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A federal judge has expanded on the remedies decided for the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Google, ruling in favor of putting a one-year limit on the contracts that make Google's search and AI services the default on devices, Bloomberg reports. Judge Amit Mehta's ruling on Friday means Google will have to renegotiate these contacts every year, which would create a fairer playing field for its competitors. The new details come after Mehta ruled in September that Google would not have to sell off Chrome, as the DOJ proposed at the end of 2024.
This all follows the ruling last fall that Google illegally maintained an internet search monopoly through actions including paying companies such as Apple to make its search engine the default on their devices and making exclusive deals around the distribution of services such as Search, Chrome and Gemini. Mehta's September ruling put an end to these exclusive agreements and stipulates that Google will have to share some of its search data with rivals to "narrow the scale gap" its actions have created.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/judge-puts-a-one-year-limit-on-googles-contracts-for-default-search-placement-215549
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Both phones are amazing, but which one takes better photos? As a professional photographer, I wanted to find out.
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The big reveal for Meta's next mixed reality glasses is being postponed until the first half of 2027, according to a report from Business Insider. Based on an internal memo from Maher Saba, the vice president of Meta's Reality Labs Foundation, the report said that the company's project, which is codenamed "Phoenix," will no longer be scheduled for a 2026 debut.
In a separate memo, Meta execs explained that the delay would help deliver a more "polished and reliable experience." According to BI, a memo from Meta's Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns said this new release window is "going to give us a lot more breathing room to get this right." Meta hasn't publicly revealed many details about its Phoenix project, but The Information previously reported that it would feature a goggle-like form factor with an external power source, similar to how the Apple Vision Pro is attached to a battery pack.
In the memo from Saba, BI reported that Meta is also working on a "limited edition" wearable with the codename "Malibu 2." Yesterday, Meta announced its acquisition of Limitless, a star
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If you want to lower your heating bill, we break down the savings of a space heater versus central heat.
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To prevent its robotaxi fleet from passing stopped school buses, Waymo is issuing another software recall in 2025. While it's not a traditional recall that pulls vehicles from the road, Waymo is voluntarily updating software for its autonomous fleet in response to an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to Waymo, the recall will be filed with the federal agency early next week.
Mauricio Peña, Waymo's chief safety officer, said in a statement that Waymo sees far fewer crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers, but that the company knows when "our behavior should be better."
"As a result, we have made the decision to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios," Peña said in a statement to multiple news outlets. "We will continue analyzing our vehicles' performance and making necessary fixes as part of our commitment to continuous improvement."
According to the NHTSA investigation, some Waymo autonomous vehicles were seen failing to stop for school buses that had their stop signs and flashing lights deployed. The federal agency said in the report that there were instances of Waymo cars driving past stopped school buses in Atlanta and Austin, Texas.
Earlier this year, Waymo issued another software recall
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Eating well is good for your eyes. But sometimes you need the boost from supplements.
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On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Samsung's new Galaxy Z TriFold smartphone and how it could compare to Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone.
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 You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed at mass government surveillance, try, try again. Only two days after India backpedaled on its plan to force smartphone makers to preinstall a state-run "cybersecurity" app, Reuters reports that the country is back at it. It's said to be considering a telecom industry proposal with another draconian requirement. This one would require smartphone makers to enable always-on satellite-based location tracking (Assisted GPS).
The measure would require location services to remain on at all times, with no option to switch them off. The telecom industry also wants phone makers to disable notifications that alert users when their carriers have accessed their location. According to Reuters, India's home ministry was set to meet with smartphone industry executives on Friday, but the meeting was postponed.
Ind
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We've been monitoring the upcoming rock climbing game Cairn for several months, as have the many folks who've already enjoyed the demo — which has an impressive 99 percent rating on Steam. In September, developer The Game Bakers pushed back the game's planned 2025 debut to give some extra time for polish. Today, the team dropped a fresh trailer announcing the revised launch date for the project. Cairn will be available on January 29, 2026 for Steam and PlayStation 5 for $30.
The Game Bakers have a solid track record of indie gems, often with a strong, unique sense of place and character. The survival-climbing experience seems like an excellent new topic for the team behind games including Haven and Furi. Cairn captures the intensity of winding your way up a mountain and paints a psychological portrait of the people who are drawn to tackling that mental and physical challenge. And if you find the basic gameplay isn't difficult enough, there will also be a
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If you're unaware, the Media Creation Tool is a super-simple way to download a small program from Microsoft and bake it onto a USB drive that can then be used to install a copy of Windows on a PC. It's an excellent method for installing fresh and starting from scratch, especially if you need to do so for another computer, say, in aid of family tech support. The Media Creation Tool has been around in various flavors for years, and it's periodically updated as a separate piece of software… and the latest update has broken it for some users on Windows 10.
