An investigative report from Bloomberg paints a disturbing picture of Twitch’s difficulties in moderating the livestreaming platform — especially its Clips feature, which allows users to preserve short videos. The outlet reports that, after analyzing about 1,100 clips, it found at least 83 with sexualized content involving children. Twitch removed the videos after it was alerted, and a company spokesperson wrote to Engadget in an email that it has since “invested heavily in enforcement tooling and preventative measures, and will continue to do so.”

Bloomberg highlighted one incident that exemplified the problem with Clips’ permanent nature on the otherwise transient platform. It recounts the unsettling story of a 12-year-old boy who took to Twitch last spring “to eat a sandwich and play his French horn.” He soon began taking requests from viewers, which (in a sad reflection of online behavior) somehow led to the boy pulling his pants down.

The outlet describes the incident as being over “in an instant.” Still, Clips’ recording function allowed one viewer — who allegedly followed over a hundred accounts belonging to children — to preserve it. This allegedly led to over 130 views of the 20-second Clip before Twitch was notified and removed it.

Clips launched in 2016 as a way to preserve otherwise ephemeral moments on the platform. The feature records 25 seconds before (and five seconds after) tapping the record button. This has the unfortunate side effect of allowing predators to save a troubling moment and distribute it elsewhere.

Twitch has planned to expand Clips this year as part of a strategy to produce more TikTok-like content on the platform. It plans to launch a discovery feed (also similar to TikTok) where users can post their short videos.

Bloomberg’s report cites the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, which reviewed the 83 exploitative videos and concluded that 34 depicted young users showing their genitals on camera. The bulk were allegedly boys between the ages of five and 12. An additional 49 clips included sexualized content featuring minors “exposing body parts or being subjected to grooming efforts.”

The organization said the 34 “most egregious” videos were viewed 2,700 times. The rest tallied 7,300 views.

Twitch’s response

“Youth harm, anywhere online, is unacceptable, and we take this issue extremely seriously,” a Twitch spokesperson wrote to Engadget. In response to being alerted to the child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the company says it’s developed new models to detect potential grooming behavior and is updating its existing tools to more effectively identify and remove banned users trying to create new accounts (including for youth safety-related issues).

Twitch adds that it’s stepped up its safety teams’ enforcement of livestreams, the root of Clips. “This means that when we disable a livestream that contains harmful content and suspend the channel, because clips are created from livestreams, we’re preventing the creation and spread of harmful clips at the source,” the company wrote. “Importantly, we’ve also worked to ensure that when we delete and disable clips that violate our community guidelines, those clips aren’t available through public domains or other direct links.”

“We also recognize that, unfortunately, online harms evolve,” the spokesperson continued. “We improved the guidelines our internal safety teams use to identify some of those evolving online harms, like generative AI-enabled Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).” Twitch added that it’s expanded the list of external organizations it works with to (hopefully) snuff out any similar content in the future.

Twitch’s moderation problems

Bloomberg reports that Clips has been one of the least moderated sections on Twitch. It also notes the company laid off 15 percent of its internal trust and safety team in April 2023 (part of a harrowing year in tech layoffs) and has grown more reliant on outside partners to squash CSAM content.

Twitch’s livestream-focused platform makes it a trickier moderation challenge than more traditional video sites like YouTube or Instagram. Those platforms can compare uploaded videos with hashes — digital fingerprints that can spot previously known problematic files posted online. “Hash technology looks for something that’s a match to something seen previously,” Lauren Coffren of the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children told Bloomberg. “Livestreaming means it’s brand new.”

Some companies take monitors, TVs or AI-fueled laptops to CES. Others bring a toilet seat you can talk to. The 151-year-old bathroom appliance company Kohler will introduce the PureWash E930 Bidet Seat in Las Vegas next week. The accessory fits onto most elongated toilets, transforming your dumb can into an Alexa- or Google Assistant-powered smart-loo.

