Tidal has followed Apple Music, Deezer and Amazon Music by increasing the price of its base HiFi subscription. Starting on August 1st, the cost of an individual membership is going up by $1 to $11 per month in the US, while the family plan will run you $17 per month, an increase of $2. According to Billboard, prices are going up in other markets too.

It's not yet clear whether the Tidal HiFi Plus tier is affected. This $20 per month plan includes Dolby Atmos Music, Sony 360 Audio and Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) tracks. There appear to be no changes to the free tier, student plan and discounted military membership for now. Engadget has contacted Tidal for clarification.

Several of Tidal's rivals have increased their prices in recent months. Deezer and Apple Music both bumped up the prices of their individual plans to $11 per month in late 2022. Amazon Music followed suit in February.

Spotify, meanwhile, hasn't changed the price of its $10 per month individual plan in the US since 2011. The company is expected to do so in the near future, following recent remarks by CEO Daniel Ek. Rumors also suggest that Spotify's long-awaited high-fidelity plan, which is said to include audiobooks, could arrive this year.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you. There really is an HBO show on Netflix. All five seasons of Issa Rae's highly acclaimed comedy-drama series Insecure are now streaming on Netflix in the US. Not only that, more HBO shows are on the way to the service as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) tries to wring more revenue out of its expansive library.

Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under and Ballers are also coming to Netflix as part of the deal, the company told Deadline. Meanwhile, Netflix users outside the US will be able to stream True Blood on the service. This is the first time that HBO content has appeared on Netflix in the US, though some has previously been available on Prime Video. The shows will still be available on Max.

This is part of an effort to boost WBD's revenue. Late last year, the company removed some notable titles from Max, including Westworld and The Nevers. Those shows, and many others from the WBD library, are available to watch on free, ad-supported channels on Roku, Tubi and Amazon's Freevee.

Zaslav and his team have employed other tactics to improve WBD's bottom line. Those include pulling many shows and movies from Max to reduce costs, cancelingMax-exclusive projects before they were done (reportedly in favor of tax writeoffs in some cases) and laying off employees.

Blizzard has released a string of excellent Overwatch animated shorts over the years. While the shorts are sublimely rendered and help to sketch out the backstories of the cast, Blizzard hasn't neatly pulled together the sprawling narrative of this universe so far. The developers have pledged to do a better job of that in-game starting with Overwatch 2's sixth season, which gets under way in August. Before we get there, though, Blizzard is releasing an Overwatch anime.

The three-episode miniseries is called Genesis. The title and a trailer suggest that it will focus on the early days of the Overwatch task force, which was set up amid a global war against robots. The clip shows a glimpse of humans and robots living in harmony before an AI rebellion kicked off the Omnic Crisis. It features three heroes from the game — Reinhardt, Torbjörn and Ana — as well as Mina Liao, an AI researcher and fellow founding member of the Overwatch organization.

The teaser, which has a different animation style from previous shorts, suggests the miniseries will help to tie together some of the many disparate, transmedia strands of the Overwatch narrative before co-op story missions go live in Overwatch 2. The first episode will hit YouTube on July 6th and it's just over five minutes long.

Overwatch fans have been begging for a show or even a movie based on the franchise for years. This miniseries might be as close as they get for now, but who knows? If it proves popular enough, Blizzard may be persuaded to invest in a bigger project that can put the Overwatch universe in front of a whole new audience. Meanwhile, Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller says each of the game's story missions will have an opening and closing cinematic to help spell out more of the narrative.

The rich, memorable cast of characters played a major role in making the original Overwatch a cultural phenomenon when it debuted in 2016. If Blizzard is successful in shining the spotlight more brightly on them again, that might help fans forgive the studio for some of the misstepsit has made with Overwatch 2 recently.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a formal ban on fake reviews and testimonials. Companies would also be prohibited from using phony followers and views to inflate their social media metrics if the rule takes effect as it stands.

This isn't the first time the agency has trained its sights on fake reviews. In its first such case in 2019, it fined a third-party Amazon seller for paying for fake reviews (Amazon itself has sued phony review providers). Earlier this year, the FTC levied a $600,000 penalty against the owner of a vitamin brand for “review hijacking" on Amazon.

