You can get an MLS Season Pass for Apple TV at a discount if you haven't paid for one yet and want to watch the league's upcoming games these coming months. Apple is now selling the pass, which typically costs $99, for $69 for the remainder of the 2024 season. If you're an Apple TV+ subscriber, you can get an additional $10 discount and only pay $59 for it. The company occasionally launches promotional offers for the MLS Season Pass meant to drum up interest in its sports streaming package. Last year, it offered a free one month trial mid-season, as well. 

If you're undecided, you can watch league games for free this weekend first: Apple is making all 14 matches taking place in the next few days streamable at no additional cost. One of the matches features Inter Miami, which signed Lionel Messi in 2023. An MLS season pass will give you access to every MLS game with no blackouts, as well as to additional content like in-depth coverage and analysis of the matches. You can watch league games through the Apple TV app on iPhones, iPads and Macs, as well as on smart TVs, set-top boxes, gaming consoles and non-Apple streaming devices. You can also watch matches on the web at Apple TV's official website and on the Apple Vision Pro if you have the mixed reality headset. 

Crunchyroll, like many other streaming services recently, is raising its subscription prices. The anime streaming service has announced its first price hike since it was acquired by Funimation in 2020. Subscribers in Argentina, Colombia, France, Portugal, the United States and select additional countries will now have to pay $12 for the Mega Fan tier, up $2 from $10. Meanwhile, the Ultimate Fan tier will now be $1 more expensive at $16 a month. 

Both options give subscribers access to offline viewing and the Crunchyroll Game Vault, which contains a library of mobile games. The Mega Fan tier allows streaming on up to four devices at a time, while the Ultimate Fan tier allows streaming on up to six. People subscribed to the most expensive option also get a swag bag if they keep paying for the service for 12 consecutive months. The basic Fan Tier doesn't come with the perks these two have, but its price remains unchanged at $8 a month. Unfortunately, those who haven't decided whether to pay for a subscription yet can now only test the service out for seven days instead of 14 like before. But if they don't mind watching their anime with ads, they can still view more than 1,000 hours of content for free.

Sony's Funimation purchased Crunchyroll from WarnerMedia for $1.175 billion back in 2020, but it took a while before they were able to complete their transformation into a unified anime subscription service under the latter's name. Funimation didn't shut down its old app and website until April 2 this year after it moved its available titles to Crunchyroll's service. 

Anthropic is making its Claude AI easier to access on mobile. The company has released a Claude mobile app for iOS that any user can download for free. Similar to the mobile web version of the chatbot, the app syncs users' conversations with Claude across devices, allowing them to jump from a computer to the app (or vice versa) without losing their chat history. Users will also be able to upload files and images straight from their iPhone's gallery — or take a photo on the spot — if they need Claude to process or analyze them in real time. They'll be able to download and access the Claude app whatever plan they're using, even if they're not paying for the service. 

If they do decide to pay for Claude, they now have a new option other than Pro. The new Team plan provides greater usage than the Pro tier so that members can have more conversations with the chatbot. It also enables users to process longer documents, such as research papers and contracts, thanks to its 200,000 context window. The Team plan gives users access to the Claude 3 model family, as well, which includes Opus, Sonnet and Haiku. It will cost subscribers $30 per user per month, with a minimum head count of five users per team. 

Back in March, Anthropic claimed in a blog post that its Claude 3 language model had outperformed ChatGPT and Google's Gemini in several key industry benchmarks. It was better at graduate-level reasoning, multilingual math and coding (among many other metrics), the company said, showing Claude 3's benchmark results against its staunchest rivals. The most powerful Claude 3 model, the Opus, even apparently showed "near-human" abilities with rapid response rates that make it ideal for more complex and time-sensitive tasks. 