Kohler says the PureWash E930 Bidet Seat “brings you the freshness of personal cleansing in a slim, low-profile design.” At $2,149, it isn’t cheap, but it could save you money — and installation hassles — compared to full-on smart toilets. (Kohler has models in the $8,000 to $10,000 range.)

The PureWash E930 opens and closes its cover hands-free when it senses motion. It has a self-cleaning mode, using its built-in UV light. Using Alexa or Google Home, you can control the smart seat hands-free (no small luxury with bathroom gear). Amazon and Google’s voice assistants can turn on the bidet spray, warm air dryer and UV cleaning at your command.

Kohler

The accessory, which supports front and rear wash modes, has a heated seat and a remote control with two programmable presets. The bidet automatically mists the toilet bowl before use “for more effective rinsing while flushing.” Its water temperature and pressure are adjustable, and you can choose between oscillating or pulsating sprays.

A boost spray mode (rear only) will automatically turn up your hindquarters-hosing to the maximum pressure setting. There’s also a child mode, which provides a “soft, gentle wash” for the little ones. When it’s time to dry, it includes a warm-air system with adjustable temperature settings.

The seat has LED lighting to turn your toilet into a nightlight. It even includes Kohler’s “Quiet-Close” technology that prevents seat slamming. The seat has a quick-release function, making it easy to remove for deeper cleanings.

The PureWash E930 is available for order now (in white) from Kohler’s website. A black colorway will be available in late February.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Samsung is looking to boost its game-streaming ecosystem for its smart TVs with a certification program. Ahead of CES 2024 in Las Vegas, the company today unveiled Designed for Samsung Gaming Hub, which gives third-party accessory makers an official designation that their gear works with the platform. The program’s first licensed gamepad, from PDP, is available for pre-order.

Hardware partners who work with Samsung on the program will add a “Designed for Samsung Gaming Hub” badge to their products. Although Samsung Gaming Hub works with most standard Bluetooth gamepads, the company says the designation means the controller will provide the “best possible game streaming experience on Samsung Gaming Hub, regardless of the supported Samsung device players choose.” Samsung describes the label as signifying “compatibility, quality, performance, safety and security” on its devices.

However, if you already own a Bluetooth gamepad that works with Samsung Gaming Hub — and you don’t care about dedicated shortcut buttons — you should be fine sticking with that.

Samsung Gaming Hub includes a solid list of game streaming services, including Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now, Amazon Luna, Boosteroid, Blacknut, Utomik and Antstream Arcade. (The dearly departed Google Stadia was once on that list.) In addition, it can stream content from Spotify, Twitch and YouTube.

The first hardware partner product with certification is the PDP Replay Wireless Controller. It offers up to 40 hours of battery life with a low-latency Bluetooth connection for up to 30 feet away. It has a dedicated button to launch the Samsung Gaming Hub, as well as TV power and volume buttons.

The PDP Replay is available for pre-order today at PDP’s website, and Samsung says Amazon and Best Buy will sell it later.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Razer is previewing two new Blade laptops, which it will officially unveil next week at CES 2024. The company says the new Razer Blade 16 has the world’s first 16-inch 240Hz OLED panel, and the updated Razer Blade 18 has an 18-inch 4K 165Hz one. It hasn’t revealed pricing or full specs yet, but Razer will roll out more details next week in Las Vegas.

The new Razer Blade 16 looks to improve on the display in last year’s model, which was already impressive. Razer says the OLED panel in the 2024 version was co-developed by Samsung Display. In addition to its QHD+ resolution and 240Hz refresh rate, it has a 0.2ms response time, and it’s VESA Certified ClearMR 11000, a standard that grades motion blur by its ratio of clear to blurry pixels. The panel has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and its black levels will likely impress with VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification.

Meanwhile, the 2024 Blade 18 moves from the 2023 model’s QHD, 240Hz panel to a 4K, 165Hz one. It has a 3ms response time with Nvidia G-Sync support and covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color space. 

