How many times have you experienced this scenario? You go shopping online for a new shirt, speaker or other item. You click on the same one a few times and then decide against it. Suddenly every website you visit has an ad featuring that item, imploring you to reconsider. In an effort to create greater privacy online, Mozilla is now rolling out Total Cookie Protection (TCP) as the default setting on the Firefox app for Android after initially making it available for Firefox users on Windows, Mac, and Linux. 

So, what does TCP do? TCP ensures that your cookies aren't being shared across sites. Typically, third-party cookies collect information about you from across the internet to build your virtual identity. Data brokers then sell your information to businesses that will provide you with targeted ads.

Instead, with TCP, the cookies you create while browsing only belong to the site you're on. This feature limits companies from learning any information you enter or behavior you exhibit anywhere else on the internet. So, a store may know you looked for a blue laptop case in their online shop, but they won't know you also searched for size 11 shoes in another one. 

As part of today's Android update, Mozilla says it's also promoting its Firefox Relay protection to become a dedicated part of the app. Relay, which initially launched as an addon and provides users with email and phone number masks for online signups, comes with a limited free tier but requires a subscription to get the most from the service.

Pour one out for a Clubhouse clone. Reddit will shut down its live audio chats on March 21st. It debuted Reddit Talk less than two years ago in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the company isn't necessarily killing off the feature due to a lack of interest.

Reddit still sees audio features as part of its future, but it's putting them on the backburner for now to focus on other priorities. The fact that the provider of the tech that powers Talk is closing shop complicated matters too.

"There’s significant work we need to do — like making Reddit simpler and building better subreddit infrastructure — before incorporating audio," it wrote in a post. "Our original plan was to maintain Talk while we worked on this. Unfortunately, the 3rd party audio vendor we use for Talk is shutting down its service. In other words, the resources required to keep Talk live during this transition increased substantially."

Any discussions that took place after September 1st last year will be available to download starting on March 21st. You'll have until June 1st to snag a copy of the recordings.

Reddit doesn't have a timeline for reviving Talk or debuting other audio features. As TechCrunch notes, though, interest in hosting live audio conversations with a public audience seems to have dipped across the board in recent times. Clubhouse exploded in popularity after the onset of the pandemic, sending other prominent tech companies racing to build their own versions.

However, Clubhouse's user numbers have reportedly dropped and prominent hires have moved on. Spotify has ended production of some live audio shows. In October, Amazon reportedly laid off dozens of people who were working on its live radio service, AMP.

That's not to say this broadcasting format is entirely dead and buried. Discord has expanded Stage Channels to include video. It seems Twitter is trying to jumpstart Spaces as well. The company confirmed this week it's testing updates for Spaces, which may include features such as themed audio stations.

Meanwhile, Reddit will kill off another feature on March 21st, when it brings the Happening Now experiment to an end. This feature enabled users to see ongoing Live Chats and Reddit Talks in subreddits they follow. It also shone a spotlight on popular conversations that were taking place across the platform.

Ridesharing is convenient in part because there's often a vehicle near you, and Alphabet's Wing wants to extend that advantage to drone delivery. The company is debuting a Wing Delivery Network platform that relies on decentralized and highly automated pickups. Drones charge and deliver in whatever locations make the most sense for the broader system. If demand surges in a given area, more drones can operate around the nearest pads.

Crucially, your local restaurant or store doesn't have to do much to take advantage of the network. An AutoLoader system lets shops simply latch a package to a curbside pickup location and walk away — the drone handles the rest. Businesses have to order drones, but they don't have to manage the fleet or make employees wait for an aircraft to arrive.

The technology is also meant to scale elegantly. It's relatively easy to add new pad locations as usage grows, and the drones can double as scouts that expand the network. The drones can even make sure they're allowed to fly in a given area.

Wing expects "elements" of the Delivery Network to deploy over the next year, with demonstrations taking place worldwide in 2023. Provided all goes according to plan, the brand wants to handle "millions" of deliveries by mid-2024, at prices that beat conventional ground-based delivery.

There are catches. Drone regulations aren't always prepared to handle autonomous deliveries, let alone for decentralized systems. Amazon's Prime Air drones have made few deliveries precisely because of regulatory requirements. Likewise, there's no guarantee businesses will be willing to invest in drones and adapt their curbside pickup spaces. Wing's approach is markedly different than seen with other networks, however, and its combination of lightweight drones and gentle deliveries (Amazon's heavy drones have to drop packages from 12 feet up) may make it more appealing to officials and stores alike.

