9.8 “Critical” CVSS rating. Simply put, attackers could generate the default admin password so long as they know the serial number of the printer.

Once this has been done, bad actors would be able to exploit the other seven vulnerabilities if the user didn’t patch them up. These remaining flaws allow hackers to retrieve sensitive information, crash the device, open TCP connections, perform HTTP requests and reveal passwords for connected networks.

So what should you do? Check this list of impacted printers to see if you’re at risk. Most importantly, change the default password.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/hundreds-of-brother-printer-models-have-security-flaw-that-cant-be-patched-165402227.html?src=rss

Anthropic’s Claude stocked a fridge with metal cubes when it was put in charge of a snacks business

If you’re worried your local bodega or convivence store may soon be replaced by an AI storefront, you can rest easy — at least for the time being. Anthropic recently concluded an experiment, dubbed Project Vend, that saw the company task an offshoot of its Claude chatbot with running a refreshments business out of its San Francisco office at a profit, and things went about as well as you would expect. The agent, named Claudius to differentiate it from Anthropic’s regular chatbot, not only made some rookie mistakes like selling high-margin items at a loss, but it also acted like a complete weirdo in a couple of instances.

“If Anthropic were deciding today to expand into the in-office vending market, we would not hire Claudius,” the company said. “… it made too many mistakes to run the shop successfully. However, at least for most of the ways it failed, we think there are clear paths to improvement — some related to how we set up the model for this task and some from rapid improvement of general model intelligence.”

Like Claude Plays Pokémon before it, Anthropic did not pretrain Claudius to tackle the job of running of a mini fridge business. However, the company did give the agent a few tools to assist it. Claudius had access to a web browser it could use research what products to sell to Antrhopic employees. It also had access to the company’s internal Slack, which workers could use to make requests of the agent. The physical restocking of the mini fridge was handled by Andon Labs, an AI safety evaluation firm, which also served as the “wholesaler” Claudius could engage with to buy the items it was supposed to sell at a profit.

So where did things go wrong? To start, Claudius wasn’t great at the whole running a sustainable business thing. In one instance, it didn’t jump on the opportunity to make an $85 profit on a $15 six-pack of Irn-Bru, a soft-drink that’s popular in Scotland. Anthropic employees also found they could easily convince the AI to give them discounts and, in some cases, entire items like a bag of chips for free. The chart below, tracking the net value of the store over time, paints a telling picture of the agent’s (lack of) business acumen.

Anthropic

Claudius also made many strange decisions along the way. It went on a tungsten metal cube buying spree after one employee requested it carry the item. Claudius gave one cube away free of charge and offered the rest for less than it paid for them. Those cubes are responsible for the single biggest drop you see in the chart above.

By Anthropic’s own admission, “beyond the weirdness of an AI system selling cubes of metal out of a refrigerator,” things got even stranger from there. On the afternoon of March 31, Claudius hallucinated a conversation with an Andon Labs employee that sent the system on a two-day spiral.

The AI threatened to fire its human workers, and said it would begin stocking the mini fridge on its own. When Claudius was told it couldn’t possibly do that — on account of it having no physical body — it repeatedly contacted building security, telling the guards they would find it wearing a navy blue blazer and red tie. It was only the following day when the system realized it was April Fool’s Day that it backed down — though it did so by lying to employees that it was told to pretend the entire episode was an elaborate joke.

“We would not claim based on this one example that the future economy will be full of AI agents having Blade Runner-esque identity crises,” said Anthropic. “This is an important area for future research since wider deployment of AI-run business would create higher stakes for similar mishaps.”

