Instagram is testing new age verification methods including asking followers to vouch for your age and even using AI that can estimate your age via a video selfie. It's part of a push to ensure users are at least the minimum 13 years old and "to make sure that teens and adults are in the right experience for their age group," it announced. 

For the "social vouching" system, Instagram asks three mutual followers of the user to confirm their age. Those followers must be at least 18 and have three days to respond to the request. Users can still verify their age with pictures of ID cards as well. 

The AI part requires you to take a video selfie, which Meta-owned Instagram then shares with a company called Yoti (it doesn't provide any other information to Yoti, only the image, it says). "Yoti's technology estimates your age based on your facial features and shares that estimate with us. Meta and Yoti then delete the image. The technology cannot recognize your identity — only your age," Instagram says in the blog post.

Despite those reassurances, the system is bound to be controversial. Users widely distrust both Facebook and Instagram with their data, to start with. On top of that, Yoti's age recognition AI has higher errors depending on your gender, age range and skin tone.

Yoti's system is already used by the UK and German governments to detect age using deep learning after being trained on "hundreds of thousands" of pictures, Yoti cofounder Robin Tombs told Wired last year. Much like other neural networks, though, how it works is a bit of a black box, so even the company doesn't know exactly which facial characteristics it uses. Yoti has a YouTube demo (above) where it applies makeup to young users to see if the system can still correctly guess their ages (it can). 

You can try Yoti's age estimation yourself — I found that it made me considerably younger (four years) when I took off my glasses, so your own mileage may vary. In general, it's the least accurate (plus or minus 3.97 years) when used on female faces with dark skin and the most accurate (2.38 years) with light-skinned male faces. 

Instagram says it aims to use AI to understand people's ages to "prevent teens from accessing Facebook Dating, adults from messaging teens and helps teens from receiving restricted ad content, for example." It looks like this is just the start, as well, as the company said it plans to expand the use of it "widely across our technologies." 

Samsung Electronics has unveiled its latest 200-megapixel camera sensor with some of the tiniest pixels yet, which it says will allow manufacturers to keep their premium smartphones slim. At the same time, the HP3 sensor packs technology like autofocus capability in every pixel, binning for better low light capability and multi-gain ISO for maximum dynamic range. 

The sensor is 1/1.4-inches in size, fairly large for a smartphone but extremely tiny for a 200-megapixel sensor. Samsung claims that it has the industry's smallest pixels at 0.56 microns, 20 percent smaller than the 0.64 micron pixels of the ISOCELL HP1 launched last year. However, that's not quite accurate, as Chinese manufacturer Omnivision unveiled a 200-megapixel sensor with the same 0.56 micron pixel size back in February. 

Samsung

Still, Samsung's sensor has some nice tech tricks. Each pixel has autofocus detection capability and the "Super QPD" tech uses a single lens over four pixels that allows for quicker and more accurate autofocus. It can also bin four 0.56 micron pixels into a larger 1.12 micron 50-megapixel sensor for better low light capability, or even combine 16 pixels into one 2.24 microns in size. That's still considerably smaller than most camera sensor pixels (Sony's 61-megapixel full-frame A7R IV sensor has 3.76 micron pixels), but should allow for decent low-light shooting capability. 

In addition to high-res photos, it allows for 8K video at 30fps and 4K at 120fps, while using nearly the full sensor width. Finally, it offers 14-bit color depth (4 trillion colors), quadrupling the 12-bit depth of most smartphone sensors. Mass production is set to begin this year, and you'll probably see 200-megapixel phones using the sensor in 2023. 

IKEA already lets you preview furniture in your home via AR, but its latest AI-powered iOS app offers a big leap in capability. Called IKEA Kreativ, it can scan your rooms using LiDAR and build a complete 3D replica of them, then let you delete your existing furniture. From there, you can try out new IKEA couches, tables, etc. and get a much better idea of how they'll look in your home. 

The scanning is done via something IKEA calls the Kreativ Scene Scanner, which uses LiDAR if it's available on your iPhone. It also works on iPhones or iPads without LiDAR, though having it allows the app to "pull in additional spatial detail," IKEA told Engadget.  

IKEA

To use it on the web or a mobile device without LiDAR, you simply have to input a series of photographs of a room. Those are then "automatically processed and assembled into a wide-angle, interactive replica of the space, with accurate dimensions and perspective," IKEA said in a press release. From there, you can erase existing furniture and position new IKEA pieces, quickly try alternatives and fully design the room. All of our ideas can be saved for later or shared with others. Naturally, the app also lets you add preferred pieces to your shopping cart. 

If you're looking for further inspiration, IKEA also unveiled 50 new 3D showrooms. Those let you browse the IKEA catalogue virtually and try out products in 3D settings, "quickly swapping, moving, rotating, stacking and hanging IKEA products," the company said. 

