Bluesky, the open-source Twitter alternative, is now open to anyone. After being in beta for a little less than a year and with just over three million users, the social media platform is an option if the ruins of X (formerly Twitter) or Threads aren’t doing it for you.

Bluesky began life as an internal project at Jack Dorsey’s Twitter, but it ended its association with the entity now known as X after Elon Musk’s takeover. “We really believe that the future of social is, and should be, open and decentralized,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber tells Engadget. “This is something that we think is good for the public conversation overall.”

Decentralized status aside, the service is functionally similar to X and Threads. Posts aren’t tweets but ‘skeets.’ There’s a chronological timeline, but you can also follow numerous other algorithmic feeds created by fellow users. (I’m intrigued by the feed for quiet friends — users you follow who don’t post that often.)

You can find me on there @thatmatsmith.bsky.social. I’m probably going to be one of those quiet friends.

— Mat Smith

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Disney+ starts cracking down on password sharing

The streaming service has reportedly warned US subscribers in an email.

If it worked for Netflix… Disney+ is emailing its subscribers, notifying them about a change in its terms of service. Its service agreement now states users may not share their passwords outside of their household “unless otherwise permitted by [their] service tier,” suggesting new subscription options in the future. It might be time for Mom and Dad to buy their own subscription. I say Mom and Dad, I mean you.

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Taylor Swift also doesn’t like her private jets being tracked

She threatened legal action against the same guy who ran the ElonJet account.

Taylor Swift has threatened legal action against a Florida student who set up multiple social media accounts that release real-time information of her personal aircraft’s whereabouts. The student facing legal action by Swift’s team is the same guy who ran the ElonJet account that tracked Elon Musk’s jet. Facebook and Instagram banned Sweeney’s accounts that track Swift’s air travel late last year, but they’re still live on Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram and other sites.

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Nintendo thinks it’ll sell more Switch consoles than it predicted this year

And the Switch is old.

Engadget

At almost seven years old, the Nintendo Switch is proving there’s still life in the hybrid console. Enough life for Nintendo to up its predicted sales figures for its current fiscal year. In its third-quarter earnings release, the company announced it was increasing the Switch’s projected sales from 15 million to 15.5 million. That’s great and all, but where’s the Switch 2?

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Back in 2022, the European Commission released a proposal for a directive on how to combat domestic violence and violence against women in other forms. Now, the European Council and Parliament have agreed with the proposal to criminalize, among other things, different types of cyber-violence. The proposed rules will criminalize the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, including deepfakes made by AI tools, which could help deter revenge porn. Cyber-stalking, online harassment, misogynous hate speech and "cyber-flashing," or the sending of unsolicited nudes, will also be recognized as criminal offenses.

The commission says that having a directive for the whole European Union that specifically addresses those particular acts will help victims in Member States that haven't criminalized them yet. "This is an urgent issue to address, given the exponential spread and dramatic impact of violence online," it wrote in its announcement. In addition, the directive will require member states to develop measures that can help users more easily identify cyber-violence and to know how to prevent it from happening if possible or how to seek help. It will require them to provide their residents with an online portal where they can send in reports, as well. 

In its reporting, Politico suggested that the recent spread of pornographic deepfake images using Taylor Swift's face urged EU officials to move forward with the proposal. If you'll recall, X even had to temporarily block searches for the musician's name after the images went viral. "The latest disgusting way of humiliating women is by sharing intimate images generated by AI in a couple of minutes by anybody," European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told the publication. "Such pictures can do huge harm, not only to popstars but to every woman who would have to prove at work or at home that it was a deepfake." At the moment, though, the aforementioned rules are just part of a bill that representatives of EU member states still need to approve. "The final law is also pending adoption in Council and European Parliament," the EU Council said. According to Politico, if all goes well and the bill becomes a law soon, EU states will have until 2027 to enforce the new rules.

