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Instagram is expanding two of its safety features in an effort to ramp up its bullying protections for teens. The company is changing how limiting and restricting work in its app to give teens ways to deal with potential bullies that it claims are less likely to lead to further retaliation.

With the changes, Instagram users will have the ability to “limit” their post interactions to “close friends” only. That means that users will only see comments, direct messages, tags and mentions from people on their close friends list. Other followers will still be able to interact with their posts, but those comments and messages won’t be visible to others.

The company previously introduced comment limiting as a creator-focused anti-bullying feature in 2021 with the goal of preventing the kind of sudden flood of harassment experienced by several UK football players. The latest changes, according to Instagram, are geared more toward teens who are dealing with bullies, but may be hesitant to use the app’s block feature due to fears of escalating potential conflicts,

For cases when people may be dealing with one particular bully, Instagram is making similar changes to its “restrict” feature. Users will be able to prevent restricted individuals from tagging or mentioning them. Comments from those on the restricted list will also be automatically hidden from others.

The updates comes as Meta is facing scrutiny over its handling of teen safety and other issues. The company was sued by dozens of states last year for allegedly failing to protect its youngest users from harmful aspects of its service.

Amazon is permanently offering free restaurant delivery via Grubhub+ as part of its Prime subscription, the company announced. If you live in the US and pay $139 per year for a Prime subscription, you'll pay no fee for eligible GrubHub orders over $12. You'll also see lower service fees, 5 percent credit back on pickup orders and exclusive offers. 

That works out to a value of $120 per year, according to Amazon. The retail giant had previously offered Prime clients a free one-year subscription to GrubHub+, but once it auto-renewed, you had to pay $129 per year on top of your Prime subscription. Now, it appears to be a permanent Prime inclusion.

Amazon's US customers can access GrubHub on Amazon.com and in the Amazon Shopping app with an "identical" ordering experience and prices to Grubhub.com or Grubhub's app, according to Amazon. To activate the offer, go to Amazon.com/grubhub. On top of the free delivery, Prime members can get $5 off GrubHub orders of $25 or more through June 2nd.

Though widely used, restaurant delivery services have been controversial. Both restaurants and customers complain about high delivery fees, and drivers are often receive low pay while shouldering heavy workloads. Most fees don't go to the driver, so many customers feel the need to add a tip onto the already high fees. In Europe, a deal was recently struck to reclassify millions of food delivery app workers as employees. 

Amazon's Prime membership includes other perks like Prime Video and free same-day delivery. However, it recently added an additional $3 per month fee to get Prime Video without ads (except for sporting events), and unlimited grocery delivery from Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh costs an additional $10 per month. 

Sometimes, having to open a link from within another app on mobile could be disruptive and take you away from the task you were trying to accomplish. Now an update for Chrome could help keep you focused with the task at hand. When you click on a link within Gmail, for instance, and open a Chrome tab within the app, you can tap on the chevron icon in the toolbar right next to the "x" or the close button to minimize the browser. That turns the open tab into a compact, floating picture-in-picture window that you can drag anywhere on the screen. 

You can keep it minimized while you use the original app, and the moment you're ready to look at its contents, you only have to tap the floating window to restore the tab to its original size. We were already able to use the new feature on Android within Gmail. You'll also be able to take advantage of it soon if you don't have it yet, as long as your default browser is Chrome and you keep it updated. The feature is even enabled by default, so you don't have to do anything to switch it on. Of course, you can always send an in-app tab to the Chrome browser if keeping different tasks open in separate windows makes you more productive.

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Newly proposed Congressional legislation would require the US to conduct security reviews for connected vehicles built by automakers from China and “other countries of concern.” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official who has championed the issue, introduced the bill on Wednesday.

If passed by Congress (a tall order these days), the Connected Vehicle National Security Review Act would establish a formal review process for connected autos from Chinese companies. It would also allow the Department of Commerce to limit or ban these cars and other vehicles before they reach US consumers.

