YouTube recently took dramatic action against anyone visiting its site with an ad blocker running — after a few pieces of content, it'll simply stop serving you videos. If you want to get past the wall, that ad blocker will (probably) need to be turned off; and if you want an ad-free experience, better cough up a couple bucks for a Premium subscription.

Although this is an aggressive move that seemingly left ad blocking companies scrambling to respond, it didn’t come out the blue — YouTube had been testing something similar for months. And even before this most recent clampdown, the Google-owned video service has been engaged in an ongoing conflict — a game of cat-and-mouse, an arms race, pick your metaphor — with ad-blocking software: YouTube rolls out new ways to serve ads to viewers with ad blockers, then ad blockers develop new strategies to circumvent those ad-serving measures.

As noted in a blog post by the ad- and tracker-blocking company Ghostery, YouTube employs a wide variety of techniques to circumvent ad blockers, such as embedding an ad in the video itself (so the ad blocker can’t distinguish between the two), or serving ads from the same domain as the video, fooling filters that have been set up to block ads served from third-party domains.

It’s not that YouTube is alone in these efforts; many digital publishers make similar attempts to stymie ad blockers. To some extent, YouTube’s moves just get more attention because the service is so popular. As AdGuard CTO Andrey Meshkov put it in an email, “Even when they run a test on a share of users… the number of affected people is very high.”

At the same time, according to Ghostery’s director of product and engineering Krzysztof Modras, it’s also true that “as one of the world’s largest publishers, YouTube constantly invests in circumventing ad blocking.” And that those investments have been effective. Many of the most common ad blocking strategies, including DNS filtering (filtering for third-party domains), network filtering (which Modras described as “more selective” and better at blocking first-party requests) and cosmetic filtering (which can blocks ads without leaving ad-shaped holes in the website content) no longer work on the site.

Now, Modras said, YouTube seems to be “adapting [its] methods more frequently than ever before. To counteract its changes to ad delivery and ad blocker detection, block lists have to be updated at minimum on a daily basis, and sometimes even more often. While all players in the space are innovating, some ad blockers are simply unable to keep up with these changes.”

Keeping pace with YouTube will likely become even more challenging next year, when Google’s Chrome browser adopts the Manifest V3 standard, which significantly limits what extensions are allowed to do. Modras said that under Manifest V3, whenever an ad blocker wants to update its blocklist — again, something they may need to do multiple times a day — it will have to release a full update and undergo a review “which can take anywhere between [a] few hours to even a few weeks.”

“Through Manifest V3, Google will close the door for innovation in the ad blocking landscape and introduce another layer of gatekeeping that will slow down how ad blockers can react to new ads and online tracking methods,” he said.

For many users, the battle between YouTube and ad blockers has largely been invisible, or at least ignorable, until now. The new wall dramatically changes this dynamic, forcing users to adapt their behavior if they want to access YouTube videos at all. Still, the ad blocking companies suggest it’s more of a policy change than a technical breakthrough — a sign of a new willingness on YouTube’s part to risk alienating its users.

“It's not that YouTube's move is something new, many publishers went [down] this road already,” Meshkov said. “The difference is [the] scale of YouTube.” That scale affects both the number of users impacted, as well as the number of resources required to maintain these defenses on the publisher's side. “Going this road is very, very expensive, it requires constant maintenance," he added, "you basically need a team dedicated to this. There's just a handful of companies that can afford it."

As ever, ad blockers are figuring out how to adapt, even if it’s requiring more effort from their users, too. For example, Modras noted that “throughout much of October, Ghostery experienced three to five times the typical number of both uninstalls and installs per day, as well as a 30 percent increase in downloads on Microsoft Edge, where our ad blocker was still working on YouTube for a period of time.” All of this activity suggests that users are quickly cycling through different products and strategies to get around YouTube’s anti-ad block efforts, then discarding them when they stop working.