It looks like Elon Musk isn’t the only billionaire who doesn’t like having their private jet tracked. Pop star Taylor Swift has threatened legal action against a Florida student who set up multiple social media accounts that release real-time information as to the whereabouts of her personal aircraft, according to The Washington Post.

This is eerily reminiscent of the whole ElonJet scandal of late 2022, in which Twitter banned an account that was tracking Musk’s jet. As a matter of fact, the student facing legal action by Swift’s team is the same guy who ran that account. Jack Sweeney, 21, runs various social media pages that log the takeoffs and landings of aircraft owned by billionaires, politicians and, of course, pop stars.

Back in December, Swift’s attorneys wrote Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter that said the pop star would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if he did not stop publishing details as to her jet’s whereabouts, likening it to “stalking and harassing behavior.”

The letter went on to say that Sweeney’s actions had caused Swift and her family “direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress,” and had heightened her “constant state of fear for her personal safety.” It’s worth noting that Swift has had numerous stalkers and harassers throughout her career. Just last month, a man was arrested for stalking her at home on several occasions.

“While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our client,” the legal team wrote. The letter added that there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”

Tree Paine, a spokesperson for Swift, made a direct line from Sweeney’s social media accounts to Swift’s harassers, saying that the pop star’s team couldn’t “comment on any ongoing police investigation but can confirm the timing of stalkers suggests a connection.”

Sweeney told The Washington Post that this is just an attempt to scare him away from sharing public data, noting that all of his jet-tracking accounts draw location information from the Federal Aviation Administration and volunteer hobbyists. Aircraft regularly broadcast their locations via transponders so air traffic controllers can see what’s going on. Anyone on the ground can pick up these signals by using a device called an ADS-B receiver, which are widely available online. “This information is already out there,” Sweeney said. “Her team thinks they can control the world.”

Swift’s team wrote that Sweeney is “notorious for disregarding the personal safety of others in exchange for public attention and/or requests for financial gain”, citing an incident in which he asked Elon Musk for $50,000 to take down the ElonJet account.

Facebook and Instagram banned Sweeney’s accounts that track Swift’s air travel late last year, but they’re still live on Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram and other social media sites. His live-tracking accounts have been banned on X, but he’s allowed to post location data with a 24-hour delay. In addition to the world’s biggest pop star, Sweeney also tracks people like Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Mark Zuckerberg.

It doesn’t look like Sweeney's planning to stop tracking the pop star's jet anytime soon. He's lawyered up to defend himself from legal action.

Bad actors keep using deepfakes for everything from impersonating celebrities to scamming people out of money. The latest instance is out of Hong Kong, where a finance worker for an undisclosed multinational company was tricked into remitting $200 million Hong Kong dollars ($25.6 million). 

According to Hong Kong police, scammers contacted the employee posing as the company's United Kingdom-based chief financial officer. He was initially suspicious, as the email called for secret transactions, but that's where the deepfakes came in. The worker attended a video call with the "CFO" and other recognizable members of the company. In reality, each "person" he interacted with was a deepfake — likely created using public video clips of the actual individuals. 

The deepfakes asked the employee to introduce himself and then quickly instructed him to make 15 transfers comprising the $25.6 million to five local bank accounts. They created a sense of urgency for the task, and then the call abruptly ended. A week later, the employee checked up on the request within the company, discovering the truth.

Hong Kong police have arrested six people so far in connection with the scam. The individuals involved stole eight identification cards and had filed 54 bank account registrations and 90 loan applications in 2023. They had also used deepfakes to trick facial recognition software in at least 20 cases. 

The widespread use of deepfakes is one of the growing concerns of evolving AI technology. In January, Taylor Swift and President Joe Biden were among those whose identities were forged with deepfakes. In Swift's case, it was nonconsensual pornographic images of her and a financial scam targeting potential Le Creuset shoppers. President Biden's voice could be heard in some robocalls to New Hampshire constituents, imploring them not to vote in their state's primary. 

