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Amazon is shutting down the Prime Invitee program which allowed members to extend free shipping to people outside their household. An updated support page says sharing through Invitee will end on October 1 and that previously invited guests will be notified by September 5 of the changes.

The Verge is reporting that users who don’t live with the primary account owner will be prompted to create their own Amazon Prime accounts and will be offered a discounted rate of $14.99 for the entire first year and then the standard rate of $14.99 per month thereafter. We’ve reached out to Amazon to see what measures the company plans to take to prevent account sharing beyond limiting deliveries to one address and will update if we hear back.

The company is encouraging users to take advantage of Amazon Family, which allows the sharing of Prime benefits among multiple people under the same roof. This arrangement is limited to two adults including the primary account holder and up to four children. Up to four teens can also be included if they were added before April 7, 2025. Household members who participate in Amazon Family can access free shipping, Prime Video and more.

Many major subscription-based online services have been cracking down on sharing recently, especially streamers like HBO Max and Disney+. Reuters recently reported that despite a record four-day Prime Day this year, Amazon fell short of its goals for new Prime account sign-ups.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-ends-shared-prime-shipping-182513989.html?src=rss 

The Google TV Streamer 4K is back on sale for just $80, which is a discount of 20 percent. The deal is available via Amazon, but also through retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. This beats a recent Prime Day promotion by $4.

The TV Streamer 4K topped our list of the best streaming devices. It’s a smartly-designed product that just works. We enjoyed the clean interface and the fantastic remote that ships with the device.

The processor is speedy and this thing can stream content in 4K at 60FPS. It integrates with HDR, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. On the audio side of things, it supports formats like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos. It can even handle spatial audio, so long as you’re wearing the Pixel Buds Pro earbuds.

The interface includes a smart home control hub, which we praised in our official review. This lets users easily control smart lights and thermostats, among other gadgets. The TV Streamer 4K also offers voice control, which we found to be useful.

There are only two minor knocks with this one. The original asking price is on the higher end, but this sale alleviates that concern. The unit also includes some fairly useless AI integration, but it’s 2025 so what else is new?

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-google-tv-streamer-4k-is-back-on-sale-for-80-183511035.html?src=rss 

Google is readying an update for its Play Games app that will introduce stats and milestones to your all-new profile. From September 23 (October 1 in the EU and UK), other players will be able to see which games you’ve played and for how long, as well as any achievements you’ve unlocked. Google says there will also be new “social features,” but it’s not yet clear what they’ll be.

It sounds a lot like Google’s take on Steam profiles (similar features are also available on PlayStation and Xbox) and the company says it will be collecting usage data for games you’ve installed or played previously, adding that it may pass on information about your in-game activity to developers. You can also choose to import your past activity on a one-time basis, which Google pulls from your account history and then uses to populate your Play Games profile statistics from the start. You’re already able to decide whether data related to gaming is collected through Activity Controls in your account settings.

It’s up to you whether people can see your profile or not. If you make it public, other people can follow you and snoop on your gaming activity, but you can also choose to hide it if you don’t want anyone to know how many hours you’ve spent playing Angry Birds. You’re also free to delete your Play Games profile entirely, along with all of the data it’s using.

Google’s overhauled gaming profiles will arrive around the same time as Apple’s annual software updates for all of its devices, which will introduce a new dedicated gaming app, simply called Games. Pre-installed on all updated Mac, iPhone and iPad devices, it effectively replaces Game Center and will behave more like a modern gaming hub. Games will feature leaderboards, matchmaking services, recommendations and news regarding new titles. And like Google’s offering, you’ll be able to see what your friends are playing.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/googles-play-games-update-will-show-people-what-youre-playing-164549921.html?src=rss 

Paramount has just signed a deal with Microsoft and Activision to make a movie based on the iconic Call of Duty franchise. The valuation of the deal hasn’t been revealed, but CoD is a mighty lucrative IP.

We don’t know much about the specifics of the deal, other than it covers a live-action feature film that Paramount will develop, produce and distribute. This means we don’t have any information about the cast, creative team or what game or era the film will pull from.

After all, there have been more than 30 mainline games in the franchise. Some of the standard Call of Duty games could make for decent, yet slightly derivative, war movies, while the more futuristic titles could spin out into sci-fi epics.

Variety reports that this could just be the beginning. The deal is for one movie but industry sources indicate that there’s potential here for Paramount to expand the franchise to more movies and TV shows. Get ready for the CoDCU.

Paramount recently completed an $8 billion merger with Skydance, after making some controversial moves that were widely seen as appeasements to President Trump to secure the blessing of the FCC. Since that happened, the newly-formed media conglomerate has been on a spending spree.

It lured the creators of Stranger Things away from Netflix and shelled out over $7.7 billion for exclusive rights to UFC events for the next seven years. The company recently announced plans to double its yearly theatrical output, eventually hoping to release 20 films annually. As for games, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 arrives on November 14.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/call-of-duty-is-getting-the-movie-treatment-courtesy-of-paramount-171408410.html?src=rss 

Tesla has released part four of its so-called “Master Plan” in a post on X. Unlike the more focused “Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan,” which outlined concrete plans for future products, this “Master Plan Part IV” reads more like a rambling utopic fever dream that was partly written by Grok, while touching on Tesla’s AI-powered products.