Meanwhile, uBlock Origin still seems to work on YouTube. But a detailed Reddit post outlining how to avoid tripping the platform's ad-block detection measures notes that because “YouTube changes their detection scripts regularly,” users may still encounter the site’s pop-up warnings and anti-adblock wall in “brief periods of time" between script changes (on the platform's end) or filter updates (on uBlock's side.) uBlock Origin may also stop working on Chrome next year thanks to the aforementioned Manifest V3. And if you’re hoping to use it on a non-Chrome browser, Google has allegedly begun deprecating YouTube's load times on alternate browsers, seemingly as part of the anti-ad block effort. While 404 Media and Android Authority, which both reported on this issue, were not able to replicate these artificially slowed load times, users were seemingly able to avoid them through the use of a “user-agent switcher,” which disguises one browser (say, Firefox) as another (in this case, Chrome).

Why do some ad blockers still work? The answer seems to boil down to a new approach: Scriptlet injection, which uses scripts to alter website behavior in a more fine-grained way. For example, Meshkov said an ad blocker could write a scriptlet to remove a cookie with a given name, or to stop the execution of JavaScript on a web page when it tries to access a page property with a given name.

On YouTube, Modras said, scriptlets can alter the data being loaded before it’s used by the page script. For example, a scriptlet might look for specific data identifiers and remove them, making this approach “subtle enough” to block ads that have been mixed in with website functionality, without affecting the functionality.

Scriptlet injection also plays a role in an increasingly crucial part of the ad blocker’s job: escaping detection. AdGuard’s Meshkov said this is something that teams like his are already working on, since they try escape detection as a general rule — both by avoiding activity that would alert a website to their presence, and by using scriptlets to prevent common fingerprinting functions that websites use to detect ad blockers.

Scriptlet injection seems to be the most promising approach right now — in fact, Modras described it as currently “the only reliable way of ad blocking on YouTube.”

Meshkov said that assessment is accurate if you limit yourself to browser extensions (which is how most popular ad blockers are distributed). But he pointed to network-level ad blockers and alternative YouTube clients, such as NewPipe, as other approaches that can work. A recent AdGuard blog post outlined additional other steps that users can try, such as checking for filter updates, making sure multiple ad blockers aren't installed and using a desktop ad-blocking app, which should be harder to detect than an extension. (AdGuard itself offers both network-level blocking and desktop apps.)

At least one popular ad blocker, AdBlock Plus, won’t be trying to get around YouTube’s wall at all. Vergard Johnsen, chief product officer at AdBlock Plus developer eyeo, said he respects YouTube’s decision to start “a conversation” with users about how content gets monetized.

Referencing the now independently run Acceptable Ads program (which eyeo created and participates in), Johnsen said, “the vast majority of our users have really embraced the fact that there will be ads [...] we’ve made it clear we don’t believe in circumvention.”

Similarly, a YouTube spokesperson reiterated that the platform’s ads support “a diverse ecosystem of creators globally” and that “the use of ad blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service.”

As the battle between YouTube and ad blockers continues, Modras suggested that his side has at least one major advantage: They’re open source and can draw on knowledge from the broader community.

“Scriptlet injection is already getting more powerful, and it’s becoming harder for anti-ad blockers to detect,” he said. “In some ways, the current situation has spurred an arms race. YouTube has inadvertently improved ad blockers, as the new knowledge and techniques gained from innovating within the YouTube platform are also applicable to other ad and tracking systems.”

But even if most users grow frustrated with the new countermeasures and decide to whitelist YouTube in their ad block product of choice, Modras suggested that ad blockers can still affect the platform's bottom line: “If users disable ad blocking on only YouTube and maintain their protection on other websites as they browse, the platform will quickly learn that they are still unable to effectively target ads to these users,” since it won’t have data about user activity on those other sites.

Regardless of what YouTube does next, he suggested that other publishers are unlikely to build a similar wall, because few if any services enjoy the same chokehold on an entire media ecosystem — not only owning the most popular video sharing service, but also the most popular web browser on which to view it. "YouTube is in a unique position as it is de facto a monopoly," he said. "That's not true for most of the other publishers.”