Although Razer is withholding the devices’ full info for their official CES 2024 reveal on Monday, it added that they’re built with high-grade CNC aluminum unibody construction, and they have a 16:10 aspect ratio, “up to” an 89 percent screen-to-body ratio and ultra-thin bezels. Both laptops are Calman Verified and have a color accuracy certification. They’re also individually calibrated in the factory.

Engadget will be on the ground in Las Vegas starting this weekend, and we’ll have the full details and hands-on impressions for both new laptops.

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

Apple Fitness+ is adding new content for the new year. The workout service’s Artist Spotlight series celebrates the Super Bowl halftime show with playlists devoted to recent performers (including this year’s artist, Usher). In addition, new meditations, programs and Time to Walk episodes will arrive soon.

The Apple Fitness+ Artist Spotlight series dedicates entire workout playlists (across various exercises) to a single artist. In this case, it will devote them to several: Rihanna (available January 8), Britney Spears (January 15), U2 (January 22) and Usher (February 5, ahead of his performance).

Three of the four artists have been (or soon will be) Super Bowl halftime headliners: Rihanna in 2023, U2 in 2002 and Usher in 2024. Spears hasn’t had top billing, but she performed in the 2001 show, co-headlined by Aerosmith and NSYNC.

Fitness+ is also adding sound meditations. Apple says they’ll only include “light guidance” from the trainer, leaving room for you to focus on the “tranquil sounds of singing bowls and the deep pitch of gongs, all arranged to create a sense of ease.” There will be seven sound-themed meditations, arriving every week. You can choose between five, 10, and 20-minute sessions.

NBC via Getty Images

Time to Walk, Apple’s series of celebrity-guided audio walking experiences, is adding Al Roker. The Today Show weather anchor and co-host will share what he learned about mentorship, including a pivotal chat with his father. Other episodes will feature rapper and actor Common (who already works with Apple on the sci-fi series Silo), Trixie Mattel (aka Brian Firkus, RuPaul’s Drag Race), actor Colman Domingo (Rustin) and author / actor Lilly Singh will host episodes.

50 of Apple’s older Time to Walk episodes will be available on Apple Podcasts. Celebrity guests on the available content will include Prince William, Al Roker (again!), Patti LaBelle, Becky G, Simu Liu, Malala Yousafzai, Camila Cabello, Dolly Parton, Jason Segel and Shawn Mendes. Although the podcast version will omit guest-chosen songs and photos, you can still access those through the Fitness+ app. In addition, anyone who isn’t subscribed to Fitness+ can listen to 10 free Time to Walk episodes on Apple Podcasts.

Golfers will get some love from the service, too. Apple is adding a new workout program designed for links enthusiasts. The workouts will blend strength, core, and yoga training, focused on the specific strength, balance, flexibility and mobility golfers need. The workouts will feature (and were designed by) pro golfer Rose Zhang. “Whether people are new to the sport or want to advance their skills, I’m excited that the workouts in this program on Fitness+ will help users feel more confident in their swing and have fun on the course,” Zhang said. Fitness+ trainer Kyle Ardill will lead the videos.

Apple has partnered with Anytime Fitness, a US gym franchise, to offer perks to use both companies’ services. First, “prospective members” who try Anytime Fitness will get “up to three months” of Apple Fitness+ for free. In addition, Fitness+ subscribers who join the gym and sign up for at least a 12-month membership will get their first 30 days for no charge. The Anytime Fitness app on iOS will also integrate with Apple Fitness+ workouts.

Apart from the Artist Spotlight rollouts, Apple hasn’t shared specific launch dates for the new content. However, it said the new features will arrive “starting Monday, January 8.”

Twitch has revised its nudity policies yet again. The latest change bars streamers from pretending to be “fully or partially nude,” wrote Angela Hession, Twitch’s VP of Trust and Safety, in a blog post. The change comes several weeks after the company said creators could post “properly labeled” sexual content, only to flip-flop two days later.