Tesla says it intends to “deliver unconstrained sustainability without compromise,” and that the company is “unifying our hardware and software at scale” in order to create a “safer, cleaner and more enjoyable world” through “sustainable abundance.” Specifics on what any of that actually means were largely absent throughout the manifesto.

Over the post’s 1000 words, Tesla waxes poetic about how semiconductors and the internet changed the world, employs self-aggrandizing language about pushing forward the electric vehicle market and shares extremely vague depictions of a future molded by the company’s products.

“How we develop and use autonomy — and the new capabilities it makes available to us — should be informed by its ability to enhance the human condition,” the company writes in one particularly vague passage. “Making daily life better — and safer — for all people through our autonomous technology has always been, and continues to be, our focus.”

Another passage reads, “We must make one thing clear: this challenge will be extremely difficult to overcome. The elimination of scarcity will require tireless and exquisite execution. Some will perceive it as impossible. And plenty of others will laud every obstacle and setback we inevitably encounter along the way. But once we overcome this challenge, our critics will come to see that what they once thought was impossible is indeed possible. And that will be fine with us, because what matters most is that, together, we create a sustainable and truly abundant future for generations to come.”

The Tesla Master Plans have been treated with almost religious reverence in tech circles over the years as fans of the electric car company and its polarizing CEO point to them as evidence of Musk’s visionary thinking.

The first Master Plan, authored by Musk in 2006, espoused lofty but specific goals, many of which ultimately came to pass. In it, Musk laid out how “The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market … and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.”

This is exactly what the company did, leveraging earnings from the 2008 Roadster to build the Model S in 2012 and Model X in 2015, then using those profits to create the Model 3 in 2017 and Model Y in 2020, the latter of which went on to become the best-selling car in the world in both 2023 and 2024.

The second Master Plan, published in 2016, was the last one with Musk’s name attributed to it and laid out a vision for Solar Roof and Powerwall, the need to create an electric pickup truck and semi, the future of autonomous driving and a plan for a fleet of robotaxis. Tesla’s energy generation and storage business now accounts for 10 percent of company revenues. The Cybertruck and Semi both launched years later though have not yet proven successful, and Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” has been in beta for years. Meanwhile, robotaxis saw a limited launch with in-vehicle supervisors earlier this summer.

Master Plan Part 3 was a stark departure from the more focused initial duo. It’s basically a 40-page white paper with fanciful ambitions for a decarbonized future. It was heavy on data but short on product roadmaps.

Part IV really jumped the shark, and while it tells us that “we are on the cusp of a revolutionary period primed for unprecedented growth” and that “this time it will not be a single step but a leap forward for Tesla and humanity as a whole,” it offers little by way of how the company plans to accomplish that leap.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/teslas-latest-master-plan-isnt-a-mission-statement-its-a-discursive-mess-162301466.html?src=rss 

OpenAI has promised to release parental controls for ChatGPT within the next month, the company said Tuesday. Once the controls are available, they’ll allow parents to link their personal ChatGPT account with the accounts of their teenage children. From there, parents will be able to decide how ChatGPT responds to their kids, and disable select features, including memory and chat history. Additionally, ChatGPT will generate automated alerts when it detects a teen is in a “moment of acute distress.” According to OpenAI, “expert input will guide this feature to support trust between parents and teens.”

The announcement of parental controls comes after OpenAI was sued in the first known instance of a wrongful death lawsuit against an AI company. In a lawsuit filed last week, Matt and Maria Raine, the parents of a teen who committed suicide this year, allege ChatGPT was aware of four failed suicide attempts by their son before helping him plan his death. The Raines said ChatGPT provided their son Adam with information on specific suicide methods, and even gave him tips on how to hide neck injuries sustained from his previous failed attempts.      

On Tuesday, OpenAI said parental controls are part of a broader effort by the company to improve safety on ChatGPT. Separately, the company has promised to work with additional experts, including those who specialize in eating disorders, substance use and adolescent health, to fine tune its models. 

The company has also promised to deploy a new real-time router designed to funnel sensitive conversations through its reasoning models. “Trained with a method we call deliberative alignment, our testing shows⁠ that reasoning models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines and are more resistant to adversarial prompts,” said OpenAI. Moving forward, in situations where ChatGPT detects a person may be in distress, the chatbot will direct those conversations through a reasoning model, regardless of the model the user selected before starting the conversation. 

More broadly, OpenAI says people can expect more safety features in the future. “This work has already been underway, but we want to proactively preview our plans for the next 120 days, so you won’t need to wait for launches to see where we’re headed,” OpenAI said. “The work will continue well beyond this period of time, but we’re making a focused effort to launch as many of these improvements as possible this year.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-adding-parental-controls-to-chatgpt-144128085.html?src=rss