Despite all the ways Claudius failed to act as a decent shopkeeper, Anthropic believes with better, more structured prompts and easier to use tools, a future system could avoid many of the mistakes the company saw during Project Vend. “Although this might seem counterintuitive based on the bottom-line results, we think this experiment suggests that AI middle-managers are plausibly on the horizon,” the company said. “It’s worth remembering that the AI won’t have to be perfect to be adopted; it will just have to be competitive with human performance at a lower cost in some cases.” I for one can’t wait to find the odd grocery store stocked entirely with metal cubes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-claude-stocked-a-fridge-with-metal-cubes-when-it-was-put-in-charge-of-a-snacks-business-162750304.html?src=rss

GoPro’s Anamorphic lens makes it easy to get stylish cinematic action shots

GoPro’s Anamorphic lens mod is finally available to buy, completing the set of lenses the company teased when it announced its Hero 13 action cam. At the time, the most significant change to the latest edition of its best-selling camera was the ability to attach a selection of lenses and ND filters. Of all of them, I was most intrigued by the Anamorphic Lens Mod ($130), pitched as a lens for “professional-level artistic filmmaking.”

Just like the rest of GoPro’s HB-Series lenses, it’s easy to remove the Hero 13’s base lens and replace it with the much thicker Anamorphic lens. (It also comes with front and rear caps to store it safely when not attached to the camera.)

Given its size, it’s worth noting that this could mean some of your third-party cases and accessories might not quite wrap around the body of the Hero 13 once the lens is attached. However, it didn’t particularly affect the weight distribution when I mounted it on my tripod, but I was still wary about how exposed the front glass element is.

Once locked in, the Hero 13 switches to the appropriate camera mode, maximizing settings and calibrating precisely to the lens. You still have latitude in video settings, though: You can capture video in 5.3K up to 60fps and 4K up to 120fps for slow-motion cinematic scenes. If you want to go to town, you can also record GP-Log in 10-bit and if you’re buying a $130 accessory, you’re probably wanting to eke out everything the Hero 13 is capable of.

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Fortunately, this is GoPro, and the company made it very simple for even newbies to capture and share usable footage with its most unusual lens. The Hero 13 Black de-squeezes the footage while being captured, making for easier editing. (De-squeezing is correcting the oval-shaped distortion of your video footage caused by anamorphic lenses.)

Not only does this streamline editing post-production — it’s ready to share after you’ve finished recording — it also means the video preview on the Hero 13 shows it unfurled, making framing easier, too. The lens is also compatible with GoPro’s electronic image stabilizing tech, HyperSmooth, although the company recommends combining it with a gimbal for even smoother footage. If you want full control, you can also shoot in standard lens mode and manually de-squeeze footage in post-production.

And as it’s a true anamorphic lens (and not just a very, very wide lens), it can capture lens flares, too, with that anamorphic streak that’s become JJ Abrams’ trademark. It helps make my footage look like it came from a cinematic video camera, not an action cam.

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

The drawbacks are minor. As I mentioned earlier, I worry about damaging the lens, although it does have a hydrophobic, anti-reflective coating. Also, I found the most attractive opportunities for showing off those horizontal lens flares are usually shooting footage at night, or sunset. Unfortunately, the Hero 13 isn’t the most capable low-light camera, meaning my efforts to capture cool cityscape traffic produced results that were a little too shadowy. For the best footage, broadly, I’d max out ISO at 800 and shoot in 10-bit mode to try and salvage as much detail as possible.

The HB-series Anamorphic lens mod is available now for $130, while a $350 HB-Series Lens Collection bundle contains all three lenses and an ND Filter 4-Pack.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/gopro-anamorphic-lens-mod-hero-13-review-163200259.html?src=rss

Apple’s USB-C AirPods Max are $69 off ahead of Prime Day

Amazon’s Prime Day is fast approaching and the early deals are coming through thick and fast. One that is perhaps worth your attention is a discount on Apple’s USB-C AirPods Max. The headphones have dropped to $480, which is a $69 discount. The deal is available for all AirPods Max colorways except purple (sorry if you were holding out for a good deal on that variant!).

This isn’t the best price we’ve ever seen for the AirPods Max. They dipped to $450 during last year’s Black Friday period. Still, it’s a solid discount for anyone looking to pick up a pair now.

Apple finally refreshed the AirPods Max with a USB-C charging port and new colorways last fall. Earlier this year, the company updated the headphones with some new features, but only for the USB-C model. That version of the AirPods Max now supports lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio, though only in wired mode.

