Amazon's handling of defective and potentially unsafe products is back in the spotlight. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is suing the online retailer to force it to recall faulty items that pose safety risks to shoppers. In the filing, regulators said they had warned Amazon about the hazardous items on its site, but deemed its response insufficient. 

According to the CPSC, the faulty goods included 24,000 carbon monoxide detectors that failed to alarm, 400,000 hair dryers that lacked electrocution safeguards and children's sleepwear that could catch fire. The commission voted by 3-1 to approve the legal complaint to compel Amazon to recall the named products, notify customers who purchased them and offer full refunds. 

As stated in the lawsuit, the retailer has already taken some of those actions. Amazon removed the identification numbers for the specified products, the CPSC said. The company also informed consumers who had purchased the goods that they could present a hazard and offered to compensate them with gift cards credited to their account, the regulator noted. But, the CPSC insisted that Amazon's "unilateral" response was insufficient.

In a statement to Reuters, Amazon said it was "unclear" why the CPSC rejected its offer to expand its recall program, including for products sold by third parties, or sued to force actions "almost entirely duplicative" of those it had taken. The retailer added that it had removed "the vast majority" of the products in question from its store and provided full customer refunds.

“Today’s vote to file an administrative complaint against Amazon was a huge step forward for this small agency,” said the CPSC acting chairman Robert Adler. “But it’s a huge step across a vast desert—we must grapple with how to deal with these massive third-party platforms more efficiently, and how best to protect the American consumers who rely on them.”

This isn't the first time Amazon has been lambasted for its distribution of hazardous items. Last year, a CNN investigation into customer reviews on the site found 70 AmazonBasics items had been associated with fires. A 2019 report by The Wall Street Journal also claimed that Amazon was selling more than 4,000 items that federal agencies had declared unsafe, prompting Senators to write to then CEO Jeff Bezos for answers. 

Last fall, a California state appeals court ruled that Amazon can be held liable for damages and injuries caused by faulty products sold on its third-party marketplace.

As part of its latest push to court families, Netflix is launching two new features that highlight its children's programming. Starting today, subscribers will see a new top 10 list on kids and family profiles that ranks the streamer's most popular children's shows and movies. Netflix says the leaderboard will be updated daily to reflect what its 208 million customers are watching in 93 countries across the globe. Viewers can access the top 10 in the kids homepage or in the ‘New & Popular’ section in the menu bar across devices, barring Apple TV.

To help parents keep track of what their children are watching, Netflix is also sending out a biweekly email newsletter crammed with recommendations based on kids' viewing habits, including the their thematic preferences (like science or friendship shows), and tips on the streamer's parental controls. That will land in the inbox of parents who have a kids profile set up starting July 16th.

The features arrive as Netflix ramp up its kids' content in the face of stiff competition from streaming rivals. On Tuesday, the company extended its US licensing deal for Universal's animated film slate, giving it access to Illumination and Dreamworks movies such as Minions: The Rise of Gru. In addition, Bloomberg revealed that the streamer had struck a partnership with Moonbug Entertainment for new shows based on its popular YouTube properties CoComelon, Blippi and Little Baby Bum. 

Netflix's recent high-profile kids releases include a cooking show starring Michelle Obama titled Waffles + Mochi and the Lord and Miller produced animated movie The Mitchells vs the Machines. In the past, the streaming service has used interactive shows, IP acquisitions and series aimed at preschoolers to keep families coming back.

The competition has also seized upon kids content as a means of attracting subscribers. Earlier this year, HBO Max ordered a raft of new Cartoon Network shows, bumping up its slate to 300 hours of children's originals and 3,000 hours of library programming. Disney, meanwhile, has unloaded its vault of cherished family classics onto Disney+, along with Pixar exclusives and spinoffs such as Luca and Monsters at Work. Paramount+ also just announced a Fairly OddParents live-action reboot to add to its Nickelodeon line-up.

Amazon's latest set of crowdfunded Echo devices aim for luxury over eccentricity. The retailer has unveiled three new trippy Echo Dot concepts from Belgian fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) that you can pre-order today for $60 each. Well, as long as they hit their sales target. 

Like the trio of weird products Amazon unveiled in February (cuckoo clock anyone?) these dinky speakers are part of the Built It program that borrows from Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Basically, Amazon will only ship out this second round of gadgets if they generate enough consumer interest within 30 days. As usual, if you order a product that doesn't make the cut, Amazon won't charge you for it. Paying $10 more for a limited edition smart speaker may not be a stretch for Amazon and DVF loyalists, so these stand a good chance of making it to the factory line.

