DoorDash has been charging iPhone users more than Android users for identical deliveries, according to a lawsuit seeking class action status. The court documents (PDF, via 9to5Mac) submitted for the case included screenshots showing how iPhone users are charged an extra fee for "expanded range." On the company's website, it said the fee "helps DoorDash preserve [customers'] access to the available merchants farthest from [them]." However, the lawsuit said the fee is tacked onto iPhone users' bills more often than Android users' "likely because studies reveal iPhone users earn more."

In addition, it accuses DoorDash of adding the extended range fee onto the total of DashPass subscribers as a way "to subsidize lost revenues from discounted fees." DashPass is the company's $10-a-month subscription service that delivers orders over $12 for free. A couple of screenshots in the court documents show the extended range fee only being added to the account with DashPass and not to the one without, even though they were identical orders made for the same address. 

"DoorDash uses this deceptive practice to trick consumers into believing Dashers receive the 'delivery-related' fees when, in reality, each and every 'delivery fee' is retained in total by DoorDash," the lawsuit states. Other screenshots also showed orders made from iPhones having bigger base delivery fees than orders submitted from Android devices. 

The lawsuit, filed by Ross Hecox and his minor children in the United States District Court of Maryland, is asking for monetary damages of no less than $1 billion "for all consumers who fell prey to DoorDash's illegal pricing scheme over the past four years."

A DoorDash spokesperson denied the allegations and told Insider in a statement:

"The claims put forward in the amended complaint are baseless and simply without merit. We ensure fees are disclosed throughout the customer experience, including on each restaurant storepage and before checkout. Building this trust is essential, and it's why the majority of delivery orders on our platform are placed by return customers. We will continue to strive to make our platform work even better for customers, and will vigorously fight these allegations."

This isn't the first time the delivery service's business practices have been called into question. In 2020, the company, along with GrubHub, Postmates and Uber Eats, were sued for exploiting their dominant position in restaurant deliveries to impose fees on users even during the pandemic. Chicago sued the company for advertising delivery services from restaurants that never consented to be added to its platform. The attorney general for the District of Columbia also filed a lawsuit against DoorDash, accusing it of using tips to cover part of drivers' base pay instead of adding it on top of what they're supposed to get. DoorDash agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle that lawsuit with Washington, DC. 

San Francisco authorities have opened a new investigation into Twitter after six former senior employees filed a lawsuit against the company, according to AP and the San Francisco Chronicle. The plaintiffs are accusing the company of breaking local and federal laws and of violating building codes in its effort to turn some of the rooms in its headquarters into bedrooms for employees. 

The city's authorities first launched an investigation into the company in December 2022 following a Forbes report that it converted some its conference rooms so its staff would have somewhere to rest. If you'll recall, Elon Musk asked remaining employees after a series of mass layoffs to commit to an "extremely hardcore" Twitter that expects them to work "long hours at high intensity." The employees were reportedly given no context about the bedrooms. But one could come to the conclusion, based on his ultimatum, that Musk expected employees to work very long hours that they'd need somewhere to rest in or sleep in overnight. 

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Joseph Killian, the former lead project manager of global design and construction at Twitter. He said Musk's team instructed him to violate building codes, including removing motion-sensitive lights because they were bother the staff trying to sleep. The company's landlord apparently rejected the request, but he still had to hire an electrician to disconnect the lights without permission. 

Killian also said that he was told to install cheaper locks for the sleeping quarters that don't automatically unlock in case of emergency, even though he warned the team that they'd prevent first responders from accessing the rooms. He reportedly quit that day, though somebody else installed the locks afterward. In addition, Killian accused the company of telling him not to divulge those planned changes to city inspectors visiting Twitter HQ. The inspectors only saw the beds and new furniture and had no idea about the violations, the lawsuit stated. 

Aside from Killian's complaints, the lawsuit also accuses Twitter of not paying their promised severance. The new leadership under Musk, it said, "deliberately, specifically, and repeatedly announced their intentions to breach contracts, violate laws, and otherwise ignore their legal obligations." Regarding Twitter not paying rent, for instance, Musk adviser Pablo Mendoza allegedly told former Twitter real estate division lead Tracy Hawkins: "Elon told me he would only pay rent over his dead body." Alex Spiro, Musk's personal attorney, also allegedly and "loudly opined that it was unreasonable for Twitter’s landlords to expect Twitter to pay rent, since San Francisco was a s—hole." The California Property Trust, which owns the building where Twitter's HQ is located, sued the company for failing to pay $136,250 in rent back in January. 

