The alerts will start rolling out to Teen accounts with parental supervision protections next week. | Image: Meta / The Verge Starting next week, Instagram will notify parents to check on their teen searching for terms related to self-harm or suicide. Meta says a similar alert system for its AI chatbots is coming later this year.The new Instagram feature sends parents an alert when their child "repeatedly tries to search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm within a short period of time." It's rolling out in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada starting next week, but it's only for parents and teens who opt-in to supervision. It's expected to expand to other regions later this year."The vast majority of teens do not try to search for suicide and …Read the full story at The Verge.

Discord's new age-verification plan has left a huge chunk of its user base feeling sour, and honestly, I get why. What began as a UK-specific compliance move has now ballooned into a worldwide rollout, requiring age checks for basically everyone. The intent is safety, sure, with a mix of AI and human review handling verification. But the reaction has been swift and loud.

We've seen the price of SSD storage go up and up over the past several months, rising to levels that many are not comfortable paying. It's a sad reality that looks like it will continue for some time, with no real return to normal expected any time soon. That's why it's important when deals on storage pop up, making it a prime time to buy if you've been looking to pick some up.

It feels like everyone keeps telling me to build a NAS these days. After all, the benefits are significant — an always-on streaming server, a Google Photos replacement, and a local backup are a few of them. With a combination of cheap and capacious hard drives and a handful of fast SSDs, you can create a NAS that has the best of both worlds. However, if you're convinced enough to go buy an all-SSD NAS, you may want to hold off for a while. Since September last year, SSD prices have more than doubled due to the ongoing DRAM supply crunch. What's worse is that a reversal doesn't seem on the cards for two years, at least. You could consider pre-owned enterprise SSDs as a replacement while you wait for consumer SSD prices to cool down.

Creating and fleshing out the smart home can be challenging when shopping around for new devices to add to your automation arsenal, but it doesn't have to be if you're smart about it. I have a few old phones lying around, including an iPhone 12, and wanted to use one to create a super-smart sound sensor, which could help cover us while we slumbered peacefully. Turns out, not only was this possible with just a few hacks to get the iPhone communicating this data with Home Assistant, but it works so well that I decided to expand coverage with a second position elsewhere.

Google is folding Alphabet's AI robotics "moonshot," Intrinsic, into the company after five years as an independent unit. The move marks a strategic shift as Google doubles down on physical AI and pulls experimental projects closer to its core business. Intrinsic "graduated" into an independent company inside Alphabet's Other Bets division in 2021, a portfolio of high-risk, speculative ventures that also includes robotaxi firm Waymo and healthcare company Verily. It pitches itself as an Android-like layer for robotics, building software and tools that make it easier to create robot applications.Details of the purchase are not clear but t …Read the full story at The Verge.

As much as the FOSS community has an excellent record for maintaining its software for long periods of time after a new version releases, people can't maintain an operating system forever. At some point, you have to cut off the old versions and redirect your efforts onto the newer ones. As such, Linux kernels do have an end-of-life date where support will end for that version.

The debate on whether or not lootboxes are gambling is pretty heated. One side argues that, because players are paying real money for the chance to win items of varying rarities, it should count as gambling, or at least, have the same protections against addictive practices that gambling has. Others, including the law, argue that because players can't actually cash out on what they win and you always get something in return, it's not gambling.

Popular password storage app 1Password is increasing the cost of its individual and family plans. Individual subscription plans are going up to $48/year from $36, while family plans are hitting $72/year up from $60.

Microsoft has added Copilot to pretty much every part of Windows and its extended applications and software. However, it doesn't seem like people are using Copilot as much as Microsoft likes, which is a big problem, given how much money the company has poured into its AI assistant. So, what's the easiest way to get people to use your AI? Easy; make it so that it helps you without you asking it to.

If you're the type that needs to get a lot of work done on the go, then having a physical keyboard with you is going to go a long way if you're typing for hours on end. This is where the RK Royal Kludge F68 foldable low-profile mechanical keyboard comes in, offering a comfortable typing experience that's ultra-compact without costing a ton of money.

If an old piece of hardware requires critical components to get working again, but it's near-impossible to purchase parts anymore, what do you do to revive it? Easy; wire it up to newer hardware. Sure, it's not going to give you the authentic experience that the original hardware provided, but you can also use that opportunity to add new features to it. That way, you preserve the 'spirit' of the device while also bringing it into the 21st Century with new functionalities.