Amazon is closing down two cashierless Go stores in New York City, two in Seattle and four in San Francisco on April 1st, according to GeekWire. The e-retail giant made the announcement on the same day it admitted that it's pausing construction on its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia as it reassesses its office needs in the face of more and more people preferring to work remotely. As Bloomberg notes, these are but Amazon's latest cost-cutting moves amidst slowing sales growth. In January, the company expanded its planned job cuts from 10,000 to 18,000 roles, with the layoffs since then mostly impacting personnel from its retail and recruiting divisions. 

Company spokesperson Jessica Martin told the publications in a statement: "Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the US and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers."

The internet retail titan's Go stores were designed to be high-tech shops equipped with cameras and sensors that can detect when products are taken and returned to shelves. Customers can grab any item they want, which will be added to their virtual cart for online payment, and then walk out of the store without having to pass by a cashier. 

While Amazon still has over 20 Go stores in the country, it has long struggled to conquer the physical retail space and has been changing up strategies every so often. It used to have 87 retail pop-up kiosks across the US, but the company shut them down before the pandemic hit. And in 2022, Amazon closed down all 68 of its physical bookstores, pop-up locations and 4-star shops in the US and UK. Just this February, though, CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to go big on its brick-and-mortar grocery store business. He told the Financial Times: "We're hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side."

The United States Postal Service isn't pinning all its electrification hopes on next-gen mail delivery vehicles. The service has signed a contract to buy 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vans, with the first units arriving in December. The handover should be complete by the end of 2024, Ford adds. The USPS is also placing its early orders for over 14,000 charging stations for its facilities across the country.

The USPS already plans to buy at least 60,000 of its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) by 2028, with 75 percent of them being electric. The Ford vans are part of an additional plan to buy 21,000 "off-the-shelf" EVs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says this helps the USPS quickly act on a strategy that improves mail service and working conditions while keeping costs down for the self-sufficient agency. The total vehicle investment is expected to cost $9.6 billion, including $3 billion in funding thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

The charging network may not grow as quickly. The USPS expects to provide chargers to at least 75 locations within the next year, but doesn't estimate how it will expand in following years.

The overall EV push represents a sharp break from the initial plans. The USPS originally expected that most of its NGDV orders would be for gas-based trucks. The Biden administration fought that approach, claiming that the USPS under DeJoy ignored Environmental Protection Agency advice, rejected public hearings and relied on "biased" estimates. The service challenged the administration before relenting and shifting most of its purchases to electric models.

The transition will play an important part in the government's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions for itself and the country at large. The USPS represents the largest federal vehicle fleet — its EV purchases will have a significant impact relative to other agencies.

Uber has given its app a major redesign for the first time in a long while, and the new version reflects the massively expanded range of services in recent years. The updated Android and iOS apps center around a new home screen that puts ridesharing and Uber Eats deliveries in one place, with fewer steps needed to book trips or order food. There's also a dedicated tab for all the services available in your city, so you won't have to wonder which options are available.

The revamp promises more personalization as well. Tap the usual "where to?" button and you'll now see both saved locations as well as recommendations for destinations and ride types based on your habits. If you normally reserve rides instead of booking on the spot, you may see other scheduled options. An activity hub shows all your past and future Uber uses.

The upgrade also brings some long-expected Live Activities features to iPhone users. Anyone using iOS 16 can now see live ride progress on their phone's lock screen. And if you happen to have an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max, you'll see those ride updates around the Dynamic Island (read: front camera cutout) while the device is unlocked. You won't have to wait for notifications to know when it's time to head out the door.

The app is available today. Uber tells Engadget the Eats app "isn't going anywhere," and that the iPhone-specific upgrades will reach that software in the "coming months." The unified experience in the main app isn't exactly a shock, though. Uber now handles bikes, scooters, package deliveries, groceries and many other services beyond basic car hailing and restaurant orders. The app redesign might help you discover offerings you didn't realize were available, or encourage you to try features that previously felt like too much of a hassle.

A rework like this might be necessary. While Uber touted higher bookings and profit margins in 2022, its delivery business grew just six percent over the year. The harmonized app isn't guaranteed to improve Uber's bottom line, but it might encourage delivery orders from customers who otherwise wouldn't have tried a feature like Eats.

It appears SpaceX is preparing to offer global roaming. As first reported by PCMag, the company recently began emailing customers in countries where Starlink service isn’t available yet to invite them to try a new $200 per month package that allows its terminals to provide internet access “from almost anywhere on land in the world.”

As The Verge notes, it’s not clear how SpaceX will follow through on the promise to provide internet from nearly anywhere. Despite the company’s growing constellation of small satellites, it’s still waiting to obtain regulatory approval to offer internet access in many key markets, including India and Pakistan. To that point, the email SpaceX sent out notes global roaming services are “contingent on regulatory approvals.” It adds customers may experience “brief periods of poor connectivity, or none at all” while it works to expand its satellite network. Potential customers should also be prepared to pay an import fee for their Starlink terminal, on top of the kit’s $599 price.

