Amazon is selling a two-pack of SanDisk microSD cards for $25 as part of the company’s Big Spring Sale. Each card is 128GB, totaling 256GB of sweet, sweet game storage. These are drives that have been designed and pre-formatted for Nintendo Switch systems, though they’ll work with just about any microSD reader. This deal, however, is only for Prime members.

The Nintendo Switch is notoriously stingy when it comes to integrated storage, offering just 32GB, so microSD cards are an absolute must for AAA titles. Nintendo may be wizards when it comes to compressing its games, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is only 16GB, but that space is still gonna fill up fast.

As a Switch-friendly bonus, each card comes emblazoned with a Mario-esque mushroom logo. We’ve always liked these SanDisk drives and gave them a call out in our list of the best microSD cards. They come with a lifetime warranty and boast read/write speeds that are, more or less, comparable to rival products. The max write speed is 90MB/s and the max read speed is 100MB/s. This isn’t as fast as something like the Samsung Pro Ultimate, but it’s a whole lot cheaper.

Looking for more than 128GB of storage? The above deal is part of a larger sale on SanDisk and Western Digital products. There are microSD drives up to 1TB, plenty of USB stick drives and external storage solutions. Also, if Mushroom Kingdom iconography is not your bag, you can pick up a 1TB SanDisk card that has been stamped with the Triforce from Zelda for $95.

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Last summer, TikTok said it planned to form a “youth council” of teens to advise the company as part of a broader push to beef up safety features for the app’s youngest users. That group is now official, and they have already started meeting with the company, including CEO Shou Chew, the company announced.

The announcement comes as TikTok is fighting a bill that would force parent company ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban in the United States. As part of that effort, the company has tried to mobilize its users, many of them teens, to oppose the measure. TikTok’s critics often cite youth safety as one of the most significant risks posed by the app.

It’s not clear if the newly-formed youth council will do much to counter that perception. But the company says the group has already influenced an upcoming media literacy campaign in the US that will “focus on misinformation, AI-generated content, and more.” The council, made up of 15 teens from the US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, and Morocco, has also weighed in on the app’s “youth portal” feature, which provides in-app privacy and security resources.

According to TikTok, the council is meant to advise on the safety policies and issues that often impact teens. The group also collaborates with UK online safety organization Praesidio Safeguarding, which helped select the council’s teenage members, all of whom are paid, according to TikTok. The company notes that CEO Shou Chew attended the most recent meeting in February, when the youth council asked TikTok to share more details about how reporting and blocking work in the app.

While it’s not yet clear how much, if any, influence TikTok’s youth council will ultimately wield over the company’s policies, it underscores just how important teens are to the platform. TikTok is one of the most dominant apps among teens in the US, currently the company’s largest market. The company has also leaned on them to oppose the bill that could lead to a ban of the app, though those efforts may have backfired.

Uh oh. Apple, Meta and Google could be in hot water in Europe over their attempts to stand within the letter, if not exactly the spirit, of the bloc's sweeping new Digital Markets Act (DMA). 

Core to the probe are concerns Google parent Alphabet and Apple have not given sufficiently allowed "app developers to “steer” consumers to offers outside the gatekeepers' app stores, free of charge," according to the European Commission (the European Union's executive arm). As things currently stand, the new rules from these tech companies may "constrain ... developers' ability to freely communicate and promote offers and directly conclude contracts, including by imposing various charges." 

The European Commission said it also believes Alphabet's search may still engage in self-preferencing of Google-owned services, like Google Flights. Apple, it said, may not be allowing users meaningful choice in selecting alternatives to default iOS services or preferences — the ability to uninstall any pre-loaded app, for instance. Also caught up in the probe is Meta, in relation to its new EU scheme wherein users can opt out of ads, but only for a price.   

