Kalakshar US

When I was a preteen, social media was just getting going, so there weren’t many restrictions in place regarding access. Now, regulations — and the consequences of not having them — are everywhere, with the latest example coming courtesy of Meta (a case study for all the good and bad social media has to offer). Meta has announced it’s opening up Horizon Worlds to preteens with parent-approved access to a Meta account.

Anyone aged 10 to 12 can soon request entry to the VR game and explore different worlds like The Space Station or Citadel. Each world is also getting a rating of ages 10+, 13+ or 18+, with ones in the last category not shown as an option to anyone 17 or younger. Parents can either approve all worlds in a specific age bracket, go through and pick specific ones or wait for their kid to send a request.

Further safety features in Horizon Worlds for preteens include the fact that voice chat is disabled for everyone except parent-approved contacts, there are no follow suggestions and there are automatic offline status and visibility settings — something only a parent can change. All parent-managed accounts will also permanently have the personal boundary feature turned on, stopping other avatars from getting too close. Plus, anyone using a Meta Quest 2 or 3 headset will have to re-enter their birthday before playing.

As thought out as these measures seem, parents and guardians might not want to trust that Meta will take care of everything without question. The company has hardly kept young people’s well-being at the forefront of their decisions, with lawmakers slamming (and suing) Meta for its disregard. Nearly every state across the US has taken part in lawsuits alleging Meta hooks teenagers onto its platforms and repeatedly promotes safety features while ignoring staff pleas to devote more time and resources to protecting children. Our deep dive into all of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s dangerous decisions (including the company taking minimal action to stop adults from sexually harassing children on Facebook and Instagram) is available here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-open-up-horizon-worlds-access-to-preteens-130059930.html?src=rss 

Yelp has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. The move caps off years of animosity between the two companies, with Yelp alleging that Google has leveraged its control over online searching to dominate local queries and prioritize its own reviews. CNN first reported on the lawsuit.

“Google abuses its monopoly power in general search to keep users within Google’s owned ecosystem and prevents them from going to rival sites,” Yelp Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said in a blog post announcing the suit. “This anticompetitive conduct siphons traffic and advertising revenue from vertical search services, like Yelp, that provide objectively higher quality local business content for consumers.”

The US lawsuit could carry extra weight following a Department of Justice case where the judge deemed Google a monopolist over search. The August ruling did not place any sanctions on Google, but it’s likely that Yelp’s case will be the first of many brought by the tech company’s competitors.

While this lawsuit centers on the US, Yelp has also been sounding off about Google’s practices overseas. The European Digital Markets Act was meant to loosen some of the company’s stranglehold over search results with rules to prevent massive tech businesses from favoring their own services. But Yelp argued that Google’s attempt at DMA compliance actually made users less likely to leave the Google ecosystem.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update with their response.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/yelp-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google-230228737.html?src=rss 

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been formally charged by French prosecutors and is barred from leaving the country amid their investigation into the Russian billionaire. Durov was officially charged Wednesday with “complicity in distributing child pornography, illegal drugs and hacking software” on the messaging app he founded, as well as “refusing to cooperate with investigations into illegal activity on the Telegram,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Durov, who was arrested outside of Paris on Saturday, was released from police custody after paying €5 million in bail. He is required to stay in France “under court monitoring” and check in at a police station twice a week while the investigation plays out. That could take months or possibly years, as The WSJ points out.

That means Durov, who is known for frequently moving around and working from other countries, will be stuck in France for the foreseeable future unless the charges against him are dropped. In an earlier statement, Telegram called the charges against its founder “absurd” and said that he should not be responsible for the actions of his app’s users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-has-been-charged-and-released-from-police-custody-214333241.html?src=rss 

ESPN launched a feature called Where to Watch in its app and website. This guide is a list of all the sporting events happening on a given day and, fittingly, where you can watch them. The resource covers not just ESPN’s own channels, but also broadcast, cable and regional sports networks and streaming services. Users can prioritize their favorite leagues and teams to make details about those games front and center. People who are authenticated pay TV customers or ESPN+ subscribers can click through to watch the live events if they are an ESPN network stream or a select partner network.

ESPN is hardly the first to come up with this idea. In fact, you can already see a comprehensive list of all kinds of athletic events on the Sports page of Just Watch. But the fact that it’s such a useful tool is a sign of just how convoluted it can be to watch a specific game. Sports leagues are fragmented across a host of rights deals that mean your team might play on one media platform one night and a totally different one the next. For instance, NBA and WNBA matches will predominantly be on ESPN in the coming years. Except for when the games are on NBC and Peacock. And when they’re on Prime Video. Resources like Just Watch or ESPN’s Where to Watch might give you the information, but they don’t reduce the costs of being a loyal viewer.

If that wasn’t enough, there are also new sports-centric streaming options on the horizon from ESPN. The Disney-owned company is planning to offer a standalone streaming subscription next year and it’s also a partner in the proposed Venu sports streaming package (although that’s hit some hurdles).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/espns-where-to-watch-offers-a-tv-and-streaming-guide-to-sports-viewing-221350244.html?src=rss