SpaceX already offers a few, more limited roaming options. Most notably, there’s the company’s Portability package for existing residential users, which allows those customers to use their Starlink terminal while traveling within their home continent. At $25 per month on top of the company’s $110 monthly subscription fee, the package is cheaper than the global roaming service SpaceX recently began emailing potential customers about, but the company requires those who spend “an extended period of time” away from home to change their permanent address.

A Reddit employee's credentials were stolen in a targeted phishing attack, an administrator for the website has revealed, and hackers were able to infiltrate its systems on February 5th. Apparently, Reddit employees had been receiving "plausible-sounding prompts," which lead to a website that mimic the looks and behavior of its intranet gateway, designed as such to steal people's logins and second-factor tokens. While one employee did fall for the scheme, they immediately self-reported. That allowed the website's security team to respond quickly and to cut off the infiltrators' access.

The Reddit spokesperson said the bad actors were able to access some of the website's "internal docs, code, as well as some internal dashboards and business systems." Contact information for hundreds of company contracts, current and former employees, as well as some advertisers were also exposed. They assured users, however, that the security team investigating the incident has found no evidence that their passwords or any of their non-public data have been compromised. The team also didn't find evidence that the information stolen from Reddit has been distributed online — at least, at this point in the investigation. 

Reddit's spokesperson said the website is "continuing to investigate and monitor the situation closely." They also said that lessons they learned from a security breach five years ago continue to be useful. If the attackers were only truly able to steal some non-user information this time, the 2018 breach was a much more serious incident. Back then, bad actors were able to grab users' current email addresses, as well as a database backup from 2007 that contained account passwords.

Over the last several months, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has been working to smush HBO Max and Discovery+ together into a single, giant streaming service, which is expected to debut this spring. However, it seems the company has rethought its strategy, as Discovery+ is sticking around as a standalone platform.

"Our plan for the enhanced platform that will bring together HBO Max and Discovery+ content remains unchanged," WBD spokesperson Jeff Cusson told Engadget. "In addition, we have decided to keep the lower-priced offering of Discovery+ in the US marketplace."

According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, executives were concerned that a sizable number of the current 20 million Discovery+ subscribers may not be willing to pay a higher price for a service that features HBO Max content. It doesn't seem that there are plans to keep HBO Max as a standalone app as well. As such, folks who want to watch shows like The Last of Us and Succession without a cable subscription may need to pay more for a service that combines HBO Max content and most of the offerings from Discovery+.

Discovery+ costs $5 per month with ads or $7 to go ad-free, while the ad-supported version of HBO Max costs $10 per month (or $16 without ads). The upcoming service is expected to be pricier than HBO Max.

The report suggests the new service and Discovery+ will feature Shark Week content and lifestyle shows from the Magnolia Network. Other programming will be available on both platforms. 

Discovery+ has low operating costs and is turning a profit, according to the Journal's sources. However, WBD is cutting billions in costs since it formed last year as a result of a merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery. The company has been yanking shows from HBO Max and canceling streaming-exclusive projects, reportedly in favor of using them as tax write-offs.

Meanwhile, the report suggests that WBD is gearing up to roll out its own free, ad-supported (FAST) service with streaming channels that feature content from across the portfolio. This move makes sense, as the company recently inked deals with Roku and Tubi to offer an array of FAST channels featuring shows like Westworld and The Nevers, which it pulled from HBO Max in December.

For one night only, Disney’s breakout Star Wars series is coming to cable TV. Ahead of the premiere of the third season of The Mandalorian on March 1st, Disney announced today it would air the show’s debut episode, “Chapter 1: The Mandalorian,” on February 24th. If you somehow haven’t seen the series before, you can catch the episode that started it all on ABC, Freeform or FX. All three stations will air the 41-minute debut at 8PM ET/PT.

If you’ve managed to avoid spoilers for The Mandalorian until now, first of all, great job; it couldn’t have been easy. Second, we won’t ruin the surprise, but the debut episode is a great taste of what made the first season of the series feel so special. It has a bit of everything that people came to love about The Mandalorian, including witty dialogue, fun action set pieces and, of course, a certain cute alien.

This isn’t the first time Disney has brought a Disney+ exclusive to TV. The company previously aired two episodes of Andor on ABC, Freeform and FX when it seemed that series was struggling to find an audience. Considering the company recently lost $1.5 billion on its streaming services, bringing The Mandalorian to broadcast TV makes a lot of sense as an effort to attract subscribers to Disney+.