San Francisco previously gave Twitter 15 days to fix its building permit to be able to keep their beds after Forbes' report came out, but the Chronicle says permits haven't been granted yet. This new investigation is reportedly being conducted by the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, though it has yet to issue an official statement. As for Twitter, the company hasn't had a communications team in a while. 

AT&T doesn't think that the satellite-to-phone service T-Mobile and SpaceX's Starlink are planning should be approved as it is, and it has informed the FCC of its opinion in a filing (PDF). As Bloomberg notes, the carrier has raised concerns that the companies' service, in its current proposed state, could interfere with existing wireless services. "[I]t is paramount that operations do not jeopardize or inhibit the delivery of terrestrial wireless services," AT&T wrote. 

In August last year, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced a collaboration that would allow the carrier's subscribers to connect to Starlink's second-gen satellites for coverage even if they're in the most remote locations. The companies are gearing up to begin testing this year, and the FCC started seeking comments (PDF) in April on their request to establish supplemental coverage from space (SCS). AT&T's filing is a response to that call. 

The carrier wrote that FCC's rules "do not permit SpaceX’s proposed use of T-Mobile’s terrestrial spectrum" and that the companies "fail to even request — much less justify — rule waivers that would be necessary to authorize their proposed SCS authorizations." It added: "More broadly, the Applicants' technical showings are woefully insufficient regarding the risk of harmful interference posed by their planned SCS deployments. SpaceX and T-Mobile’s applications fall far short of meeting the threshold for waiver and cannot be granted in their current state."

AT&T has plans for a satellite service of its own in partnership with communications specialist AST SpaceMobile. The companies successfully conducted the first two-way satellite audio call on AT&T's network in Texas to a Rakuten number in Japan on a Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone in April. The carrier assured in its filing that consistent with its comments, "AT&T and AST intend to provide the demonstrations necessary to show that they will not cause interference to any authorized terrestrial system."

Google recently announced that it will start deleting accounts that have been inactive for two years starting in December this year. The move was supposed to cover all its products, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, YouTube, Google Photos, Meet and Calendar. But now the tech giant has updated its blog post (as noticed by TechCrunch) announcing the purge to say that it does "not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time."

The tech giant positioned security as its main reason for deleting inactive accounts. It said internal analysis showed that old, abandoned accounts are around 10 times less likely to have two-factor enabled. That makes them vulnerable to bad actors who could use them for identity theft and other nefarious purposes. One could also come to the conclusion, however, that deleting old accounts would free up space in Google's servers. 

After the announcement went out, critics raised concerns that the move could wipe out some important pieces of internet history. Old YouTube videos, including the very first one, would disappear, along with videos uploaded by deceased users. Google didn't say why it ultimately changed its mind, but YouTube videos are safe. For now.

As for the rest of its products, the company intends to send out warning emails to accounts in danger of being deleted and to their recovery emails by the end of 2023. Those accounts will be deactivated within 60 days if their owners don't log in after receiving the warning email, though users will have 60 more days (for a total of four months) to recover their accounts before they're permanently gone. 

Google's Pixel 8 Pro could come with a new feature that's not quite commonly found on phones. 91mobiles has published a video from tipster Kuba Wojciechowski showing what looks like Pixel device being used to measure a person's temperature. Yep, if the leak is legit, the upcoming flagship Pixel will have a built-in thermometer. The video shows an infrared sensor similar to the ones used by contactless thermometers inside the metal panel where the rear cameras are also located. 

Based on the demonstration of the built-in thermometer, users will have to take off their glasses or any other eye and forehead accessories. They then have to bring the sensor as close to their forehead as possible without actually touching it and then moving their phone towards their temple in 5 seconds. 91mobiles says the sensor could also be used to measure the temperature of inanimate objects, but the video didn't demonstrate how that would work. Google's employees have reportedly been testing the feature, as well. 

A previous leak of computer renders show the Pixel 8 Pro as a rounded version of the Pixel 7, and this new video does show a device that's identical to those renders. While the upcoming phone bears a lot of physical similarities to its predecessor, its three rear cameras are now inside one module. On the Pixel 7 Pro, one of the three camera sensors is in a separate module. 

A thermometer is perhaps a curious feature addition for a phone, especially now that pandemic-related measures are no longer followed. Take note that this is merely a leak, and it remains to be seen whether the Pixel 8 Pros that will make their way to buyers will actually have the sensor.