Von Furstenberg is no stranger to the tech scene. The fashion powerhouse previously collaborated with Google on frames for its smart glasses and created a custom Samsung SPH-A680 cameraphone. She has also twice teamed up with Amazon to host female-led livestreams on International Women's Day. Von Furstenberg will be jumping back on Amazon Live today to plug the new Build It devices.

The God of Mischief will chase his glorious purpose in another season. If that sounds like complete gibberish, you probably haven't been watching Loki. Today, Disney revealed that the Marvel Studios series will return for a second season on Disney+. The media giant used the show's finale to announce the news. Mid-way through the sixth episode's end credits, Loki's case file can be seen with a stamp that reads "Loki will return in season 2.” 

The decision was likely a no-brainer: Loki had the streaming service's most-watched premiere back in June when Disney+ shifted its release days for originals from Friday to Wednesday. Now, it has become the first Disney+ Marvel show to get a second season renewal. Meanwhile, the fate of WandaVision and The Falcon and Winter Soldier remains a lot less certain, despite the originals garnering 23 and five Emmy nominations, respectively.

Loki helped to establish some of the major narrative elements that will percolate through phase four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the multiple universes set to be explored in the upcoming movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

It's a good time to be a Marvel fan in general. Last week saw the release of Black Widow on Disney+ Premier Access and theaters, ending a two-year drought for Marvel movies. The action film raked in $60 million on the streaming service and over $215 million globally. Just days ago, Disney also revealed that Marvel's animated show What If...? would debut on Disney+ on August 11th.

SolarWinds vulnerabilities continue to be targeted by overseas hackers months after the US information technology company suffered a widespread cyberattack. On Tuesday, Microsoft said that a group operating out of China was using a zero-day remote code execution to attack SolarWinds software. If successfully exploited, the flaw in the IT company's Serv-U software allows hackers to perform actions like install and run malicious payloads or view and change data, Microsoft noted in a blog post. 

As part of its investigation, Microsoft said it had observed the hacking group targeting organizations in the US military research and development and software sectors. The company has designated the actor as DEV-0322 in reference to its status as an unidentified "development group." Microsoft explained that it uses the label prior to reaching high confidence about the origin or identity of a hacker. The group operating out of China is using commercial VPN solutions and compromised consumer routers to carry out their attacks, Microsoft said. Those affected have been notified and assisted in their response, the company noted. 

SolarWinds confirmed on the weekend that it was notified by Microsoft of a security vulnerability in its Serv-U software. The flaw was related to the product's managed file transfer and secured FTP, which it has since patched.

SolarWinds gained overnight notoriety in December after it became the subject of a supply chain cyberattack that impacted 18,000 of its customers, including nine US government agencies. US intelligence released a joint statement in January naming Russia as the most likely source of the hack. The following month, Reuters reported that suspected Chinese hackers had exploited a separate flaw in SolarWinds' software to to help breach US government computers last year. The latest vulnerability is not related to the so-called Sunburst supply chain attack, SolarWinds said.

Mozilla is back with a new privacy-oriented browser update that plays nice with the world's biggest social network. With the release of Firefox 90, you can now use your Facebook details to login to websites in Private Browsing or Strict Mode. 

The change is made possible due to Smartblock 2.0, the new version of the improved third-party tracking blocker that was introduced with Firefox 87. For the uninitiated, the feature fixes up web pages that are broken by Firefox's content protections by replacing tracking scripts with "stand-ins" that allow sites to render normally.

Until now, SmartBlock would restrict scripts on Facebook as a "known tracker" that was collecting your data (or your device's data) across the web. Of course, that meant you couldn't use the pervasive "Connect with Facebook" option on other sites, which makes signing up to an online service a cinch. 

Realizing that millions of users don't want to be cut off from the quick login function, Firefox has made it so that Smartblock quickly unblocks Facebook scripts to allow you to sign in with your details as usual. On websites where you don't use the function, Firefox continues to block Facebook's trackers. 

For battle royales, it's a case of innovate or die. With severalbig-namecompetitors in the free-to-play genre, studios have to keep updating their games or risk losing players. Activision's latest offering for the Call of Duty: Warzone crowd is an objective-based mode called Payload. In a first for the game, the mission will be added to the rotating playlists as part of Season Four Reloaded.

Here's what you can expect from the new mode when it goes live with the update at 12AM ET on Thursday, July 15th. Payload splits players in two teams of 20 that are tasked with either escorting or attacking vehicles transporting satellite parts. Each team must complete their objective within the designated time limit. As usual, you can use custom loadouts or killstreaks (including a new sentry gun from Black Ops Cold War) to help your side clinch victory. You'll also be able to buy and build obstacles to stall the vehicles on the tracks.