The European Commission had, in the lead up to these probes, been hinting at a possible investigation into Apple and Google. In January, Apple announced a raft of App Store changes to comply with the DMA, which required it to (among other things) enable alternative app marketplaces on iOS in the EU and to let developers direct users to third-party payment systems. Included in Apple's updates was a new "core technology fee" of €0.50 that developers will have to pay per user per year after the first 1 million installs of an app — even if a user downloads the software from a third-party marketplace. Google is also charging developers fees in the EU if they bypass the Play Store.

Many of Apple's rivals slammed the App Store changes. Some criticized the company's fees for third-party payments in the US too.

The EU, perhaps unsurprisingly, is keeping a close eye on how companies subject to DMA rules are complying (or not) with them. "There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA," antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager told Reuters on March 19. "That kind of thing is what we will be investigating."

Today's announcement also hints that Apple's "new fee structure" for alternative app stores may still be on the docket for future intervention, along with, apparently, Amazon's possible self-preferencing in its digital storefront. 

In statements to press Apple has said it's "confident our plan complies with the DMA" while Alphabet has said it will "continue to defend our approach in the coming months." A Meta spokesperson called its paid, ad-free option "a well-established business model across many industries."

News of the sweeping probe comes soon after the US Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The government and more than a dozen states accused Apple of fostering a mobile app monopoly, claiming the company makes it too difficult for rivals to compete with its own products and services. 

It might be a while before we learn the outcome of the EU probes. According to Bloomberg, EC investigators try to reach a final decision within a year of starting a formal investigation. If officials determine that these companies aren't complying with the DMA, they face hefty penalties. 

Under the law, the EU can fine a company up to 10 percent of its total annual revenue, and up to 20 percent for repeated violations. Such penalties could make the $2 billion that the EU recently fined Apple for allegedly suppressing iTunes and Apple Music competitors like Spotify look like pocket change.

According to Rabbit, the first batch of US pre-orders will ship on March 31. But stay patient, as it’ll take a few weeks for the devices to get to their destinations. The company estimates the first R1 orders will be in customers’ hands “around April 24.”

The Rabbit R1 generated equal amounts of hype and questions regarding next-gen AI hardware and whether it can deliver on the heady demos and press releases. I will say, though, the R1, co-designed by Teenage Engineering, is a pretty piece of tech.

— Mat Smith

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Apple Silicon has a hardware-level exploit that could leak private data

The odds are fairly low that you’ll have to worry about it.

University security researchers found a chip-level exploit in Apple Silicon-powered Macs. The group says the flaw can bypass the computer’s encryption and access its security keys. However, hackers would need to circumvent Apple’s Gatekeeper protections, install a malicious app and let the software run for 10 hours — in addition to other complex conditions. As long as you have Apple’s Gatekeeper turned on (the default), you won’t be able to install such malicious apps anyway.

Continue reading.

Senators ask intelligence officials to declassify details about TikTok and ByteDance

Lawmakers have participated in classified briefings about the app.

As the Senate considers a bill that would force the sale or ban of TikTok, lawmakers have heard directly from intelligence officials about the app’s alleged national security threat. Now, two senators are asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify and make public what the agency has shared.

Continue reading.

Instagram porn bots’ new low-effort tactic works

Posting ass and… ‘insect’?

REUTERS / Reuters

Instead of a suggestive tease, spam bots in the Instagram universe are now more likely to post a single, inoffensive, completely irrelevant-to-the-subject word, sometimes accompanied by an emoji or two. That’s partially because Instagram’s word filters won’t catch them, but it’s simply a numbers game. Cheyenne MacDonald takes a closer look.

Continue reading.

China has introduced guidelines that bar the the use of US processors from AMD and Intel in government computers and servers, The Financial Times has reported. The new rules also block Microsoft Windows and foreign database products in favor of domestic solutions, marking the latest move in a long-running tech trade war between the two countries.

Government agencies must now use "safe and reliable" domestic replacements for AMD and Intel chips. The list includes 18 approved processors, including chips from Huawei and the state-backed company Phytium — both of which are banned in the US. 