Everyone’s favorite former Fear Factor host Joe Rogan has signed a new deal with Spotify that's likely to be worth $250 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. That's even more money than his first deal back in 2020, which was estimated to give the comedian $200 million. There’s no information as to the length of Rogan’s new contract, but it has been defined as a “multiyear” continuation of his various podcast ventures. 

Even better for Rogan’s bottom line? The deal allows Spotify to distribute Rogan’s podcasts on additional platforms, including a video version for YouTube. The contract stipulates a revenue-sharing agreement based on ad sales, so this will likely put a lot more money into the comedian's pocket. There’s also an upfront minimum guarantee for the world’s preeminent expert on all things Covid, but the financial amount remains undisclosed. 

Spotify is reportedly angling to renegotiate expiring contracts with existing content creator to offer lower minimum guarantees, but that may not apply to Rogan. The company’s also planning on revising these contract terms to allow for publication on other platforms, like YouTube, which is exactly what it's doing with Rogan here. 

There’s also likely an audience number target threshold, as was the case with his 2020 deal. He’ll sail right past that, however, as The Joe Rogan Experience continues to be Spotify’s most popular podcast, even beating Travis Kelce talking about Taylor Swift and, sigh, The Tucker Carlson Podcast. That’s the current top three.

Despite bringing in a metric ton of ears to Spotify, Rogan has been a regular source of controversy. He’s pushed a whole lot of ill-informed Covid nonsense throughout the years, which prompted doctors and scientists to call for an update to Spotify’s misinformation policy. This led to boycotts from both users and creators. Most famously, Neil Young pulled his songs from the streamer in protest. 

Spotify has long excused this stuff by calling itself a platform and not a publisher. However, this new deal quite literally has the company publishing Joe Rogan’s podcasts on other platforms. It's also, of course, been publishing Rogan on its own platform for years. 

There’s also the ever-present issue of how Spotify pays artists. The company is notorious for paying musicians very little, or even nothing at all. This leads one to dream of a world where musicians get a tiny piece of that Rogan pie, but, alas, that’s not in the cards. Spotify did set aside $100 million to foster diversity in podcasts and music, but ended up not really spending any of it. Hey, it’s the thought that counts.

Samsung’s Galaxy S24 phones are all about AI, but how do they compare against Google’s AI tech? This week, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss what works and doesn’t about Samsung’s ambitious new smartphones, and why it may be a good thing for the Korean giant to directly compete with Google. Also, Senior Editor Karissa Bell joins to discuss the social media CEO Senate hearing, which, unsurprisingly, doesn’t really amount to much.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics

• Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra reviews: AI with mixed results – 0:47

• Senate gathers social media CEOs over online child safety – 15:15

• Graphic images of Taylor Swift on X prompts U.S. bill to let people sue over sexual deepfakes – 28:11

• Universal Music Group pulls songs from TikTok during talks on a new music rights deal – 33:05

• Delaware court denies Elon Musk’s “unfathomable” Tesla payday – 38:31

• Neuralink claims to have implanted its first chip in a human test subject – 40:32

• Google reveals new text-to-image generative AI tool, ImageFX – 41:46

• Working on – 47:00

• Pop culture picks – 51:29

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Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Karissa Bell
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

AI-generated voices mimicking celebrities and politicians are making it harder for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fight robocalls. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel wants the commission to recognize calls that use AI-generated voices as artificial, making the use of voice cloning technologies in robocalls illegal.

Under the FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), artificial voice or recording calls to residences are against the law. If AI-generated voice calls are recognized as illegal under the existing law, it’ll give state attorneys general offices nationwide “new tools” to crack down on scammers.

The FCC’s proposal comes shortly after some New Hampshire residents received a call impersonating President Joe Biden, telling them not to vote in their state’s primary. A security firm performed a thorough analysis of the call and determined it was created using AI tools by a startup called ElevenLabs. The company subsequently banned the account responsible for the message.