Even against those odds, ad block diehards aren't dissuaded in their mission. As Andrey Meshkov put it bluntly: “YouTube’s policy is just a good motivation to do it better.”

If you've been meaning to pick up an Xbox Series X but weren't able to grab one on Black Friday, good news: Walmart has a bundle that pairs the powerful console with a digital copy of the (divisive) action-RPG Diablo IV for $349. That's the largest discount we've tracked and a full $151 off the Series X's normal going rate. The game, meanwhile, normally goes for $70. This deal also tops the best deals we've seen for the device over the past week; on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this bundle mostly sat at $440.

If the bundle runs out of stock — and given the extent of the discount, we expect it will fairly quickly — Walmart also has the console alone on sale for that same $349. Again, though, you'll likely want to move fast to secure the deal.

As a refresher, the Series X is the highest-end model of the two current Xboxes; it packs a stronger GPU and 6GB more RAM than the entry-level Series S, allowing it to play demanding games at higher frame rates and resolutions more consistently. It also comes with a disc drive and 1TB of storage as default. Microsoft has had some struggles producing first-party hits, but the Xbox library is still home to plenty of titles we like, and Xbox Game Pass remains one of the better values in gaming if you like to sample a wide range of games. It's worth noting the massive leak earlier this year that included details of a potential Series X refresh, which may arrive in 2024, but the current system remains a strong value when it's discounted to this extent.

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NASA and IBM are building an AI model for weather and climate applications, combining their knowledge and skills in earth science and AI. They say the foundation model (more on that in a bit) should offer “significant advantages over existing technology.” Current AI models, such as GraphCast and FourCastNet, are already generating weather forecasts more quickly than traditional meteorological models. As IBM notes, those are AI emulators rather than foundation models. AI emulators can make weather predictions based on sets of training data, but they don’t have applications beyond that.

The model may predict meteorological phenomena better, inferring high-res information based on low-res data and “identifying conditions conducive to everything from airplane turbulence to wildfires.”

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

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Bipartisan Senate bill would kill the TSA’s Big Brother airport facial recognition

The best Android phones

Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck will start at $60,990 before rebates​​

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Evernote officially limits free users to 50 notes and one measly notebook

‘We recognize these changes may lead you to reconsider your relationship with Evernote.’

Evernote

Evernote’s new, tightly leashed plan will restrict new and current accounts to 50 notes and one notebook. Existing free customers who exceed those limits can still use their notes, but they’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to create new ones. Evernote’s premium plans include a $15 monthly Personal plan with 10GB of monthly uploads. That’s a pricey subscription for what is dedicated note cloud storage. When Evernote’s parent company, Bending Spoons, moved its operations from the US and Chile to Europe, it said the app had been “unprofitable for years.” That push into socks didn’t work.

Continue reading.

The US government halts Meta briefings on foreign influence campaigns

Officials have “paused” tips to Meta.

Meta says the government “paused” in July briefings related to foreign election interference, eliminating a key source of information for the company. During a call with reporters, Meta’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, declined to speculate on the government’s motivations, but the timing lines up with a court order earlier this year that restricted the Biden Administration’s contact with social media firms.

The disclosure comes as the company ramps up its efforts to prepare for multiple elections in 2024, and the inevitable attempts to manipulate political conversations on Facebook. The company said in its latest report on CIB that China is now the third-most common source of coordinated inauthentic behavior on its platform, behind Russia and Iran.

Continue reading.

Google Messages now lets you choose your own chat bubble colors

But this has nothing to do with messaging iPhones and all that drama.

Google is rolling out a string of updates for the Messages app, including customizable text bubbles and background colors. So, if you really want, you can have blue bubbles in your Android messaging app. You can even have a different color for each chat, which could help prevent you from telling the wrong thing to the wrong person. But none of this means nothing to iPhone users and has nothing to do with the prolonged toing and froing on text message compatibility.

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How OpenAI’s ChatGPT has changed the world in just a year

The generative AI chatbot has helped kickstart a multibillion-dollar industry.