The new rules — introduced in December and quietly implemented recently — could have a significant impact on Intel and AMD. China accounted for 27 percent of Intel's $54 billion in sales last year and 15 percent of AMD's revenue of $23 billion, according to the FT. It's not clear how many chips are used in government versus the private sector, however. 

The moves are China's most aggressive yet to restrict the use of US-built technology. Last year, Beijing prohibited domestic firms from using Micron chips in critical infrastructure. Meanwhile, the US has banned a wide range of Chinese companies ranging from chip manufacturers to aerospace firms. The Biden administration has also blocked US companies like NVIDIA from selling AI and other chips to China. 

The US, Japan and the Netherlands have dominated the manufacturing of cutting-edge processors, and those nations recently agreed to tighten export controls on lithography machines from ASL, Nikon and Tokyo Electron. However, Chinese companies, including Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo have already started designing their own semiconductors to prepare for a future wherein they could longer import chips from the US and other countries.

Sonos is readying the release of its followup to 2021’s Roam speaker, and it should be here in time for all your outdoor summer excursions. In the Power On newsletter this week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says Sonos is planning a June release for the Roam 2 speaker. The first-generation Roam was Sonos’ second attempt at a portable speaker, with a slim, triangular build that weighs less than a pound but produces impressive sound.

According to Gurman, this version of the Roam will feature the same touch-sensitive control panel seen in some of the company’s other speakers, like the Era 100. Sonos is also reportedly working on a new app to pair with its devices, starting with the Roam 2 and an upcoming set of premium headphones that are positioned as an AirPods Max rival. Those headphones will cost $450, Gurman reports, and are also expected to be released in June a bit behind their original schedule.

The bright orange Rabbit R1 was easily one of the most memorable devices to come out of CES this year, and if you’re among the lucky few who were able to put in an order before the first batch sold out, yours will soon be on its way to you. According to Rabbit, the first batch of US pre-orders will ship out on March 31 (Easter Sunday). It’ll take a few weeks for the devices to get to their destinations, though. The company estimates the first R1 orders will be in customers’ hands “around April 24.”

Rabbit is also hosting a pickup party in New York City on April 23 that it says is open to all buyers, not just batch one. It plans to release more information on the party and the first deliveries next week.

The company’s Rabbit R1 demo at CES sparked a lot of hype and a lot more questions about the purpose of dedicated AI hardware in the era of smartphones. It’s positioned as a more useful AI assistant that can go with you anywhere, powered in large part by San Francisco startup Perplexity’s LLM. Co-designed by Teenage Engineering, the Rabbit R1 features a physical scroll wheel and a rotating camera, plus an adorable animated bunny that serves as its mascot.

The company started taking pre-orders for the $199 Rabbit R1 back in January, and the first several batches of 10,000 devices each sold out fast. While batch one starts shipping soon, buyers who got in later will still have to wait several months for theirs to arrive. Pre-orders are currently open for batch seven.

The Amazon Big Spring Sale is in full swing. While not as heavy on tech deals as regular Prime Day is, there are some good Amazon deals available on tech we recommend, including a number of Apple devices. In truth, the pickings are pretty slim — and most of these discounts are not explicitly tied to the spring sale — but they're still worth noting as some of the best tech deals we found amongst all of the clothing, home goods and outdoor gear on sale at Amazon right now. Here are the best Apple deals we could find in the Amazon Spring Sale. As a reminder, this sale will run through March 25 and isn't exclusive to Prime subscribers.

A quick PSA on iPad deals

Most people should hold off on buying a new iPad right now. Apple is widely expected to announce new tablets in the coming weeks, with past reports suggesting that we'll see two new iPad Pros, a refreshed iPad Air and an all-new Air model with a 12.9-inch display. That said, neither the 10th-gen iPad nor the iPad mini are expected to be updated until later in 2024, so if one of those slates suit your needs and you absolutely must buy a new tablet today, both should be a little safer to buy than the iPad Air or iPad Pro. (Or the older 10.2-inch iPad, which is likely to be discontinued with the next round of refreshes.) We'll highlight a couple of decent prices on those devices below.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

As the Senate considers the bill that would force a sale or ban of TikTok, lawmakers have heard directly from intelligence officials about the alleged national security threat posed by the app. Now, two prominent senators are asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify and make public what they have shared.