The Rabbit R1, a pocket-sized AI virtual assistant device, runs Android under the hood and is powered by a single app, according to Android Authority. Apparently, the publication was able to install the R1 APK on a Pixel 6a and made it run as if it were the $199 gadget, bobbing bunny head on the screen and all. If you already have a phone and aren't quite intrigued by specialized devices or keen on being an early adopter, you probably didn't see merit in getting the R1 (or its competitor, the Humane AI Pin) in the first place. But this information could make you question the device's purpose even more. Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu, however, denied that the company's product could've just been released an Android app.

In a statement sent to Android Authority, Lyu said: "rabbit r1 is not an Android app." He added that the company is aware that there are "unofficial rabbit OS app/website emulators out there" and is discouraging their use. "We understand the passion that people have to get a taste of our AI and LAM instead of waiting for their r1 to arrive," he continued. "That being said, to clear any misunderstanding and set the record straight, rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware modifications, therefore a local bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won’t be able to access our service. rabbit OS is customized for r1 and we do not support third-party clients. Using a bootlegged APK or webclient carries significant risks; malicious actors are known to publish bootlegged apps that steal your data. For this reason, we recommend that users avoid these bootlegged rabbit OS apps."

Android Authority admitted that Spotify integration and other features probably wouldn't work when the R1 is installed on a phone, because it was created to run on the company's specialized firmware. However, it promised a follow-up story delving deeper into the subject. 

The R1 has the capability to book you an Uber, find you titles to songs stuck in your brain or look for recipes that can incorporate ingredients you have in your fridge, among other things a virtual assistant or an AI chatbot can do. When Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu introduced the R1 at CES 2024, he demonstrated how it can be trained to do a variety of other tasks when he taught it to generate an image using Midjourney. Engadget Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low found it more fun and accessible than the $700 Humane AI Pin, but she remains skeptical about the usefulness of AI devices overall. It may still be too early to tell whether they have the potential to become a must-have product for your daily life or the high-tech equivalent of single-use kitchen tools. We're already in the midst of testing the R1 and will publish a review soon to help you decide if it's worth giving the product category a chance. 

A group of publications that include the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and the Orlando Sentinel are suing Microsoft and OpenAI, as reported by The Verge. The eight publications in this particular lawsuit, all owned by Alden Capital Group (ACG), are accusing the companies of "purloining millions" of their copyrighted articles "without permission and without payment to fuel the commercialization of their generative artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and Copilot." 

This is but the latest lawsuit filed against Microsoft and OpenAI for their use of copyrighted materials without express consent from publishers. The New York Times also famously sued the companies late last year, alleging that they've used "almost a century's worth of copyrighted content." Their products can regurgitate Times' articles verbatim and can "mimic its expressive style," the publication said, even though they didn't have a prior licensing agreement. In a motion seeking to dismiss key parts of the lawsuit, Microsoft accused the Times of doomsday futurology by claiming that generative AI can pose a threat to independent journalism. 

ACG's newspapers complain of the same thing, that the companies' chatbots are reproducing their articles word-for-word shortly after they're published without a prominent link back to the sources. They included several examples in their complaint. In addition, the chatbots are apparently suffering from hallucinations and are attributing inaccurate reporting to ACG's publications. The publisher argued that the defendants pay for the computers, the specialized chips and the electricity they use to build and operate their generative AI products. And yet they're using copyrighted articles "without permission and without paying for the privilege" even though they need content to train their large language models. The plaintiffs referenced OpenAI's previous admission that it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials."

OpenAI is no longer a non-profit company, the plaintiffs said, and is now valued at $90 billion. Meanwhile, ChatGPT and Copilot have added "hundreds of billions of dollars to Microsoft's market value." The publications are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and are asking the court to order the defendants to destroy GPT and LLM models that use their materials. 

The Federal Communications Commission has slapped the largest mobile carriers in the US with a collective fine worth $200 million for selling access to their customers' location information without consent. AT&T was ordered to pay $57 million, while Verizon has to pay $47 million. Meanwhile, Sprint and T-Mobile are facing a penalty with a total amount of $92 million together, since the companies had merged two years ago. The FCC conducted an in-depth investigation into the carriers' unauthorized disclosure and sale of subscribers' real-time location data after their activities came to light in 2018.