The new rule, which the agency said it was working on in October, is close to being finalized and it includes steep penalties for those caught peddling fake reviews and testimonials. As The Washington Post points out, the FTC plans to slap businesses that "buy, sell and manipulate online reviews" up to $50,000. Not only is that fine for each phony review, it's also for every time a consumer sees it. So, if the FTC finds out that one fake review has been viewed just 20 times, the business that bought it could be on the hook for $1 million.

“Our proposed rule on fake reviews shows that we’re using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age,” Samuel Levine, the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies.”

Explicitly, the FTC aims to ban "businesses from writing or selling consumer reviews or testimonials by someone who does not exist, who did not have experience with the product or service, or who misrepresented their experiences." Similarly, companies won't be allowed to obtain or disseminate reviews and testimonials that they "knew or should have known that they were fake or false."

Repurposing an existing review to make it appear that it was written for a different product (i.e. review hijacking) will be outlawed, as will offering payments or other kinds of compensation for positive or negative reviews. The FTC says companies can still ask users to leave a review, as that's an important way for small businesses to enhance their reputations.

Managers and officers won't be allowed to post reviews of their company's products without clear disclosures and nor can they ask family members or employees to do so in certain circumstances. Under the proposed rule, companies won't be allowed to run websites that claim to offer independent reviews of categories of products and services that include their own offerings.

Review suppression will be banned as well. Companies won't be allowed to use intimidation tactics, such as legal threats and false accusations, to push customers to remove or avoid leaving a negative review.

In addition, the FTC seeks to ban companies from using fake followers and views to fluff up their social media numbers. "The proposed rule also would bar anyone from buying such indicators to misrepresent their importance for a commercial purpose," the agency said. This is a provision that could have far-reaching consequences beyond commerce — influencers may have to ensure they don't factor in bots when they try to secure brand deals.

Meanwhile, the proposed notice for the rule takes note of the popularity of generative AI. "It has been reported that an AI chatbot is being used to create fake reviews," it reads. "As the reporting notes, the widespread emergence of AI chatbots is likely to make it easier for bad actors to write fake reviews."

The rule won't take effect immediately. It will be open to public comments for a 60-day period, after which the agency will consider changes before finalizing the directive.

A lot of these provisions make sense. In essence, the FTC is trying to ensure that businesses and brands are transparent and honest with consumers. Actually enforcing these measures, however, is a different matter. The agency told the Post that it won't be getting extra resources to tackle purveyors of fake reviews, but a codified rule can strengthen its hand in court. Taking on companies based overseas that sell and post phony reviews might be a difficult task too. Still, a formal ban on these practices and the threat of eye-popping fines may be enough to deter some companies from using fake reviews.

For some bizarre reason (OK, manywidelyreportedreasons), Twitter is becoming less useful almost by the day. In its latest misstep, it seems the service is no longer letting people who aren't signed in see any tweets.

Until now, logged-out users were still able to check out tweets and user profiles, but at least for the time being, they'll have to either sign up for an account or plug in their login credentials to see whatever unattributed meme Twitter owner Elon Musk pinched today. The Verge spotted the issue, which Engadget has confirmed on multiple browsers and devices.

Twitter won't confirm whether this was a technical error or an intentional decision, as one of Musk's first moves after he took over the company was to all but wipe out its communications team. In any case, logged-out users haven't been able to use Twitter's search function since April.

It's unclear what kind of impact moves such as this and Twitter's API changes will have on things like Google being able to include tweets in its search results. This could also prove a roadblock to services that scrape data from public-facing platforms like Twitter.

Making tweets visible only to signed-in users won't necessarily prompt people to sign up for an account. If someone wants to share a tweet with a person who doesn't use Twitter, they may now be more inclined to send a screenshot than a link, perhaps making it less likely that the non-user will join the service.

Researchers have found that most US adults are spending less time on Twitter after Musk bought the service. You might think Twitter would be doing whatever it could to get more eyes on tweets and ads, given that its advertising revenue is said to have plummeted. Putting up a barrier between potential new users and content perhaps isn't the wisest way to go about that.