— Mat Smith

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​​

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Comcast agrees to kill misleading 10G branding

Because Comcast’s internet isn’t that much faster than rivals.

Comcast is discontinuing its Xfinity 10G Network branding to describe its internet service after a National Advertising Review Board (NARB) panel found the term could mislead consumers into thinking that Comcast’s cellular and broadband services would offer much faster speeds than current-generation networks.

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Google tests generative AI tools in Maps

Bots to help you get there.

Google is adding generative AI to Maps. The feature’s in early access and only available in certain areas and for select Local Guides members. It allows you to speak to the app using natural language to discover new places. Ask the app what you’re looking for, like a specific kind of restaurant, and the company’s large-language models will analyze information from all of its listings, along with insights from community members.

The recommendation engine will also recall what you’ve asked in the past, hopefully honing future suggestions.

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Taylor Swift and other Universal Music tracks are disappearing from TikTok

The company made good on its promise following a breakdown in negotiations.

Evan Agostini

After threatening to do so earlier this week, Universal Music Group (UMG) is pulling the catalogs of performers it represents, including Taylor Swift, Drake, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd and others. There are no longer tracks listed in the profiles of some of the world’s most notable artists, and any UMG music featured in TikTok videos will be muted going forward. Universal had previously said TikTok wanted to pay a “fraction” of the rate paid by other social media sites.

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Meta’s Reality Labs has its best quarter ever, making a $4 billion loss

You read that right.

JOSH EDELSON via Getty Images

This is the perfect picture for this story. Reality Labs, Meta’s division for AR, VR and the metaverse, generated more than $1 billion in revenue during the final quarter of 2023, thanks to its Quest headsets and the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The division, however, still lost $4.6 billion in the quarter and more than $16 billion in 2023. Legs are expensive.

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After threatening to do so earlier this week, Universal Music Group (UMG) has started pulling the catalogs of performers it represents including Taylor Swift, Drake, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd and others. There are no longer tracks listed in profiles of some of the world's most notable artists.

Moreover, UMG music featured in TikTok videos will be muted going forward, forcing creators to replace the tracks with options from other music labels. That won’t be easy for many of them, considering the huge number of lip-sync videos that litter the social network.

It’s a drastic move on Universal’s part, given that TikTok is a valuable marketing platform for its artists. However, UMG also has a fair amount of leverage, given that it’s the largest record label in the world with some of the most popular artists. Either way, it’s a blow for both creators and users of the platform.

Universal had previously stated that TikTok wanted to pay a "fraction" of the rate paid by other social media sites: "As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth."

In response, TikTok said that it serves as a valuable marketing tool for artists and publishers. "Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent."

The CEOs of Meta, Snap, Discord, X and TikTok testified at a high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child exploitation online. During the hearing, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, Jason Citron, Linda Yaccarino and Shou Chew spent nearly four hours being grilled by lawmakers about their records on child safety.

Judiciary Committee Chair, Senator Dick Durbin, noted Discord’s Citron “only accepted services of his subpoena” after US Marshals went to the company’s headquarters. Compared to previous hearings with tech CEOs, it was a heavier setting. The room was filled with parents of children who had been victims of online exploitation.

“Discord has been used to groom, abduct and abuse children,” Durbin said. “Meta’s Instagram helped connect and promote a network of pedophiles. Snapchat’s disappearing messages have been co-opted by criminals who financially extort young victims. TikTok has become a, quote, platform of choice for predators to access, engage and groom children for abuse. And the prevalence of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) on X has grown as the company has gutted its trust and safety workforce.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a US Senate hearing without politicians also embarrassing themselves: Senator John Kennedy asked Snap’s Evan Spiegel if he knew the meaning of “yada yada yada” (Spiegel claimed he was “not familiar” with the phrase). “Can we agree… what you do is what you believe and everything else is just cottage cheese,” Kennedy asked. (… What?)