The setup doesn't seem all that different from the types of protect or destroy missions available in Rockstar's GTA Online and Read Dead Online. Though, fighting off parachuting assailants or bombarding heavily armed trucks through multiple checkpoints does sound more frenzied. For its part, Activision is pitching Payload as a crucial battle that "can shift the balance of the war between Perseus and NATO." 

As for file sizes, the Warzone update will range from 8.9GB to 9.2GB on PlayStation and Xbox and PC, respectively.

Faster internet and mobile data speeds are cutting wait times for game and entertainment downloads. The two art forms helped people through lockdowns, so it makes sense for tech and media gatekeepers to maintain that momentum as life slowly returns to normal. Netflix did just that by allowing subscribers to watch partially downloaded shows and movies. Now, Google is doing the same for mobile games. The latest version of Android will allow you to fire up a game long before it completes downloading.

According to Google, you'll eventually be able to start playing Play store titles in seconds. More specifically, it says that games will be ready to open at least two times faster than before. One example shows a 127mb game being fit to play with just 20 percent downloaded. For now, developers can sign up to a beta for the feature, but Google says it will eventually become the default system for Play Store games.

The tech giant has tried to tear down some of the barriers around digital gaming in the past. Notably, it launched Instant Games in 2018 that loaded up ahead of the full installation process. While its Apple Arcade rival, Play Pass, allows subscribers to try a library of apps for a monthly fee. Then there's Stadia, Google's promising (but troubled) cloud gaming service that does away with game downloads.

More broadly, the play-as-you-download feature comes at an opportune time. Like their console and PC brethren, mobile games are increasing in size. A trend players may have spotted with the release of open-world and metaverse games like Genshin Impact and Roblox on iOS and Android. Research from Sensor Tower shows that the average file size of mobile games increased by 76 percent in the US since 2016. Helping players get to the action faster in the face of larger downloads is therefore a win-win for developers and the public alike.

Jabra's excellent earbuds may get all the attention, but it makes some solid headphones to boot. Take the Elite 85h, which are currently on sale at Amazon for $150, a $100 saving on their normal price of $250. We gave them a solid 84 rating with praise for their custom EQ and active noise cancellation modes and excellent battery life. 

Buy Jabra Elite 85h at Amazon - $150

The only major caveat we had was the price. Upon their launch, the true wireless headphones cost $300, but more recently they've sat at the sub-$160 range, even briefly dropping to $120. This latest deal marks an all-time low for Amazon and essentially cements their appeal.

If you missed them in 2019, the Elite 85h offer EQ and noise-cancellation presets within Jabra's Sound+ companion app that actually boost their audio profile. The headphones can automatically switch between these so-called "Moments" by analyzing noise to detect which location you're in. In addition, the software lets you choose between different voice assistants and helps you find your headphones if you lose them.

The Elite 85h also offer on-ear detection. When activated from the app, you can automatically answer calls or resume audio by putting them on. What's more, the headphones boast a heaving 36 hours of battery life with ANC on, topping Sony's 1000XM3 by six hours and Bose's QC35 II by an impressive 16 hours. Turn off noise-cancellation and you can up that to 41 hours between charges.

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China is tightening restrictions on businesses seeking to go public overseas amid a wave of Chinese origin IPOs in the US. Regulators have thrown down the gauntlet for local companies by announcing new privacy rules for those seeking foreign stock market listings, according to Reuters. As a result, any company that has data on more than a million customers must face a review into how they handle that info in order to receive permission for a foreign IPO. 

Regulators will scrutinize the risks of said data being being affected, controlled or manipulated by external governments following overseas flotations. In a broader effort to get companies to list locally, China is adding the two sets of rules that focus on data collection and data storage to its Data Security Law and the Personal Information Protection Law.

The constraints arrive in the midst of a privacy crackdown by Beijing. Regulators have previously rattled their sabres at TikTok and LinkedIn for alleged data collection violations. Just last week, authorities caused shockwaves by ordering ride-hailing giant Didi to remove its app from mobile stores in the wake of its US listing, causing its shares to initially plummet by 20 percent.

With US-China tensions still simmering, the decision will likely pile pressure on President Biden to increase scrutiny of Chinese businesses. Hostility created by Trump-era policies has eased in recent months after the removal of China's Xiaomi and Luokung Technology from military blocklists, which prevented Americans from buying and holding their shares. An expected thaw in relations under Biden likely fueled a recent surge in Chinese company listings. Last year, China-based businesses raised $11.7 billion through 30 IPOs in the US, with even more flotations occurring this year.