“We are deeply troubled by the information and concerns raised by the intelligence community in recent classified briefings to Congress,” Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn write. “It is critically important that the American people, especially TikTok users, understand the national security issues at stake.”

The exact nature of the intelligence community's concerns about the app has long been a source of debate. Lawmakers in the House received a similar briefing just ahead of their vote on the bill. But while the briefing seemed to bolster support for the measure, some members said they left unconvinced, with one lawmaker saying that “not a single thing that we heard … was unique to TikTok.”

According to Axios, some senators described their briefing as “shocking,” though the group isn’t exactly known for their particularly nuanced understanding of the tech industry. (Blumenthal, for example, once pressed Facebook executives on whether they would “commit to ending finsta.”) In its report, Axios says that one lawmaker “said they were told TikTok is able to spy on the microphone on users' devices, track keystrokes and determine what the users are doing on other apps.” That may sound alarming, but it’s also a description of the kinds of app permissions social media services have been requesting for more than a decade.

TikTok has long denied that its relationship with parent company ByteDance would enable Chinese government officials to interfere with its service or spy on Americans. And so far, there is no public evidence that TikTok has ever been used in this way. If US intelligence officials do have evidence that is more than hypothetical, it would be a major bombshell in the long-running debate surrounding the app.

A team of university security researchers has found a chip-level exploit in Apple Silicon Macs. The group says the flaw can bypass the computer’s encryption and access its security keys, exposing the Mac’s private data to hackers. The silver lining is the exploit would require you to circumvent Apple’s Gatekeeper protections, install a malicious app and then let the software run for as long as 10 hours (along with a host of other complex conditions), which reduces the odds you’ll have to worry about the threat in the real world.

The exploit originates in a part of Apple’s M-series chips called Data Memory-Dependent Prefetchers (DMPs). DMPs make the processors more efficient by preemptively caching data. The DMPs treat data patterns as directions, using them to guess what information they need to access next. This reduces turnarounds and helps lead to reactions like “seriously fast,” often used to describe Apple Silicon.

The researchers discovered that attackers can use the DMP to bypass encryption. “Through new reverse engineering, we find that the DMP activates on behalf of potentially any program, and attempts to dereference any data brought into cache that resembles a pointer,” the researchers wrote. (“Pointers” are addresses or directions signaling where to find specific data.) “This behavior places a significant amount of program data at risk.”

“This paper shows that the security threat from DMPs is significantly worse than previously thought and demonstrates the first end-to-end attacks on security-critical software using the Apple m-series DMP,” the group wrote.

The researchers named the attack GoFetch, and they created an app that can access a Mac’s secure data without even requiring root access. Ars Technica Security Editor Dan Goodin explains, “M-series chips are divided into what are known as clusters. The M1, for example, has two clusters: one containing four efficiency cores and the other four performance cores. As long as the GoFetch app and the targeted cryptography app are running on the same performance cluster—even when on separate cores within that cluster — GoFetch can mine enough secrets to leak a secret key.”

The details are highly technical, but Ars Technica’s write-up is worth a read if you want to venture much further into the weeds.

But there are two key takeaways for the layperson: Apple can’t do much to fix existing chips with software updates (at least without significantly slowing down Apple Silicon’s trademark performance), and as long as you have Apple’s Gatekeeper turned on (the default), you won’t likely install malicious apps in the first place. Gatekeeper only allows apps from the Mac App Store and non-App Store installations from Apple registered developers. (You may want to be extra cautious when manually approving apps from unregistered developers in macOS security settings.) If you don’t install malicious apps outside those confines, the odds appear quite low this will ever affect your M-series Mac.