With more and more people getting fully vaccinated against COVID-19, many single folks are ditching virtual dates for in-person ones. Those looking for love in New York City will soon have a new spot where they can meet up for dates, a café/restaurant/wine bar from dating app Bumble.

Bumble Brew is scheduled to open for breakfast service on July 24th. Lunch and dinner service will start at the Nolita spot in the coming weeks. Along with an 80-seat dining room, there will be a cocktail bar, patio dining and private dining space.

The restaurant, which is decked out in the app's recognizable shade of yellow, can be used for events as well. It has an Italian-inspired menu with pickup and delivery options, and the music is primarily from female artists.

The new venture builds on the Bumble Hive pop-up community spaces where people can hang out, eat and drink and meet others. Bumble Brew doesn't have a direct tie-in with the Bumble app, at least for now. Still, it's easy to imagine Bumble adding a reservation system that pops up when NYC users try to arrange a date.

By now, gamers are accustomed to receiving freebies through Sony's PlayStation Plus and Microsoft's Xbox Games with Gold perks. Now, Amazon is here to remind you that it offers gaming benefits for Prime members, too. From today through to September 1st, the subscription service is giving away three classic LucasArts PC games on the first of every month. The trio includes The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, followed by Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and, finally, Sam & Max: Hit The Road. 

Compared to its expedited deliveries and Prime Video streaming, Amazon's gaming goodies (including free titles and loot) inevitably feel like the lesser of its Prime perks. These certified classics should therefore help to boost its appeal with nostalgic gamers. 

Since its revival in January, the Disney-owned Lucasfilm Games brand has been busy retooling its franchises for newer platforms. In honor of Monkey Island’s 30th anniversary, Limited Run Games released a comprehensive collector’s edition back in October that assembled all five games in the series, including Telltale’s Tales of Monkey Island. In June, Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual! brought the anthropomorphic detectives to Oculus VR. While Indy is about to star in a new game from MachineGames, the studio behind the modern Wolfenstein series, with Bethesda's Todd Howard serving as an executive producer.

All three major US carriers have met the deadline to implement the FCC's new anti-spoofing protocol designed to protect users from scam caller impersonation. Both Verizon and T-Mobile announced yesterday that all calls originating on their networks are 100 percent compliant with the FCC's "STIR/SHAKEN" technology designed to show a caller's true phone number. AT&T, meanwhile, confirmed with The Verge that it's also in compliance with the new rules. 

The FCC had set a deadline of June 30th for the major carrier's to implement the STIR/SHAKEN protocol developed under the Ajit Pai regime. For now, smaller carriers have until June 30th, 2023 unless the FCC decides to shorten that timespan, something that's currently under consideration. 

The STIR/SHAKEN standards serve as a common digital language used by phone networks, allowing valid information to pass from provider to provider which, among other things, informs blocking tools of possible suspicious calls.

So what does the new protocol do? Without it, scam or spam callers can spoof their phone numbers to show up as local numbers, making it more likely that you'll pick up. STIR/SHAKEN deals with that by using public key encryption digital certificates sent by the originating telephone service provider, with the keys verified by the terminating service provider. If everything matches, then the calling number hasn't been spoofed. 

The FCC is hoping that carrier implementation will reduce the volume of spam, scam and robocalls that have made answering your phone a game of whack-a-mole. The commission said that over 1,500 voice providers have filed to be in its robocall mitigation database with over 200 of those being fully certified. "Beginning on September 28, 2021, if a voice service provider’s certification does not appear in the database, intermediate and voice service providers will be prohibited from directly accepting the provider’s traffic," the FCC stated. 

The protocol will help reduce but not totally eliminate scams or robocalls. Legacy phone systems that don't use IP protocols are exempt from the rules, and the system won't work with international calls. Still, if a local pops up on your phone going forward, you can have more confidence that it's not a fake number coming from a scammer. 

Amazon is giving you free access to Disney+ if you pay for its music streaming service, perhaps in hopes of luring you away from Spotify and Apple Music. If you're in the US and Canada, you'll get six free months of Disney+ with a new Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, which will set you back at least $8 a month as a Prime member or $10 as a non-Prime user. You'll still get three free months of Disney+ as a current Music Unlimited subscriber, but you can't get the free months if you already have an existing Disney+ subscription. 

While it's unfortunate that you won't be able to take advantage of the promo if you already have Disney+, it's a great way to try the video streaming service. Disney+ doesn't have a trial period anymore, and its current offerings include Marvel's The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, as well as Loki, which had the most watched premiere episode on the platform.