The July 4th weekend is upon us and, among other things, that means there are deals aplenty to be had. If you’re looking for a set of Apple AirPods (perhaps to help drown out those noisy fireworks), there’s some good news as several models are on sale. Some are available for the lowest prices we've seen for them to date, including the most recent AirPods Pro. Both the second-gen and third-gen regular AirPods are on sale as well. Meanwhile, folks looking for a more premium experience may be tempted by the AirPods Max, which are currently $99 off the usual price.

AirPods Pro

Take, for instance, the AirPods Pro. The second-gen earbuds have big improvements over the first model, including better audio quality, an excellent transparency mode and solid active noise cancellation (ANC). They can be all yours for $199. At $50 off, that's a record low price.

AirPods (third-gen)

As for the standard AirPods, those have dropped by $10 to $159 — a more modest discount, but a deal nonetheless. We feel that Apple’s third-gen earbuds have much better audio quality than the previous generation, a more comfortable design and a greatly improved battery life. However, they don't have an ANC mode.

AirPods (second-gen)

Those looking for a less expensive, but still very capable set of AirPods can opt for the previous model. They're on sale for $99, which is $30 off the regular price. While the second-gen AirPods are four years old at this point, they're still a good set of true wireless earbuds. That's more true if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem, given how well AirPods mesh with the company's other devices.

AirPods Max

Last but by no means least, there's a solid deal on Apple's premium AirPods Max as well. The over-ear headphones have dropped by $99 to $450 as part of the sale. That's close to a record-low price. We feel that AirPods Max have excellent audio quality and great ANC, along with a good battery life. These won't be the ideal headphones for most people (you can certainly find more budget-friendly options elsewhere). But folks entrenched in the Apple ecosystem who are looking for over-ear cans may find this deal worth considering.

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A group of bipartisan senators are said to have asked Meta to explain Instagram's alleged failure to prevent child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from being shared among networks of pedophiles on the platform. Lawmakers from the Senate Judiciary Committee also want to know how Instagram's algorithms brought users who want to share such content together in the first place, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In a letter to the company, 10 senators including committee chair Dick Durbin and Republican ranking member Lindsey Graham reportedly said they were “gravely concerned that lnstagram’s failure to prevent this perverse use of its algorithms is not due to a lack of ability, but instead a lack of initiative and motivation." They are said to to be worried that Meta doesn't seem to have made CSAM one of its main priorities, "especially when its platform directly facilitates and bolsters the black market for child sexual abuse material.”

They demanded answers on why Instagram didn't detect that CSAM was being shared and what the platform is doing to prevent the same thing from happening again. The senators also want to know more about a task force Meta says it has set up to tackle these issues. They asked the company to respond by July 12th. Engadget has requested a copy of the letter.

Earlier this month, the Journal reported that Meta's algorithms helped to "connect and promote a vast network of accounts" that propagated CSAM. The report suggested that pedophiles are buying and selling CSAM on Instagram. Meta says it has set up a task force to address the issue. It pledged to take down CSAM networks and says it's trying to prevent its systems from putting potential abusers in contact with each other.

Meta has declined to comment on the letter, instead reiterating its statement on the Journal's initial report. “Child exploitation is a horrific crime,” it said, “We’re continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior.”

A European Union official has also ordered Meta to address CSAM issues quickly, warning that the company may face heavy sanctions otherwise. From the end of August, Meta and other major tech platforms will have to comply with the bloc's Digital Services Act, which has specific rules on how they have to handle issues like CSAM. If a company doesn't comply with the act, it can face fines of as much as six percent of its annual global turnover.

Activision has employed a string of tactics in its cat-and-mouse battle with Call of Duty cheaters, from making them unable to see targets to simply taking their guns away. The latest measure is one of the first steps that the developers are taking to combat Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 hackers who use banned tools (for instance, wallhacks) to learn extra information and gain an unfair advantage over others.

When Activision's systems detect or suspect a cheater, a "hallucination" may be deployed. These won't impact legitimate players at all and they're designed to disorient hackers. Here's the really clever part: each hallucination is a clone of a real player in the match, according to the Ricochet anti-cheat team. Hallucinations move, look and interact with the world just as a human player would to trick the cheater into thinking they've encountered a genuine opponent.

Ricochet says cheaters won't be able to tell the difference between a hallucination and a genuine player at first glance (the team notes that, in the image above, there's one hallucination and one real player). Hallucinations emit the same kinds of hidden information that cheaters receive for legitimate players through their illicit tools. Hallucinations will also be deployed close to suspected cheaters. If a shady-looking player interacts with a hallucination at all, then boom, they'll out themself as a hacker.