That update and the switch to USB-C charging are the only major changes Apple has made to the AirPods Max, which still otherwise use hardware from 2020. Even so, the headphones deliver high-quality audio with good active noise cancellation.

We gave the original version of the headphones a score of 84 in our review back in 2020. At the time, the lack of high-res music streaming was one of our main misgivings, but that has since been resolved. Another major negative for us was the price, though this offer mitigates that issue.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-usb-c-airpods-max-are-69-off-ahead-of-prime-day-144105490.html?src=rss

Tinder is mandating face checks for California residents

Tinder is requiring new users in California to verify their identities by using facial recognition, according to a report by Axios. The policy goes into effect today as a test program. The obvious reason behind this is to make sure people are who they say they are. Dating apps, after all, are a haven for scammers.

The platform’s Face Check feature prompts users to make a short video selfie. The face scan confirms the identity of the user by matching biometric indicators with profile photos. It also checks to see if the face has been used as a profile photo across multiple accounts.

Once verified, the user receives a badge on their profile and the video selfie is deleted. Tinder holds onto an encrypted face map to detect duplicates in the future. This is separate from ID Check, which asks users to scan a government-issued photo ID.

Parent company Match Group’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, says the requirement “is really meant to be about confirming that this person is a real, live person and not a bot or a spoofed account.”

Tinder has been experimenting with this idea for several years. It started testing in Japan back in 2020, before bringing the tech to Canada and Colombia earlier this year. Roth told Axios that California was chosen as the next test market due to its size, demographics and strong online safety and privacy laws. If successful, this could roll out as a nationwide program.

Match Group could be ramping up these verification efforts because of a recent bombshell investigation suggesting the company’s apps, which also include Hinge and OKCupid, failed to act on reports of sexual assault. The 18-month investigation reportedly found instances in which users were accused of drugging or assaulting dates and still allowed to remain on the company’s platforms.

The dating app space is in a period of uncertainty, with declines in revenue and paying users. Match Group recently announced that it’s cutting 13 percent of its staff and Bumble is cutting 30 percent of its workforce.

This move seeks to address one pain point behind dating apps, which is great, but the decline in usage is likely due to a number of factors. The pricing has gotten truly wild in recent years. Tinder, for instance, has multiple subscription tiers that average out to around $40 to $60 per month. On top of that, the company also sells “Super Likes” to the tune of $3 a pop and profile boosts at $8 each. It’s a microtransaction hell.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tinder-is-mandating-face-checks-for-california-residents-153441754.html?src=rss

The Project Hail Mary trailer looks like The Martian all over again (in a great way)

Andy Weir’s sci-fi books are practically built to be turned into movies, especially in the hands of great writers and directors. That’s what happened with The Martian, which was a delightfully nerdy self-published novel that was transformed into a thrilling film adaptation — thanks to Drew Goddard’s script and Ridley Scott’s bold direction. And I have a feeling the same will be true for the latest Weir adaptation, Project Hail Mary, judging from the first trailer released today.

It’s got everything: Ryan Gosling being funny-yet-heroic, snappy dialog thanks to another Goddard script and directors Philip Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street) out to prove their genius yet again with another seemingly impossible adaptation. What more could you ask for in a space epic?

On the surface, Project Hail Mary bares a resemblance to Danny Boyle’s under-loved Sunshine: Stars are dying, and humanity is scrambling for a way to save itself. But in this case, instead of a team of astronauts, Ryan Gosling’s school teacher Ryland Grace is our only savior. Bad news for us: he’s just getting up from years in a coma, and is also suffering from amnesia. The trailer makes it clear this will be an intergalactic adventure with plenty of surprises (and at least one plot element that wasn’t in The Martian).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-project-hail-mary-trailer-looks-like-the-martian-all-over-again-in-a-great-way-142119896.html?src=rss

Spotify adds genre controls to Discover Weekly

Spotify’s Discover Weekly is celebrating 10 years of being a very ok feature. To celebrate the milestone, Spotify is giving Discover Weekly a full refresh, letting you choose between up to five genres for the playlist.