X’s Yaccarino, who repeatedly claimed X was a “brand new company” (and not Twitter with a poorly received rebrand), said the platform was considering adding parental controls. “Being a 14-month-old company, we have reprioritized child protection and safety measures,” she said. “And we have just begun to talk about and discuss how we can enhance those with parental controls.”

Twitter launched in 2006.

— Mat Smith

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Universal Music could pull Taylor Swift and Drake from TikTok

The group said it’s a ‘bad deal that undervalues music.’

Buda Mendes/TAS23 via Getty Images

Universal Music Group is threatening to pull all of its music from TikTok today following a breakdown in negotiations over royalties. The company wrote in an open letter that TikTok wanted to pay a “fraction” of the rate paid by other social media sites. “As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”

The sides have reportedly been in negotiations for the past year. Such deals are worth billions annually to music publishing companies – and Universal is the world’s largest record label. If a deal isn’t struck, TikTok creators would lose access to songs from stars including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, the Weeknd, Drake and others.

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Persona 3 Reload is a surprising dose of 2000s nostalgia

Wired headphones. DVD players. Internet cafes.

With Persona 3 Reload, developer Altus chose the most confusing (and influential) entry in the series to remake. There are some big changes you may not even notice if you haven’t played the 2006 original recently, with new English language voice actors (all the Japanese VAs return from the original) and, interestingly, the most voiced scenes from any game in the Persona series. Oh, it’s also incredibly gorgeous at times. But damn, it makes me feel old.

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Hideo Kojima teases a new action-espionage game for PlayStation

No, it won’t be a Metal Gear Solid title.

Jordan Anderson via Getty Images

Hideo Kojima appeared on PlayStation’s State of Play not only to give Death Stranding 2 another nudge but also to say he’s developing a brand-new game for PlayStation. It’ll be an action-espionage title codenamed PHYSINT — so nothing to do with the Metal Gear Solid series that made his name. Kojima Productions has started early work on the project, but it won’t go into full production until the team finishes Death Stranding 2. Which is looking bonkers.

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The latest Xbox controllers seem to be inspired by bowling balls

Just the colors, not the shape.

The Xbox Design Lab is neat. You can customize the colors of your controller pretty much however you like, with more options for the Vapor series. The six top case options have swirling color patterns more typically seen at your local bowling alley. If that still exists.

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Universal Music Group (UMG) is threatening to pull all of its music from TikTok today following a breakdown in negotiations over royalties, the company wrote in an open letter. That would mean TikTok creators would lose access to songs from stars including Taylor Swift, Billy Eilish, The Weeknd, Drake and others. 

With UMG's deal with TikTok set to expire, the sides have reportedly been in negotiations for the past year. Such deals are worth billions annually to music publishing firms and are typically negotiated every few years. Universal is the world's largest record label, and if does pull it's music from TikTok, it would be the first time this has happened in recent memory.

Universal said TikTok wanted to pay a "fraction" of the rate paid by other social media sites. "As our negotiations continued, TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth." 

In its own post, TikTok said that it serves as a valuable marketing tool for artists and publishers. "Despite Universal's false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent."

TikTok also benefits greatly from access to Universal's catalog and being cut off from access to ultra-popular artists like Taylor Swift would be a blow to creators and users. TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance has more than 3 billion monthly active users and made $29 billion in revenue in a single quarter ending June 2023, according to The Financial Times. Warner Bros. Music, the number three record label behind Sony Music and UMG, recently struck a deal with TikTok. 

Universal said it does "not underestimate what this will mean for artists and their fans" but that it will not shirk its responsibilities. "TikTok’s tactics are obvious: use its platform power to hurt vulnerable artists and try to intimidate us into conceding to a bad deal that undervalues music and shortchanges artists and songwriters as well as their fans." The company added that payments from TikTok amount to "only about 1 percent of our total revenue."