Activision

On the other hand, Ricochet has wound down one of its hacker mitigations. It was called Quicksand and, oddly enough, it would slow down a Call of Duty cheater or freeze them in place. It could mess with their control scheme as well. An updated version of Quicksand may be added in the future, but it's on the shelf for now.

"While Quicksand was a fun mitigation to deploy against bad actors, it could also be very visually jarring to anyone in the lobby," a Call of Duty blog post reads. "Imagine coming upon an enemy that was moving at a snail’s pace in the middle of your rotation out of a hot zone. It could trip you up."

Meanwhile, Ricochet provided an update on its efforts to clamp down on the use of XIM-style controller passthrough devices that cheaters use. "Within the first two weeks of launching this detection we saw a 59 percent drop in any use of these devices across Modern Warfare II and Warzone," Team Ricochet wrote. "Of those users, 57 percent of them did not utilize the device again." Persistent users of such devices are penalized, the anti-cheat team noted.

This is shaping up to be a banner year for puzzle games, thanks to the likes of the superb Humanity and the brain-melting Viewfinder. Another one has just emerged on the release calendar in the form of Cocoon, which was perhaps the most exciting game we got to check out at Summer Game Fest earlier this month. Publisher Annapurna Interactive revealed during its summer showcase that Cocoon will hit PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Steam on September 29th. It'll be available on Game Pass as well.

This is the first project from Geometric Interactive, which was founded by two former developers at Playdead, the studio behind Limbo and Inside. Cocoon is an adventure game in which you use orbs to solve puzzles. When you place an orb on a socket, you can jump inside it — each orb is its own world with distinct mechanics and a boss to beat.

Cocoon is all about recursion. You can take an orb inside another world to make use of its abilities, such as being able to see otherwise-invisible paths or activate switches. You'll have the option to jump back out of an orb as well, which will be key to solving some puzzles and bypassing obstacles. We're looking forward to this one.

The Steam Summer Sale is now live, and it includes a solid deal for those who've been on the fence about buying a Steam Deck. Along with thousands of games, the device is on sale until July 13th. The 64GB model has dropped by 10 percent to $359.10, while the variant with 256GB of faster NVMe storage is down to $449.65, 15 percent off the regular price. The 512GB version, which has an anti-glare screen, is 20 percent off at $519.20. The Steam Deck Dock is also 20 percent off, down to $71.20.

This is one of Steam's two biggest sales of the year alongside the winter edition, so there are bargains galore. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, one of the biggest games of the year so far, is already on sale for 25 percent off ($52.49). Elden Ring is 30 percent off at $42, while the price of Red Dead Redemption 2 has dropped by two thirds to $19.79. Cyberpunk 2077, No Man's Sky, the Halo Infinite single-player campaign and Forza Horizon 5 are all half off at $30 each. Meanwhile, instead of buying Dying Light 2 for that price, note that there's a $27.88 bundle that includes Payday 2.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is down 45 percent to $38.49 and Amazon's MMORPG New World is 60 percent off at $16. Persona 5 Royal has dropped by 40 percent to $36, while Cities Skylines is currently $9, which is 70 percent less than usual. 

Sleeper hit Dredge is 20 percent off at $20 and you can save 30 percent off the Dead Space remake, which is down to $42. Civilization VI is a whopping 90 percent off at $6, while you can snap up all three mainline Witcher games for under $17 and Stray for $22.49 (25 percent off).

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is 75 percent off at $10. Several PlayStation Studios titles are on sale too, including Uncharted: A Legacy of Thieves Collection and God of War ($30 each, down 40 percent), along with Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone ($16.49 each, down 67 percent). Both Spider-Man games are 33 percent off with the original dropping to $40.19 and Miles Morales down to $33.49.

As ever, we're barely scratching the surface of the mammoth sale. There are hidden gems all over the place. For instance, I'd never heard of Not For Broadcast until scouring the list of deals, but was curious enough to pick it up. Therein lies the pitfall of Steam sales. There are always tons of compelling deals that threaten to leave your wallet significantly lighter. But hey, you do need things to play on your new Steam Deck.