SOPA Images via Getty Images

ChatGPT exploded in popularity, from niche online curio to 100 million monthly active users — the fastest user base growth in the history of the internet. In less than a year, it has earned the backing of Silicon Valley’s biggest firms, as well as being shoehorned into myriad applications from academia and the arts to marketing, medicine, gaming and government. ChatGPT is just about everywhere. Engadget’s Andrew Tarantola looks at the blazing first year of OpenAI’s chatbot.

Continue reading.​​

If you recently moved into a new place or are just looking to update your home's security, now's a good time to do so. Though Black Friday has come and gone, Blink's video doorbell and two fourth-generation outdoor smart security cameras bundle is currently on sale for $100 (the devices add up to $315 if bought separately). There's a small catch, though: the deal is only available to Prime Members. 

While Prime Members had access to a similar deal back in September, this time around, the two Blink outdoor cameras included are the fourth-generation model. The cameras offer better image quality and low-light sensitivity. They also have an expanded field of vision, 143 degrees compared to their predecessor's 110 degrees. The cameras should function for two years before the battery needs replacing. The bundle includes six double AA lithium batteries, along with one Sync Module 2, one USB cable, three mounting kits and a power adapter. 

Blink's outdoor camera and video doorbell both allow you to hear and speak with whoever is outside. You can also use the doorbell wirelessly by setting up in-app chimes or with a Blink Mini indoor camera. Otherwise, you can choose to hook it up to your existing system. You can store any clips from these devices in the cloud with a 30-day trial of the Blink Subscription Plan included. After that, Blink Plus will cost you $100 annually. 

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We've seen Huawei's surprising strides with its recent smartphones — especially the in-house 7nm 5G processor within, but apparently the company has been working on something far more significant to bypass the US import ban. According to a new Bloomberg investigation, a Shenzhen city government investment fund created in 2019 has been helping Huawei build "a self-sufficient chip network." 

Such a network would give the tech giant access to enterprises — most notably, the three subsidiaries under a firm called SiCarrier — that are key to developing lithography machines. Lithography, especially the high-end extreme ultraviolet flavor, would usually have to be imported into China, but it's currently restricted by US, Netherlands and Japan sanctions. Huawei apparently went as far as transferring "about a dozen patents to SiCarrier," as well as letting SiCarrier's elite engineers work directly on its sites, which suggests the two firms have a close symbiotic relationship.

Bloomberg's source claims that Huawei has hired several former employees of Dutch lithography specialist, ASML, to work on this breakthrough. The result so far is allegedly the 7nm HiSilicon Kirin 9000S processor fabricated locally by SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), which is said to be about five years behind the leading competition (say, Apple Silicon's 3nm process) — as opposed to an eight-year gap intended by the Biden administration's export ban.

Huawei's Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro, Mate 60 Pro+ and Mate X5 foldable all feature this HiSilicon chip, as well as other Chinese components like display panels (BOE), camera modules (OFILM) and batteries (Sunwoda). Huawei having its own network of local enterprises would eventually allow it to rely less on imported components, and potentially even become the halo of the Chinese chip industry — especially in the age of electric vehicles and AI, where more chips are needed than ever (as much as NVIDIA would like to deal with China). That said, Huawei apparently denied that it had been receiving government help to achieve this goal.

Given Huawei's seeming progress, and the fact that China has been pumping billions into its chip industry, the US government will just have to try harder.

Montana's unprecedented state-wide ban of Chinese short-video app, TikTok, was supposed to take effect on January 1, 2024, but as reported by Reuters, US District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction just one month ahead to block said ban. This means that for now, ByteDance and app stores are allowed to continue serving TikTok to users within the Montana state, without being fined $10,000 daily from the start date of the ban.

The judge was quoted saying the ban "oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users" — echoing the legal challenge filed by five TikTok creators on the day after the bill was signed back in May, as well as another lawsuit filed by the platform's owner, ByteDance, later on in the same month. It was also questionable as to whether Google and Apple could have effectively enforced such a state-wide ban on their app stores.  