The app is the latest high-tech move by IKEA, which has launched a raft of connected speakers, smart home hubs, connected lights, charging pads and more over the last few years. On top of that, IKEA joined a new group created by Microsoft, Meta and others to create metaverse standards — so, you might be able to at least find furniture in virtual reality. 

Nothing's debut Phone 1 smartphone won't be coming to the US, the company confirmed to PCMag. "While we’d love to bring Phone 1 to the entire community around the world, we're focusing on home markets, including the UK and Europe," the company said in a statement. However, it added that "a limited number of our private community investors" could get one in the US through a closed beta program. 

Nothing showed off the device for the first time last week on Twitter following a tease by founder Carl Pei. The most noticeable feature is a transparent back, revealing a wireless charging coil and a mysterious pattern that lights up. The company has also promised "an open and diverse product ecosystem" and the pure Android Nothing OS. 

The company further explained that "it takes a lot to launch a smartphone... from ensuring the handset is supported by the country's cellular technologies to carrier partnerships and local regulation, and as we're still a young brand we need to be strategic about it." Even folks in the closed beta program are likely to have issues with coverage and a lack of support of features like voice over LTE, according to PCMag. A similar disclosure was given by Nothing when the first 100 phones went up for bid on StockX.

Still, Nothing does have North American ambitions. "We have big plans to launch a US supported smartphone in the future," the company wrote. The Nothing Phone 1 is set to debut in London on July 12th — you can catch it via a livestream if you RSVP in advance. 

The PCI-SIG committee has unveiled the latest PCI Express 7.0 standard with blazing speeds, even as we still wait for two-generation-older PCIe 5 devices to arrive in quantity. Set to launch in 2025 and probably hit shelves around 2027, PCIe 7 will offer up to 512 GB/s of throughput, 8 times that of the latest PCI Express 5.0 speeds.

The 512GB/s bi-directional speeds will be available on x16 connections, but will be considerably reduced in the real world due to encoding overhead and header efficiency. Still, it's double the PCI 6.0 standard that's supposed to arrive by the end of the year. PCI-SIG (which is currently holding its annual developers conference) said that it's ahead of its goal of doubling PCI Express speeds every three years. 

PCI-SIG

All this speed depends on device and chip makers, though. Intel's 12th-gen Alder Lake chips released in January 2022 do support PCIe 5.0, but AMD's Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 desktop chips with PCIe 5.0 support won't arrive until this fall. The first PCIe 5.0 SSDs for consumers have only just arrived with read speeds up to 13GB/s. 

Other key features include improved power efficiency, low latency and backwards compatibility with previous generations. However, PCIe 7.0 will require shorter traces to achieve those speeds, so motherboards could be more expensive as they'll likely require extra components and thicker PCBs. 

On the plus side, even x1 PCIe 7.0 lanes will be as fast as PCIe 4.0 x16 speeds (32 GB/s), so storage and other devices could be smaller and hog fewer resources. Put another way, you could have four NVME SSD drive slots with each using just 1 PCIe lane, and all of them would be twice as fast as a PCIe5 x4 NVMe slot.

Sony only recently launched its $200 LinkBuds S wireless earphones with active noise cancellation, and we're now seeing the first serious discount. Amazon is selling both the white and black models for $178, for a savings of $22 or 11 percent — a nice drop if you've been pondering a pair. 

Sony unveiled the open wear LinkBuds earlier this year, but the LinkBuds S offer a more traditional in-ear "closed" design. They resemble Sony's WF-1000XM4 earbuds, but are smaller and therefore more comfortable to wear for longer periods. Sony in-fact calls them "the world's smallest and lightest, noise-canceling, hi-res" true wireless earbuds. In addition, they're IPX4 rated so you can use them for workouts or in bad weather. 

With 5mm drivers, they promise "powerful bass and stunningly clear vocals," Sony says. They also use the new Integrated Processor V1 found on the new WH-1000XM5 headphones to ensure high sound quality, reduce distortion and augment noise cancellation. They support high-resolution listening via Sony's LDAC codec and DSEE Extreme upscaling. 

The ANC isn't as powerful as that found on the WF-1000XM4, but it can still reduce background clamor. It also has a transparency mode so you can hear what's going on around you and it can adjust that based on your activity or location. Meanwhile, a new feature called Auto Play can automatically play or resume audio based on your activity when you put the earbuds in or complete a call — letting you have a select playlist when you go for a walk, for instance. 

In other words, they're ideal wireless earphones for everyday use and can adapt to a wide variety of activities. Considering they just launched last month, though, the deal may not last long. 

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Tesla is being sued by two former employees from its Sparks, Nevada gigafactory over mass layoffs, Reuters has reported. They claim that more than 500 workers were let go at the plant without the required 60-days of advance notice, in violation of federal laws. "Tesla has simply notified the employees that that their terminations would be effective immediately," the complaint states. They're seeking class action status on behalf of any US Tesla employees laid off in May or June without advance notice. 