The company added the new language to its community guidelines (reported by The Verge) in response to streamers “implying” nudity with carefully placed objects, censor bars or camera angles. The update to Twitch’s terms goes into effect today.

The revised terms also ban see-through clothing, clarifying that apparel must be fully opaque on bodily areas that require coverings. Hession also emphasized the importance of categorizing content correctly, including when streaming from near a pool, beach, or hot tub, where the “full coverage of the buttocks” requirement is loosened.

Twitch plans to eventually blur thumbnails for streams labeled as having sexual themes. “While most streamers have labeled this content appropriately with the Sexual Themes label and are wearing clothing behind the object or outside the camera frame, for many users, the thumbnails of this content can be disruptive to their experience on Twitch,” Hession wrote. Twitch says it will also update its settings to allow users to control the content they see based on how it’s labeled.

As it stands now, Twitch requires streamers to cover their buttocks, genitals and (for female-presenting streamers) the nipples and underbust areas. Visible outlines of genitals are also prohibited, but cleavage is fine as long as it’s clear the streamer is clothed. But you may want to check back soon: At the pace we’re going, Twitch may have revised its policies again by next week.

Jack Black is reportedly set to play Minecraft Steve. Deadline wrote on Tuesday that the School of Rock actor will play the game’s blocky protagonist alongside Jason Momoa in the game’s long-delayed film adaptation.

The Minecraft adaptation has been in development since 2014. It’s cycled through at least three previous directors (Shawn Levy, Rob McElhenney and Peter Sollett) and two missed release windows (2019 and 2022). Its current target date is April 4, 2025.

The writers for the project’s current iteration haven’t yet been revealed. However, adapting the sandbox building game into a plot-driven Hollywood blockbuster will allow for (and probably require) ample creativity from its scribes. A plot synopsis published in 2019 (which may or may not still apply) describes the film as following “a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers. After the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, they must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.”

Mojang / Microsoft

Black is fresh off a beloved performance as Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, where he showed the effectiveness of his larger-than-life comedic presence in gaming adaptations. IGN even noted that both of Black’s gaming roles — Bowser and Steve — appeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Napoleon Dynamite creator (and Black collaborator on Nacho Libre) Jared Hess will direct. Deadline says production will start soon on the film, which hails from Warner Bros, Vertigo, Legendary, Mojang / Microsoft and On the Roam. Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks and Sebastian Eugene Hansen have signed on to join Black and Momoa in the cast.

Donald Trump’s former “fixer,” Michael Cohen, used Google Bard to cite made-up legal cases that ended up in a federal court. The New York Times reported Friday that Cohen admitted in unsealed court papers that he passed on documents referencing bogus cases to his lawyer, who then relayed them to a federal judge. Cohen reportedly wrote in the sworn declaration he hadn’t stayed on top of “emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology.”

Cohen’s legal team filed the paperwork in a motion asking for an early end to court supervision from his 2018 campaign finance case, for which he served three years in prison. After Cohen’s attorney, David M. Schwartz, presented the legal documents to the federal court, Judge Jesse M. Furman of the Federal District Court said he was having trouble finding the three decisions cited by Schwartz (via Cohen).

Judge Furman told Schwartz that if he couldn’t provide documentation of the cases, the attorney needed to provide “a thorough explanation of how the motion came to cite cases that do not exist and what role, if any, Mr. Cohen played in drafting or reviewing the motion before it was filed.” Schwartz must also explain why he shouldn’t be sanctioned “for citing nonexistent cases to the court.” Cohen is a former lawyer who was disbarred after pleading guilty to multiple felonies.

Enter Bard. Cohen said he didn’t realize the AI bot “was a generative text service that, like ChatGPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.” Cohen also blamed his lawyer, saying he didn’t realize Schwartz “would drop the cases into his submission wholesale without even confirming that they existed.”