“Today’s vehicles are more sophisticated than ever, carrying cameras, radars and other sophisticated sensors, plus the ability to process, transmit and store the data they gather from the United States,” said Slotkin. “If allowed into our markets, Chinese connected vehicles offer the Chinese government a treasure trove of valuable intelligence on the United States, including the potential to collect information on our military bases, critical infrastructure like the power grid and traffic systems, and even locate specific U.S leaders should they so choose.”

Rep. Elissa Slotkin

In a speech on the House floor earlier this month, Slotkin noted that Chinese EVs, often sold much cheaper than their US and European counterparts, could quickly gain a significant share of the American market. She cited how Chinese vehicles, first sold in Europe in 2019, now make up almost a quarter of its market. The representative also recently pushed Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on the security gap.

Alternatively (and perhaps ideally), legislators could pass a comprehensive data privacy law rather than dealing with these issues piecemeal.

The bill’s introduction follows the Biden Administration’s quadrupling of import tariffs on Chinese EVs. The White House’s new EV levies grew from 25 percent to 100 percent, following China’s EV exports rising 70 percent between 2022 and 2023.

In February, the White House also ordered the Department of Commerce to investigate the risks of connected vehicles from China and other adversaries. However, that action was conducted through an executive order and could be undone by future administrations. Slotkin’s legislation would close those loopholes if it makes it through Congress — rarely a safe bet in today’s highly obstructed and contentious political environment.

Last week, Sony published a seemingly innocuous bit of fluff, touting its long-term "creative entertainment vision" in broad terms, along with some interviews of key employees. Neil Druckmann, studio head of Sony's Naughty Dog, was one of those — and his interview made waves in the game world. According to the interview, Druckmann said AI could "create nuanced dialogues and characters" and also said that the new game Naughty Dog was developing (but hasn't officially announced) "could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming." Some mighty strong and potentially controversial statements from the head of a studio beloved for its The Last of Us and Uncharted franchises. 

Problem is, Druckmann was wildly misquoted by his own employers. A few days after Sony published its interview, Druckmann took to X and said "this is not quite what I said." He then went full Ellie-in-revenge-mode on Sony, posting a section of the original interview transcript. (He was actually pretty polite if we're being honest — even the powerful can only bite the hand that feeds so hard.) Regardless, things here do not add up.

Gaming reporter Stephen Totilo shared his own comparison of what Druckmann said and what Sony published, bolding the words in Sony's answer that Druckmann never said — and those words were the majority of the quote. Sony basically put words in his mouth and published them, kicking off a classic gamer freakout. 

To be fair, if I was Druckmann, I'd be pretty pissed too. Look at this butchery!

Now, five days later, Sony has removed the interview from its site entirely. However, they didn't just delete the page — they left it up with an apology to Neil and the Naughty Dog team "for any negative impact this interview might have caused." 

My favorite bit is easily this: 

In re-reviewing our recent interview with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, we have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don't represent his perspective and values (including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects).Sony

So everything he said about animation, writing, technology, AI and future projects had errors. Hey, at least they nailed his name and title.

For the morbidly curious, you can still read the "interview" on archive.org.

Framework, the company known for making unique modular laptops, just announced the latest iteration of its Laptop 13. The big news here is that these computers now come equipped with Intel Core Ultra Series 1 processors, which should offer a serious boost in power along with improved efficiency and battery life. These processors also support up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM, so you can make sure your model is relatively future-proof.

A laptop isn’t just a processor, however, so the Laptop 13 features all kinds of iterative improvements over previous models. There are multiple display options, and the best one features a resolution of 2880x1920 and a refresh rate of 120Hz. That’ll certainly be quite handy for gaming.

There’s a new 9.2MP webcam that steals a bit of tech from modern smartphone cameras to deliver “amazing 1080p performance, especially in low-light conditions.” Framework has also moved to lower-noise microphones for audio clarity.

Of course, this is Framework, so the Laptop 13 is modular. The company offers an array of customization options, including new expansion cards and system modules. There are some new multi-colored USB-C expansion cards and a forthcoming SD expansion card for easy flash storage. It also offers pre-configured models to suit different consumers. For instance, there’s a business version that comes with a 3-year warranty and pre-installed Windows 11 Pro with Autopilot support.