The US WARN Act requires that companies provide 60-day notice before any mass layoffs, under certain circumstances. The idea is to give employees sufficient time to find other work or retrain. One of the workers who filed the suit, John Lynch, said he was notified on June 10th that he'd been terminated effective immediately.

"Tesla started laying people off in blatant disregard for the WARN act," attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan (who is representing the workers), told Bloomberg — adding that Tesla only offered one week of severance pay to some employees. She's preparing an emergency motion in an effort to block Tesla from trying to get releases from employees in exchange for a week of severance pay.

Thousands of Tesla workers have reportedly been let go around the US and many suffered "devastating economic impact," according to the lawsuit. Earlier this month, CEO Elon Musk told Tesla executives in an email that he planned to cut around 10 percent of jobs, according to Reuters, saying he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy. 

Samsung has a new lineup of value-oriented monitors for content creators called ViewFinity S8, it announced. The 27- and 32-inch IPS LCD models offer features like 4K 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, accurate colors, a matte finish and professional factory calibration. Better still, the prices appear to be well under $1,000. 

The ViewFinity name promises "pinpoint accuracy and consistency" for designers, artists and professionals, Samsung said. To that end, both models offer 98 percent DCI-P3 color gamut coverage, up to a billion colors (probably using 8-bit + FRC and not true 10-bit panels), Pantone validation for accurate colors, and factory calibration. The 32-inch model is certified to VESA's DisplayHDR 600 category so should be bright enough for some HDR work, while the 27-inch model conforms to the more limited VESA DisplayHDR 400 category. 

They offer height, tilt and swivel adjustment, along with easy VESA wall mount installation. The IPS panel allows for good brightness even at acute viewing angles, while the matte finish helps reduce reflections. That means a monitor hood isn't needed, Samsung says, which also makes the ViewFinity S8 lineup more practical for vertical screen rotation (portrait mode). 

The displays also function as all-in-one docks for desktops or laptops. You can power a phone, tablet or laptop with up to 90 watts of USB-C power delivery, and also get data transfers and even ethernet over USB-C. It also supports intelligent eye care, adaptive picture for optimized quality in any viewing environment, eye saver mode and flicker free technology. 

The ViewFinity S8 models will arrive globally by the end of June, with specific dates depending on the region. Samsung didn't announce US prices yet, but the 32-inch model is priced at 820,000 won in Korea ($634), while the 27-inch model is 720,000 won ($557). 

Telegram has launched its paid $5 per month Premium subscription tier first revealed last month, it announced in a detailed blog post. Some of the notable features include a larger maximum file upload size, faster downloads, more channels and unique new stickers. 

The current limit on file size uploads is 2GB, but Premium users can send files up to 4GB in size, handy for folks who send a lot of video or large ZIP files (all users can download those extra-large documents). Paid users will also be able to download media and files at their full network speeds, rather than seeing restricted speeds. 

The Premium plan also doubles limits, letting you follow up to 1,000 channels, create up to 20 chat folders with 200 chats each, add a fourth account to any Telegram app, pin 10 chats and save up to 10 favorite stickers. And users will get unique stickers with full-screen animations visible to all users, along with unique reactions.

Other features include voice-to-text transcriptions, chat management, longer bios, animated profile pictures, more characters for media captions, 400 favorite GIFs, up to 20 public t.me links, premium badges and app icons and an ad-free experience. 

Telegram also announced that it became one of the top give downloaded apps worldwide in 2022 and now has 700 million monthly active users. It also unveiled several new features for all users, including verification badges for public figures and organizations, join request for public groups, improved bots, improved chat previews on Android, improved external sharing on iOS and more. The update is rolling out gradually, so if you don't see it now, "the new version will become available soon," Telegram wrote. 

After previewing the feature in beta last April, WhatsApp is rolling out greater privacy controls for Profile Photo, About, Status and Last Seen settings, the company tweeted. Until now, you could only block those settings for Everyone, My Contacts or Nobody, but the new update introduces a "My Contacts Except" option that offers far more granular control. 

The "Last Seen" status is a particular privacy danger, as it indicates when someone last checked the app. That provides a way to find out if a contact may have potentially seen your message even if they have read receipts turned off. The new feature allows you to shut off that feature for certain people, while also blocking Profile Photo, About and Status for individual users. 

If you restrict your Last Seen status to certain people, you'll notice that you won't be able to see their Last Seen status, either. The new settings are available via the three-dot menu in the upper right corner, then navigating to Account > Privacy. 

WhatsApp has added a number of new features of late, both around privacy and convenience. Last year, the company said it would limit accounts for users who don't accept its new privacy policy, but it later backtracked on that. Earlier this week, the chat app unveiled a new feature that makes it easier to switch from Android to iOS.