That's according to Microsoft itself, who filed it as a bug on October 10th (that's 11 days after the tool was updated). According to the official "Known Issues" page for Windows (spotted by Windows Latest), Windows 10 machines on the 22H2 release are seeing the tool "close unexpectedly, displaying no error message."
The fact that this was an update to the tool that immediately preceded the self-imposed deadline that Microsoft set for a Windows 11 upgrade is u
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Sometimes you can notice the signs of a failing SSD. For instance, the once-quick transfer speed slows to crawl, there are frequent program or system crashes, or file system access errors or SMART errors occur. If you notice these things, especially in combination, there's a good chance your SSD is on its way out. In that case, it's time to prepare for the worst and do the following:
Back up critical files
It goes without saying that the first thing you'll want to do if you think your SSD is on the blink is to back up your critical data. Backups should be done regularly anyway, but even if you're doing that, you'll still want to make a new backup of your critical files at this point to have them ready to go should your SSD suddenly die.
See our roundups of the best Windows backup software and
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If you go on vacation or a business trip, chances are you're going to need a data cable for your phone anyway, and an extra can't hurt. But a power-only cable is a handy way of securing your phone no matter what out-of-the-way, dodgy hotel or airport you end up in.
Some people call these "USB condoms," usually referring to a dongle that you can buy that blocks data from being transferred over the USB connection. In this case, "data" equals malware. Is a foreign government or hacker group building in standalone devices to push malware to your phone? Do credit-card skimmers exist? Okay then. If a malicious cable can be used to conceal malware, the wall port sure can.
I recently returned from a pair of trips to Arizona and Hawaii, and had planned to invest in a data-only USB-C cable anyway. As it turned out, Plugable alerted me about its entrance into the market, and asked if I'd like to try one out. The company offers a few cables of different lengths, and I think that Plugable's $15.95 6-foot-cable works best, if only because it accommodates awkwardly placed outlets in airports, airplanes, and hotels. (There are also cheaper, shorter options.)
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AI services like Perplexity or OpenAI's SearchGPT could be search engine options in a future version of Safari, Bloomberg reports. The tentative plans were shared by Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, while on the stand for Google's ongoing search antitrust case. Cue was called to testify because of the deal Google and Apple have to keep Google Search as the default search engine on the iPhone.
Cue claims Apple has discussed a possible Safari-integration with Perplexity, but didn't share any definitive plans during his testimony. It's clear that he believes AI assistants will inevitably supplant traditional search engines, though. "Prior to AI, my feeling around this was, none of the others were valid choices," Cue said. "I think today there is much greater potential because there are new entrants attacking the problem in a different way."
Whatever AI search Apple ultimately adds likely won't be the default at first, according to Cue, but "there's enough money now, enough large players, that I don't see how it doesn't happen." There's some evidence to back up the idea that things are changing, too.
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The Windows 11 2023 Update has been released, but behind the scenes, Microsoft is constantly working to improve the newest version of Windows. The company frequently rolls out public preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and even help shape — upcoming features.
Skip to the builds
The Windows Insider program is divided into four channels:
The Canary Channel is where platform changes (such as major updates to the Windows kernel and new APIs) are previewed. These changes are not tied to a particular Windows release and may never ship at all. Little documentation is provided, and builds are likely to be very unstable. This channel is best for highly technical users.
The Dev Channel is where new features are introduced for initial testing, regardless of which Windows release they'll eventually end up in. This channel is best for technical users and developers and builds in it may be unstable and buggy.
In the Beta Channel, you'll get more polished features that will be deployed in the next major Windows release. This channel is best for early adopters, and Microsoft says your feedback in this channel will have the most impact.
The Release Preview Channel typically doesn't see action until shortly before a new feature update is rolled out. It's meant for final testing of an upcoming release and is best for those who want the most stable builds.
The Beta and Release Preview Channels also receive bug-fix builds for the currently shipping version of Windows 11. See "How to preview and deploy Windows 10 and 11 updates" for more details about the four channels and how to switch to a different channel.
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 The U.S. Justice Department proposed on Wednesday that Congress take up legislation to curb protections big tech platforms like Alphabet's Google and Facebook have had for decades, a senior official said, following through on President Donald Trump's bid to crack down on tech giants.
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 Meituan Dianping is bucking the trend of recent high-profile Chinese tech IPOs, pricing its shares near the top of the range.
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