Although lawyers using AI chatbots to cite hallucinated cases makes for easy comedy, this flub could have profound implications for a critical case with potential political ramifications. Cohen is expected to be the star witness in the Manhattan criminal case against Trump for allegedly falsifying business records. The Bard flub gives Trump’s lawyers new ammunition to discredit the onetime fixer.

Cohen joins the company of ChatGPT Lawyer Steven Schwartz, who cited made-up cases (sourced through OpenAI’s chatbot) in a civil case earlier this year. He was allegedly joined by the attorney for Fugees rapper Pras Michel. In October, the artist accused his lawyer of using an AI program he may have had a financial stake in to produce his closing arguments.

A federal judge in California has shot down Elon Musk’s attempt to invalidate a state social media law, first reported by The Verge. The state’s AB 587 requires social companies to publish their content moderation policies, something Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) claimed violated the First Amendment. US District Judge William Shubb wrote on Thursday, “It does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law.”

X’s lawyers had argued the law was unconstitutional and would lead to censorship. AB 587 “has both the purpose and likely effect of pressuring companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech,” the company wrote in its lawsuit, filed in September. The company claimed the law’s “true intent” was to “pressure social media platforms to ‘eliminate’ certain constitutionally-protected content viewed by the State as problematic.”

Judge Shubb saw things differently. “The reports required by AB 587 are purely factual,” he wrote. “The reporting requirement merely requires social media companies to identify their existing content moderation policies, if any, related to the specified categories.”

He continued, “The required disclosures are also uncontroversial. The mere fact that the reports may be ‘tied in some way to a controversial issue’ does not make the reports themselves controversial.”

Shubb concluded that California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta met the burden of demonstrating the law was “reasonably related to a substantial government interest in requiring social media companies to be transparent about their content moderation policies and practices so that consumers can make informed decisions about where they consume and disseminate news and information.”

It’s been a rocky year for X in Musk’s first year of ownership. The company changed its name, hired a new CEO, launched a snarky AI chatbot, brought back a notorious conspiracy theorist and bled money as the ad industry got cold feet about brands sitting next to content from Nazi sympathizers. Oh, and the EU has opened formal infringement proceedings against the company formerly known as Twitter.

JAC Motors, a Volkswagen-backed Chinese automaker, is set to launch the first mass-produced electric vehicle (EV) with a sodium-ion battery through its new Yiwei brand. Although sodium-ion battery tech has a lower density (and is less mature) than lithium-ion, its lower costs, more abundant supplies and superior cold-weather performance could help accelerate mass EV adoption. CarNewsChina reports that the JAC Yiwei EV hatchback deliveries will begin in January.

Yiwei is a new brand in 2023 for JAC. Volkswagen has a 75 percent stake in (and management control of) JAC and owns 50 percent of JAC’s parent company, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Holdings (JAG). The Chinese government owns the other half of JAG, making for one of the auto industry’s stranger pairings.

JAC via CarNewsChina

The Yiwei EV appears to be a rebranded version of the Sehol E10X hatchback (above), announced earlier this year. CarNewsChina describes the Sehol model as having a 252 km (157 miles) range with a 25 kWh capacity, 120 Wh / kg energy density, 3C to 4C charging, and a HiNa NaCR32140 cell. When JAC revealed the Yiwei brand in May, it said it would drop the Sehol label and rebrand all its vehicles to either JAC or Yiwei, leading us to this week’s EV reveal. JAC hasn’t yet said whether the Yiwei-branded model will keep the E10X moniker.

In April, JAC showcased a separate EV called the Yiwei 3 at the Shanghai Auto Show. That model launched in June with an LFP lithium battery, promising the sodium-ion variant would launch later.

JAC via CarNewsChina

The new Yiwei EV reportedly uses cylindrical sodium-ion cells from HiNA Battery. JAC assembles the batteries in the company’s modular UE (Unitized Encapsulation) honeycomb structure, similar to CATL’s CTP (cell-to-pack) and BYD’s Blade. The layout can provide for greater stability and performance.