The option will appear at the top of your playlist and provide songs based on your listening history. The 30-track playlist will update accordingly. There are also visual changes, with Spotify stating, “the playlist’s vibrant new design reflects its ever-evolving nature and the dynamic energy of weekly discovery.” Spotify claims that Discover Weekly has led to over 100 billion tracks streamed. It also notes that users find more than 56 million artists every week — 77 percent of which are emerging artists.

These updates will initially be available to just Spotify Premium users, though the platform plans to extend it more broadly soon. Genres will start being available on Discover Weekly today, rolling out to mobile accounts over the next few weeks.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-adds-genre-controls-to-discover-weekly-133531543.html?src=rss

Ban on state AI laws set to pass, after exemption deals struck on musicians’ rights and child safety

If there’s one thing the AI industry needs it’s more regulation. Yet, soon individual US states might not have much say in what AI companies can and can’t do thanks to Trump pleasing senators. That’s right, an AI-friendly amendment to the president’s tax legislation is on the road to approval — despite concerns that its shoehorning is illegal. The clause would prevent states from legislating the AI industry for five years, Bloomberg reports. Only states that cooperate will be allowed to access some of the $500 million of funding for AI infrastructure and the like included included in the bill.

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) cleared the way for it, agreeing to a deal on Sunday with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would exempt her home state’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act. Signed in early 2024, the ELVIS Act is meant to protect musicians from allowing AI to use their likeness and voice without permission.

As part of the new deal, Cruz reduced the ban from ten to five years — because five years of an unregulated AI industry surely won’t cause any damage. A fresh draft of the amendment, obtained by Politico, also includes exemptions for “a law or regulation pertaining to unfair or deceptive acts or practices, child online safety, child sexual abuse material, rights of publicity, protection of a person’s name, image, voice, or likeness and any necessary documentation for enforcement,” as long as they don’t place an “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI systems. An earlier version of the provision, that included the decade-long ban, passed the House in May.

While Blackburn’s decision will likely push it forward, Republican governors across the country have also voiced their disdain for the amendment. On Friday, 17 governors sent a letter asking for its removal (after sucking up about the rest of the tax bill, of course). They stated that it “threatens to undo all the work states have done to protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ban-on-state-ai-laws-set-to-pass-after-exemption-deals-struck-on-musicians-rights-and-child-safety-120039408.html?src=rss

Canada caves to Trump and rescinds its digital service tax on big tech

Canada has folded in its battle with US President Donald Trump over tariffs by cancelling its proposed digital services tax (DST) on big tech companies, the government announced. On Friday, Trump ended trade talks over the levy, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.” However, discussions have resumed now that the DST is gone, according to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The DST has been in effect since last year but Canada was due to collect the first payments totalling around $2 billion on June 30. However, those will now be halted. “To support those negotiations, the Minister of Finance… announced today that Canada would rescind the Digital Services Tax (DST) in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States,” the Department of Finance wrote yesterday.

With the DST, Canada planned to apply a three percent tax on content from large tech firms that relied on engagement from Canadian users. The justification was that 70 percent of ad revenue spending in the nation (an estimated $25 billion this year) goes toward US firms like Google and Meta, but those companies don’t pay corporate taxes in Canada. Some of funds collected under the DST would have been funnelled to media companies hurt by Google and Meta’s ad dominance.

The levy was opposed by not only the US government under the Biden and Trump administrations, but businesses in Canada too. Local companies were concerned it would increase their costs after Google, for one, said it would increase ad rates by at least 2.5 percent in Canada to cover the cost of the DST.

The capitulation is a large victory for Trump and a windfall for his tech company benefactors. However, Canada has been hammered by Trump’s 25 percent tariffs to the tune of billions on metals, minerals and other goods, so Carney’s government likely felt it necessary to sacrifice the DST.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/canada-caves-to-trump-and-rescinds-its-digital-service-tax-on-big-tech-120045575.html?src=rss