To sum up the practice in the words of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: The carriers sold "real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors." According to the agency, the scheme started to unravel following public reports that a sheriff in Missouri was tracking numerous individuals by using location information a company called Securus gets from wireless carriers. Securus provides communications services to correctional facilities in the country. 

While the carriers eventually ceased their activities, the agency said they continued operating their programs for a year after the practice was revealed and after they promised the FCC that they would stop selling customer location data. Further, they carried on without reasonable safeguards in place to ensure that the legitimate services using their customers' information, such as roadside assistance and medical emergency services, truly are obtaining users' consent to track their locations. 

The companies told Fast Company that they intend to challenge the fines. T-Mobile, which faces the biggest penalty worth $80 million — Sprint was fined $12 million — said it was excessive. AT&T said the decision lacked "both legal and factual merit" and that the decision "perversely punishes [the companies] for supporting life-saving location services."

Yelp, like many other companies recently, has been coming out with more and more new AI features. Its latest ones include the new Yelp Assistant, which the company says can help you find the right contractors or service provider for your needs. The idea is to point you in the right direction without having to do a search on your own, which sounds especially useful if you have a very specific job in mind that requires specialists in their field. 

It "alleviates the guesswork on the type of specialists you may need," Yelp claims. You just need to let Assistant know what your project is and then type in your own replies or choose from a selection of one-click responses. In the sample above, for instance, Yelp Assistant created a personalized conversation with one-click responses based on the customer's initial inquiry about wanting to have their bathtub replaced. It suggested different types of bathtubs, which the customer could then choose from so that Yelp could conjure a list of providers that are capable of doing the job. 

The company says its new Assistant can efficiently anticipate your needs and identify service providers on the website, because it uses a large language model that's trained on Yelp's vast dataset, including providers' business information and the website's "Request a Quote" feature, on top of OpenAI's. At the moment, though, it's only available to iOS users under the Projects tab and won't be out on Android until later this summer. 

In addition to Yelp assistant, the company also released the Yelp Fusion AI API, enabling third-party partners to create conversational AI experiences for their own services. It released a new suite of features for the Yelp Guest Manager, as well, to help restaurants manage server shifts better, monitor table status in real time and automate credit card holds for reservations. 

Razer has to pay over $1.1 million to the Federal Trade Commission to settle complaints that it advertised its infamous Zephyr masks as N95-grade when it didn't get them certified at all. The gaming peripheral maker released Zephyr, its high-tech face mask with built-in RGB lighting, during the height of the pandemic. Half a year later, in early 2022, it introduced a "Pro" version that added voice amplification. Razer said back then the Zephyr was as effective as an N95 mask, but it later reneged on its claim and removed all references to "N95-grade" filters from its website and other marketing materials after it came out that the company didn't obtain proper certification. 

According to the FTC, Razer never submitted the Zephyr masks for testing to the FDA or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which gives out the official certification for masks that filter out 95 percent of airborne particles. Razer certainly isn't in the list of companies that manufacture N95 masks approved by NIOSH on its website. In the FTC's complaint, it accused Razer of only stopping its false advertising after consumer outrage. 

The company has to hand over what it earned from selling Zephyr — that's $1,071,254.33 in revenue — to the FTC, which the agency will then use to refund affected consumers. To note, the Zephyr masks cost customers at least $100. It will pay $100,000 in fine over its unsubstantiated health claims, as well. In addition to ordering Razer refund customers, the FTC also prohibited the company from making any claims that it's selling products that reduce the likelihood of being infected with or transmitting the COVID-19 virus without proper FDA approval. Razer has also been prohibited from claiming health benefits for its products without scientific evidence to support them, as well as from "falsely claiming that any product meets government-established standards when it has not."