The relevant bill was originally drafted based on claims that this Chinese app would share US users' personal data with the Chinese government, to which ByteDance had long denied since the presidency of Donald Trump. "TikTok US user data is stored in the US, with strict controls on employee access," the company claimed back in August 2020 — and again via a new "transparency" push earlier this year, with reference to "Project Texas" for safeguarding US user data with help from Oracle. 

To date, no other US state had passed a bill to bar TikTok. The outcome of Montana's case may hold the key to this Chinese app's fate across the rest of the country.

It’s been four years since Tesla first announced the Cybertruck, a hideously ugly electric pickup truck that didn’t seem to actually improve on EVs or pickups in any meaningful way. Instead, the 6,600-pound mass of “stainless super steel” seems to be more the culmination of one man's bizarre fantasy, and that man just so happened to own an entire company he could leverage to birth that fantasy, with all its sharp angles and unnecessary lighting bars, into reality.

Today, Tesla finally delivered the first, long-delayed production Cybertrucks to 10 buyers in a livestream on CEO Elon Musk’s decimated X platform, the first of an unknown number of wealthy consumers who have bought into his grim vision of the future. It's a car that promises — for only those who can afford them — a blank check for vehicular manslaughter and unnecessary survivability from semi-automatic firearms. Its tagline ("more utility than a truck, faster than a sports car") speaks almost poetically to two distinct but orthogonal archetypes of threatened masculinity: the tacti-cool milspec dork, and the showboating rich guy.

A “bulletproof” body has been a key feature since the Cybertruck's introduction in 2019; today Musk admitted it was there for no good reason. “Why did you make it bulletproof?” Musk said. “Why not?” he said with a broad grin, before metaphorically waving his genitals at the cheering crowd, while also promising metaphorically larger genitals to anyone who buys the Cybertruck. “How tough is your truck?” Musk smirked.

This admission came alongside video footage of a Cybertruck being sprayed with rounds from a .45 caliber tommy gun, a Glock 9mm and a MP5-SD submachine gun, which also uses 9mm rounds. We'd ask Tesla what cartridges they were firing and if they were being shot from within the effective range of any of these weapons, but the company dissolved its PR team in 2019.

It was a stupid but expected bit of showboating from Musk during his rambling presentation. Right before the gunfire demo, Musk touted the truck’s overall toughness, noting that its low center of gravity made it extremely difficult to flip in an accident. A video also showed the Cybertruck barely moving after a much smaller vehicle moving at 38 mph collided with it. To that, Musk commented that “if you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win,” glibly encouraging Cybertruck owners to engage in such "arguments."

In a country where both traffic fatalities and gun violence have surged in recent years, it’s a little galling to see Musk promoting his vehicle as some sort of tool for rich people to survive the apocalypse, or even just the inconveniences of a world where their lessers occupy space at all. (All-wheel drive Cybertrucks start at about $80,000; a $60,000 RWD model is supposedly arriving in 2025.) “Sometimes you get these late civilization vibes, the apocalypse could come along at any moment, and here at Tesla we have the finest apocalypse technology,” Musk mused.

Beyond that is the simple fact that SUVs and trucks have gotten dramatically bigger and heavier in the past decade or so. EVs naturally weigh more because of their batteries, but auto manufacturers have been making the fronts of cars larger and taller in recent years, too. That’s a combo that makes these vehicles more dangerous for pedestrians and other drivers alike.

“Whatever their nose shape, pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile,” research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states. It also noted that pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80 percent since a low in 2009. Anyone who walks or bikes around a city has probably felt that danger before, and it’s even more startling when the wall of a truck stops short when you’re crossing the street. Finally, it’s well known that the speed of a car dramatically impacts the survivability of a pedestrian, which isn’t great when an extremely heavy car also can do 0-60 in less than three seconds.