91mobiles' video has already been deleted due to a copyright claim, but one of the publication's readers tweeted a copy that we've embedded below.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Andy Warhol has infringed on the copyright of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who took the image that he used for his famous silkscreen of the musician Prince. Goldsmith won the justices over 7-2, disagreeing with Warhol's camp that his work was transformative enough to prevent any copyright claims. In the majority opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, she noted that "Goldsmith's original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists." 

Goldsmith's story goes as far back as 1984, when Vanity Fair licensed her Prince photo for use as an artist reference. The photographer received $400 for a one-time use of her photograph, which Warhol then used as the basis for a silkscreen that the magazine published. Warhol then created 15 additional works based on her photo, one of which was sold to Condé Nast for another magazine story about Prince. The Andy Warhol Foundation (AWF) — the artist had passed away by then — got $10,000 it, while Goldsmith didn't get anything. 

Typically, the use of copyrighted material for a limited and "transformative" purpose without the copyright holder's permission falls under "fair use." But what passes as "transformative" use can be vague, and that vagueness has led to numerous lawsuits. In this particular case, the court has decided that adding "some new expression, meaning or message" to the photograph does not constitute "transformative use." Sotomayor said Goldsmith's photo and Warhol's silkscreen serve "substantially the same purpose." 

Indeed, the decision could have far ranging implications for fair use and could influence future cases on what constitutes as transformative work. Especially now that we're living in the era of content creators who could be taking inspiration from existing music and art. As CNN reports, Justice Elena Kagan strongly disagreed with her fellow justices, arguing that the decision would stifle creativity. She said the justices mostly just cared about the commercial purpose of the work and did not consider that the photograph and the silkscreen have different "aesthetic characteristics" and did not "convey the same meaning."

"Both Congress and the courts have long recognized that an overly stringent copyright regime actually stifles creativity by preventing artists from building on the works of others. [The decision will] impede new art and music and literature, [and it will] thwart the expression of new ideas and the attainment of new knowledge. It will make our world poorer," she wrote. 

The justices who wrote the majority opinion, however, believe that it "will not impoverish our world to require AWF to pay Goldsmith a fraction of the proceeds from its reuse of her copyrighted work. Recall, payments like these are incentives for artists to create original works in the first place."

Apple is famous for being protective of its projects and for expecting secrecy from its workers. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, the tech giant is concerned about the possibility of its employees inadvertently leaking proprietary data while using ChatGPT. To prevent that scenario from happening, Apple has reportedly restricted the use of ChatGPT and other AI tools, such as GitHub's Copilot that can autocomplete code. The Journal also says that Apple is working on large language models of its own. 

In early April, The Economist Koreareported that three Samsung employees shared confidential information with ChatGPT. Apparently, one employee asked the chatbot to check database source code for errors, while another asked it to optimize code. The third employee reportedly uploaded a recorded meeting onto the chatbot and asked it to write minutes. It's unclear how Apple is restricting use of generative AI tools and if it's prohibiting their use completely. But in Samsung's case, the company restricted the length of employees' ChatGPT prompts to a kilobyte or 1024 characters of text. 

Large language models like OpenAI's become better the more people use them, because users' interactions are sent back to developers for further training. ChatGPT's terms and conditions, for instance, state that conversations "may be reviewed by [its] AI trainers to improve [its] systems." For a secretive company like Apple, limiting their use doesn't come as a surprise. That said, OpenAI introduced a new privacy control setting in April that enables users to switch off their chat histories so that their conversations can't be used for training. The company made it available after it had to pull ChatGPT for a few hours due to a bug that showed users other people's chat histories. 

Not much is known about Apple's LLM projects at the moment, if there truly are any, but all its AI efforts are under the supervision of John Giannandrea, who used to lead Google's search and AI teams. The tech giant has also snapped up a number of AI startups over the past few years. When asked about AI in an interview recently, Apple chief Tim Cook hinted that the tech giant is taking a cautious approach by saying: "I do think it's very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in how you approach these things."

Elon Musk's personal lawyer, Alex Spiro, has reportedly sent Microsoft a letter that accuses it of using Twitter API "for unauthorized uses and purposes." According to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Spiro wrote that "Microsoft may have been in violation of multiple provisions of the agreement for an extended period of time." In particular, it accuses Microsoft of improperly using Twitter data, such as using more than what it was supposed to and sharing that data with government agencies without permission. Spiro also wrote that Microsoft had declined to pay for its data usage. 