The first and the last time Amazon reported growth metrics for Music Unlimited back in January 2020, it said the service has reached over 55 million subscribers worldwide. It's unclear how much the service has grown since then, but it still probably has a long way to go before it can catch up to Spotify, which recently reported having 158 million paying subscribers. It might be nearer to Apple Music in size: Apple revealed that its Music streaming service had 60 million paying subscribers back in mid-2019, but it hasn't reported new numbers since then.

To redeem the promo, you can head over to its official page and pay for an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription from there.

You won't need to wear a MagicBand to get around Walt Disney World with a minimum of fuss. The theme park is introducing a Disney MagicMobile service that uses your phone or smartwatch for entry and other features. You'll only have to create a pass through the My Disney Experience app and add it to your virtual wallet. From there, you can bring your device close to an access point like you would a MagicBand.

The feature will initially be available for iPhone and Apple Watch owners "later this year" as part of a phased rollout. MagicBands will still be available, the company said, and you'll still have to use My Disney Experience for digital room keys on your phone. Disneyland doesn't use MagicBands as a matter of course, so you shouldn't expect the MagicMobile option in California any time soon.

This could save you some hassle if you'd rather not pick up a MagicBand. It could also be considered a safety measure as vaccinations ramp up and people are more comfortable visiting Disney World. If you didn't get a MagicBand in the mail, you won't have to buy one on-site and wear something another person recently touched.

South by Southwest is taking place online this year, and one of the things attendees can check out is an interactive HBO Max experience. HBO Max Orbit aims to show off the depth of the streaming service's catalog in a novel way.

Through facial movement recognition and voice commands, HBO Max Orbit will allow you to interact with moments, stories and characters from the library, according to WarnerMedia. HBO Max has packed more than 150,000 clips into Orbit, including ones from Game of Thrones, Lovecraft Country, The Big Bang Theory, Tom and Jerry and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The scenes are drawn from titles from HBO, Warner Bros., DC, Cartoon Network and other WarnerMedia brands.

The experience will dig up clips of characters that match your movements in real time. Certain clips will activate a challenge, through which you'll need to move your face to look for clips that match a title. You might also be asked to say a phrase from a specific show within a time limit. Completing a challenge will unlock parts of an exclusive clip from Godzilla vs. Kong, which arrives on HBO Max and in theaters at the end of the month.

You'll be able to check out HBO Max Orbit starting on March 19th. Starting in April, an in-person version will be available at some flagship AT&T stores. WarnerMedia says that will take place in an immersive 360-degree chamber designed to "optimize the feeling of a vast audio-visual space." It will match clips to your body movements and voice.

Hulu users now have access to even more live sports. Subscribers to Disney's streaming bundle (which includes Disney+) can start watching sports programming from ESPN+ on Hulu today. Live events and other ESPN+ shows are also available through a $5.99/month add-on.

You can watch a wide array of live action, including soccer, UFC, college sports, MLB, tennis and golf. ESPN+ originals and studio shows have made their way to Hulu too, along with documentary series like 30 for 30. ESPN+ pay-per-views, such as UFC events, will be available through Hulu this summer.

It emerged in December that Disney would bring sports programming from ESPN+ to Hulu sometime this year. Pulling all of that content together into a single hub should be useful for viewers who are content to use the Hulu interface. You won't need to use a separate app if you want to catch some of a Hulu show during half time of a big game, for instance.

Disney increased the cost of ESPN+ monthly and annual plans in recent months, though you still get plenty of bang for your buck. On March 26th, the company is bumping up the price of its streaming bundle by a dollar to $13.99 per month. That gets you access to Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu with ads (the ad-free version will cost you extra). Disney+ subscriptions are going up in the US on the same day to $7.99/month or $79.99/year.

TikTok is introducing new features meant to reduce bullying and harassment on its platform: new comment controls and in-app prompts to discourage nasty comments.

The app is expanding its comment filtering tools to give users the ability to approve all new comments before they can appear underneath their clips. With the change, new comments will be hidden until the account owner approves them. The company notes that it already lets users filter comments based on keywords, but that the new setting provides an additional layer of control.

TikTok

TikTok is also adding a feature meant to proactively stop bullying before it happens. When it detects that a particular comment may break its rules, the app will prompt users to “reconsider” before posting. The feature is similar to one created by Instagram, which warns users when it detects a potentially rule-breaking remark. Like Instagram, TikTok won’t prevent users from posting the comment in question, but will give them the opportunity to change their words.

TikTok has tightened its rules around bullying in recent months. The company updated its community guidelines in December to add more specifics around its anti-bullying and harassment policies. It’s also working with a group of outside experts who advise the company on content policies and moderation rules.