Now that the Cybertruck is nearly ready for public consumption, it looks like Musk has basically built a vehicle that, for a steep price, enables the worst impulses of US drivers and gives them the “freedom” to do whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if the Cybertruck’s lightbar headlights blind the drivers of smaller vehicles; they should get the hell out of the left lane. And if someone else on the road pisses off a Cybertruck driver, who cares? Other drivers should just accept that they’re about to lose a very expensive and potentially life-threatening “argument” with the Cybertruck’s front fender.

This all should have been obvious right from the start. From day one, the Cybertruck has alluded to a cyberpunk future, a genre with cool haircuts and hacking and slightly problematic orientalism, yes — but also one where wealth inequality is even worse than it currently is, and the rules don’t apply to those with money. The implicit promise of the Cybertruck has always been a vehicle that waives societal standards for people who can afford it, and today’s spectacle made that explicit. To that end, maybe this marketing is as much genius as it is nonsense.

“If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire magazine into the car door, you’d still be alive,” Musk crowed at one point, either promising to revive the dead or oblivious to the terrifying number of human beings who use guns to commit acts of violence. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a world where being swiss cheesed by lethal armaments is something I need to consider when I’m buying a car. Maybe the rich survivalists playing out Blade Runner meets Mad Max in their Cybertrucks haven't considered that when everything burns down, the power grid will go down too.

Apple pushed updates to iOS, iPadOS and macOS software today to patch two zero-day security vulnerabilities. The company suggested the bugs had been actively deployed in the wild. “Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1,” the company wrote about both flaws in its security reports. Software updates plugging the holes are now available for the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Researcher Clément Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) is credited with discovering and reporting both exploits. As Bleeping Computer notes, the team at Google TAG often finds and exposes zero-day bugs against high-risk individuals, like politicians, journalists and dissidents. Apple didn’t reveal specifics about the nature of any attacks using the flaws.

The two security flaws affected WebKit, Apple’s open-source browser framework powering Safari. In Apple’s description of the first bug, it said, “Processing web content may disclose sensitive information.” In the second, it wrote, “Processing web content may lead to arbitrary code execution.”

The security patches cover the “iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 2nd generation and later, iPad Pro 10.5-inch, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 6th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later.”

The odds your devices were affected by either of these are extremely minimal, so there’s no need to panic — but, to be safe, it would be wise to update your Apple gear now. You can update your iPhone or iPad immediately by heading to Settings > General > Software Update and tapping the prompt to initiate it. On Mac, go to System Settings > General > Software Update and do the same. Apple’s fixes arrived today in iOS 17.1.2, iPadOS 17.1.2 and macOS Sonoma 14.1.2. 

After years of production delays, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to a dimly-lit stage on Thursday to hand-deliver the first batch of Cybertruck EVs to their new owners. The company has also, finally announced pricing for the luxury electric truck. Prospective buyers can expect to pay anywhere from $60,990 to $100,000 MSRP (and potentially $11,000 less after rebates and tax credits). The company has launched an online configurator tool for those interested in placing an order of their own.     

The event caps nearly half a decade of design and development that started in 2019 and which has been subject to intense hype, promotion and scrutiny throughout.

Developing

TikTok has introduced the Artist Account, which offers up-and-coming musicians new ways to curate their profiles in ways that boost discoverability. The new suite of tools are not just meant for rising stars: established pop icons can also add an artist tag to their profiles, giving their music its own tab next to their videos, likes and reposted content.

To be eligible for an artist tag, TikTok says you will need at least four sounds or songs uploaded to the app. Artists can also pin one of their tunes so it appears first in the music tab. If a musician drops new content, the app will tag songs as ‘new’ for up to 14 days before and up to 30 days after it goes live. Any new tracks will automatically be added to a profile’s music tab.

TikTok says over 70,000 artists are already using the new tools. The app has proven to be a breeding ground for content to go viral for new artists and established music makers alike thanks to the lightning speed of dance and lifestyle video trends. TikTok’s impact on the music industry has been so massive that even streamers like Spotify have looked into experimenting with video-first music discovery feeds.