I allowed myself to play Fire Emblem Engage on the easiest possible mode, and it finally got me back into gaming. The first time I picked up a Fire Emblem game back in 2010, a friend told me that the only correct way to play is in Classic mode with permanent death. For some reason, I took that to heart, and I played each subsequent game ready to restart my console during every skirmish and story battle so that I didn’t lose any of my friends. Due to unexpected upheavals in my personal life over the past few years, I mostly stopped gaming, even though I kept buying new titles I'd typically play. That included Persona 5: Royal, which I have yet to even touch, and Fire Emblem Engage, which sat sealed in my cabinet for over a year.

I wanted to play Engage since I got my pre-ordered copy, but the mere thought of having to find the best class for all my units and having to grind by fighting one skirmish after another so that they can maximize their stats and not get killed in the battlefield was overwhelming. It felt like a chore and not at all appealing for someone who's trying to get back into gaming. One day, though, I decided to pop the cartridge into my Nintendo Switch and see if I could get anywhere. Upon being asked to choose a difficulty, I squashed the persistent voice in my head that kept saying: "If you're not playing with permadeath, are you even playing Fire Emblem?" As quickly as I could, I chose Normal difficulty, the easiest option available, and Casual mode that merely pulls units from a fight instead of killing them completely after they get defeated in battle. 

I had no idea whether I'd end up finishing the game when I started, but I did — and I had tons of fun. The biggest reason why I was able to keep playing was because I didn't feel stressed like I did when I played Fates and Three Houses. I didn't have to plan out every single move on the battlefield, and I didn't have to look up other people's class choices for their units because a character that started as a swordsman might do better as a Wyvern Knight. I didn't have to keep notes like I usually do for strategy games. The only information I searched for online was the same-sex romance options for this installment's protagonist. It truly felt like I was playing to relax, which is something I've never said before in relation to a Fire Emblem game. 

In the grand scheme of things, having an internal conflict over a game's difficulty is really quite silly. But it's a reflection of how we tend to be harsher on ourselves than on other people, because I would never judge anybody else on how they want to play their games. Sure, winning battles and matches in more difficult modes will feel more rewarding, but not every gaming experience has to be a challenge. It's okay to play to decompress, to have some joy in your life and in my case, to get started after years of being in gaming limbo. Someday, I might pick up Engage again and play in Maddening difficulty, most likely in Casual mode now that I've broken free from the shackles of permadeath. That is, however, a long way off — for now, I want to get through the titles I missed over the past five years one by one. I've started with the newest one in my collection, Eiyuden Chronicle, which I'm absolutely excited to play as a long-time Suikoden fan. And, yes, I'm still taking it easy on myself by playing it in the least difficult mode possible. 

Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are joining the government's Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board, according to The Wall Street Journal. They're also joined by Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Northrop Grumman's Kathy Warden and Delta's Ed Bastian, along with other leaders in the tech and AI industry. The AI board will be working with and advising the Department of Homeland Security on how it can safely deploy AI within the country's critical infrastructure. They're also tasked with conjuring recommendations for power grid operators, transportation service providers and manufacturing plants on how they can can protect their systems against potential threats that could be brought about by advances in the technology. 

The Biden administration ordered the creation of an AI safety board last year as part of a sweeping executive order that focuses on regulating AI development. In the Homeland Security's website, it said the board "includes AI experts from the private sector and government that advise the Secretary and the critical infrastructure community." Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the Journal that the use of AI in critical infrastructure can greatly improve services — it can, for instance, speed up illness diagnoses or quickly detect anomalies in power plants — but they carry a significant risk which the agency is hoping to minimize with the help of this board. 

That said, one can't help but question if these AI tech leaders can provide guidance that aren't meant to primarily serve themselves and their companies. Their work centers around advancing AI technologies and promoting their use, after all, while the board is meant to ensure that critical infrastructure systems are using AI responsibly. Mayorkas seems to be confident that they'll do their jobs properly, though, telling the Journal that the tech leaders "understand the mission of this board," and that it's "not a mission that is about business development."