Preorders are available right now, with deliveries starting next month. The Laptop 13 starts at $1,100.

In the last few months, news organizations have leapt into bed with OpenAI, hatching Faustian bargains where the cash-strapped  media industry exchanges a monetary pittance for OpenAI's right to scrape and integrate their content into things like ChatGPT. Those that have signed in blood include News Corp (publisher of the Wall Street Journal), the Financial Times, People magazine publisher Dotdash Meredith, the AP, and now, as Axios reports, The Atlantic and Vox Media.

The Atlantic quickly confirmed this new deal in a statement on its site. The publication says that it'll be a "premium news source" in OpenAI and that all its citations will be clearly attributed to The Atlantic with links back to the original content. There are concerns from publishers that users of AI chatbots don't actually need to go to the original sources; perhaps the calculus is that, for an industry in the twilight of its lifespan, some inbound link traffic is better than none. Then again, by agreeing to be scraped at all, perhaps The Atlantic is effectively wading directly into the tarpit of its own extinction (and of media as a whole). 

There will also be an experimental "microsite" called Atlantic Labs that'll showcase "new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers." There's no indication yet that that content will involve anything created directly by AI, as sites like CNET and Sports Illustrated have tried with disastrous results.

According to Axios, Vox Media (publisher of its flagship news site Vox, tech site The Verge, the network of sports blogs under the SB Nation banner and many more) will have a similar style of attribution for its content. We've reached out to the company and will update this story if we get any confirmation or details on its deal with Open AI.

Vox Media is also said to be using OpenAI data both internally and in public-facing content. Axios mentions using OpenAI to "match shoppers" with content endorsed by Vox's many commerce channels, like The Strategist section of New York Magazine. Internally, Vox will use OpenAI to as part of its advertising platform to tweak ad creative to make visitors more likely to click; it'll also help them target ads at people likely to buy stuff from them. Details on how both of these programs will work is minimal right now, though.

While a number of publishers have been quick to embrace AI, not everyone is so enthused. The New York Times sued both OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement in December, saying that both companies use its material without permission to train their models. More recently, eight publications owned by the Alden Capital Group, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, sued both companies with a similar complaint. At this point, it seems like it's either spend time and money in a lawsuit to go after OpenAI's rampant intellectual theft or cut a deal that'll make you some spending cash in a dire media market. 

It was only last week The Atlantic published its own screed decrying media organizations which had taken petty cash from AI interlopers in exchange for something of significantly greater value. The odds unfortunately suggest this story (and my moral high ground) will age just as poorly in the near future.

Sony promised earlier this year that it would free the PlayStation VR2 from the shackles of the PS5 by letting folks use it with their PC. We’re starting to get a fuller picture of what that might look like, as the company appears to be working on a PC adapter for the headset.

A Korean filing recently unearthed by VR and mixed-reality enthusiast Brad Lynch (as noted by The Verge) indicates that the company has created such a peripheral. There are no details on how the adapter works, what it looks like or how much it will cost, but it lends credence to previous evidence that the headset would have a wired PC connection.

It’s unclear what kind of connectivity Sony is looking at here. Unlike its convoluted predecessor, PS VR2 hooks up to the PS5 with a single USB-C cable. Meta Quest headsets, meanwhile, use a USB 3 connection for PC gaming. Perhaps Sony is looking at tapping into DisplayPort or HDMI ports to improve image fidelity.

The company will be hoping that PC support will help drive sales of its headset, which hasn’t exactly set the world alight. The PS VR2 hardware is actually pretty great, but it's been held back by several factors, including a limited library of games via PS5. Users will have a far larger selection of VR games to dive into on PC.

As it happens, the PS VR2 is currently $100 off as part of Sony’s Days of Play sale. The discount applies to both the standalone headset (down from $550 to $450) and the Horizon: Call of the Mountain bundle, which has dropped to $500.