Microsoft had used Twitter data via its API for years in several products, including those related to Xbox, Bing and its advertising tools. However, after Twitter ended free access to its API, Microsoft decided to start distancing itself from the website. It removed Twitter from its social media management tool for advertisers, and it also switched off the option to upload screenshots and clips directly to Twitter from Xbox consoles and the Game Bar on Windows. The tech giant didn't explain the reason behind those decisions, but Twitter has been charging organizations up to $50,000 a month to access its new API.

In response to a tweet about Microsoft dropping Twitter from its social media management tool, Elon Musk said: "They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time." It's also worth noting that Musk and Microsoft have had a bumpy relationship lately, with the former claiming that the tech giant is controlling its partner OpenAI. Microsoft, which has invested a total of $13 billion in the ChatGPT creator, said the claim was "factually not correct." Musk also told Fox News that he was concerned that ChatGPT "is being trained to be politically correct" and that he was looking to create his own generative AI chatbot called "TruthGPT." He also criticized OpenAI, which he helped start as a non-profit in 2015, for turning into a for-profit business. 

It's unclear if this event will culminate into a lawsuit, but Twitter is demanding that Microsoft examine the data use of its apps. Twitter also wants Microsoft to submit a report by June on how much of its data the company has and how it's stored and used. In addition, it wants to know when Microsoft had given government organizations access to its data. 

If you watch YouTube videos primarily on your TV, you may soon come across 30-second ads you won't be able to skip, just like commercials on traditional TV channels. The video platform has announced during its Brandcast event for advertisers that it's bringing 30-second unskippable ads to connected TVs. It will make the option available through YouTube Select, which is a targeting option open to eligible clients who want to reach the audiences of the website's most popular channels.

YouTube says 70 percent of Select impressions land on TVs, so the new format will give advertisers the chance to show more of their services or products in a way that allows "for richer storytelling." If you already regularly see two 15-second ads consecutively, then the new format wouldn't make that much of a difference for you — unless they show up more frequently, of course. The format is now generally available in the US and Canada and will expand worldwide later this year.

In addition to introducing longer non-skips, YouTube is also bringing "pause experiences" to connected TVs as an experiment. Pause experiences are ads that show up when you hit pause on what you're watching, similar to the promos Hulu launched in 2019. They're expected to be highly visual and even interactive, and they could include QR codes you can scan to perhaps visit the brands' website or social media channels. In the image below, for instance, you'll see an ad encouraging you to scan a QR code to get a 15 percent discount.

YouTube

You could be going on heists, stealing cars and competing in races in Grand Theft Auto VI sometime next year. Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two, has shared its projections for the future along with its yearly earnings report. And apparently, it's gearing up to release projects that it believes will take its "company to even greater levels of success." The company expects the titles it's releasing in the fiscal year 2025 to help it achieve $8 billion in net bookings, or the net amount of products and services sold. While it didn't explicitly name those titles, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has historically been one of Take-Two's biggest moneymakers. 

As IGN notes, Take-Two's net bookings for the previous fiscal year reached $5.3 billion, and it's thanks to the company's Zynga acquisition. Before that, it was earning around $3 billion a year. An almost $3 billion jump in net bookings is massive, and unless Take-Two is making another huge acquisition, GTA is the franchise that would enable it to achieve that goal. IGN asked Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick whether we're going to see GTA 6 as soon as next year, but the executive refused to confirm or deny it. 

Part of the company's press release reads:

"Looking ahead, Fiscal 2025 is a highly anticipated year for our Company. For the last several years, we have been preparing our business to release an incredibly robust pipeline of projects that we believe will take our company to even greater levels of success. In Fiscal 2025, we expect to enter this new era by launching several groundbreaking titles that we believe will set new standards in our industry and enable us to achieve over $8 billion in Net Bookings and over $1 billion in Adjusted Unrestricted Operating Cash Flow. We expect to sustain this momentum by delivering even higher levels of operating results in Fiscal 2026 and beyond."

Take-Two's fiscal year 2025 starts in April 2024 and ends on March 31st, 2025. Even if the Rockstar doesn't release GTA 6 in 2024, it could still be coming out in the first three months the year after. Bottom line: We don't have to wait that long for the game to arrive. Since 90 videos of GTA 6 gameplay footage leaked late last year, you probably already know what you can expect. The clips, which Rockstar confirmed as legit, showed two playable protagonists, including a female character named Lucia, committing crimes in a fictionalized version of Miami.