Yet another reason to be wary of period tracking apps. A California jury has found that Meta illegally collected user health data from the Flo period-tracking app, violating the state’s wiretap law. The verdict concludes a lawsuit filed against Flo, Google, Meta, and app analytics company Flurry in 2021, in which Flo app users accused the companies of collecting their private menstrual health data without consent for targeted advertising. While Flo promised to keep users’ sensitive reproductive health information private, the lawsuit alleged that Flo allowed Google and Meta to eavesdrop on in-app communications between November 2016 and February 2019, violating California’s Invasion of Privacy Act. The cases against Flo, Google, and Flurry were resolved through undisclosed settlements before the trial, leaving Meta as the only remaining defendant. The jury reached a verdict on Monday that there was a “preponderance” of evidence showing Meta had “intentionally eavesdropped on and/or recorded conversations using an electronic device,” unbeknownst to Flo app users. While financial damages have yet to be decided, each violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act can result in a penalty of $5,000, with the lawsuit filed on behalf of “millions” of Flo users.“This verdict sends a clear message about the protection of digital health data and the responsibilities of Big Tech,” lead trial attorneys Michael P. Canty and Carol C. Villegas said in a statement. “Companies like Meta that covertly profit from users’ most intimate information must be held accountable.”Meta has objected to the verdict and will likely appeal the decision.“We vigorously disagree with this outcome and are exploring all legal options,” Meta said in a statement reported by TechCrunch. “The plaintiffs’ claims against Meta are simply false. User privacy is important to Meta, which is why we do not want health or other sensitive information, and why our terms prohibit developers from sending any.”

Did anyone else play Road Rash? It was one of my favorite games on the Sega Genesis as a kid. The gist was that you were in a motorcycle race where you could punch, bump, and swing weapons at your rivals while dodging the cops. I really enjoyed it, and growing up, I was sad to see that nobody else really did anything with that formula.

Home labs, by their very definition, are all about experimenting with different services and gaining new insights into the server side of computing. But in my experience, the learning part mostly comes from accidentally messing things up, troubleshooting the source of the error(s), and restoring the home lab to its healthy state – or starting from scratch while creating a mental memo to never repeat the same mistakes again.

When people discuss action-platformer games, one thing that is always brought up is the Castlevania series. In the mid-80s, Castlevania was synonymous with the NES and challenging experiences that pushed players to their limits. Inspired by the classic horror franchises from Universal Studios and the Hammer Horror series, Castlevania was a different kind of platformer on the NES from the lighthearted nature of the Super Mario series. Years later, the franchise would undergo a transformation and inadvertently create an entire new subgenre called "metroidvania" with the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the original PlayStation. Change has always been a part of the series since its humble beginnings, which happened again in the 3D era, with multiple Castlevania titles reimagining what the series was.

Personalized user experiences are the ethos of the mechanical keyboard hobby. They go far beyond conventional input devices, and a hobby that once catered to typing purists who missed the IBM Model M has now evolved into a full-blown subculture for gamers and user-experience aficionados alike. The sheer variety of switches, keycaps, cases, and layouts can inadvertently ensure your build is truly one of a kind, but my goal with all the endless modifications has always been to improve the typing experience. This can be through audible feedback, tactility, or just how my oftentimes tiny keyboards become conversation starters.

We have all been there: juggling multiple apps, tabs, and notes, and hoping to stay productive. But what if you could streamline your workflow and make your research and writing more efficient? NotebookLM is a powerful tool, but you can unlock its true potential by pairing it with the right apps.

Meta’s consumer VR headsets are already among the best you can get for their price points, but at a conference next week, the company is showing off some impressive-sounding research prototypes that could be a peek at what its headsets might be capable of in the future. One headset, called “Tiramisu,” brings a “new milestone for realism in VR,” Meta says in a blog post. Tiramisu has “high contrast — roughly 3x that of Meta Quest 3 — combined with an angular resolution of 90 pixels per degree (PPD) — 3.6x that of Quest 3 — and brightness up to 1,400 nits — 14x that of Quest 3.” There are apparently some trade-offs, including that it’s “bulkier and heavier” than consumer headsets available today and has a limited field of view (FOV), but it’s “the closest we’ve come to a visual experience that passes the visual Turing test yet.”Two other headsets, the “Boba 3” and the “Boba 3 VR,” instead have a very wide FOV. While the Quest 3 has a horizontal FOV of 110 degrees and a vertical FOV of 96 degrees, the Boba 3 headsets have a horizontal FOV of 180 degrees and vertical FOV of 120 degrees. That horizontal FOV brings the headsets much closer to the FOV of the human visual system, which Meta says is “roughly” 200 degrees.The Boba 3 headsets, which leverage “displays in mass production and similar lens technologies to those found in Quest 3,” have a display resolution per eye of 4K by 4K. That’s higher than the 3K by 3K display resolution per eye of last year’s Boba 2 prototype and the 2K by 1K display resolution per eye of the previous Boba 1 prototype.The prototype headsets will be shown at next week’s SIGGRAPH 2025 conference, and I recommend checking out Meta’s blog post to see videos of them in action. While Meta says they are “purely research prototypes, with novel technologies that may never make their way into a consumer product,” you can see how they might eventually lead to headsets that can offer much more immersive VR experiences.

The day after he won an unprecedented $243 million verdict in a wrongful death case against Tesla, attorney Brett Schreiber posted a reel on Instagram celebrating the victory. His song pick: 1992's "Damn It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta" by the Geto Boys."This is a verdict that will change the world," Schreiber wrote in the caption, as Bushwick Bill, Willie D, and Scarface rap in the background about how "everything's cool in the mind of a gangsta."If that sounds like hyperbole, mixed with a dose of macho boasting, you're not wrong. But in some sense, Schreiber earned his right to strut. View this post on Instagram A p …Read the full story at The Verge.

While mini PCs are getting a ton of attention right now, sometimes, the devices just aren't small enough. As you can imagine, there's a solution to this particular problem that already exists, and this tiny and compact stick PC is going to be it.

Zach Cregger's first major film Barbarian was tense and frightening, but it was also infused with a healthy dose of absurdity. The movie's twisted sense of humor made it easier to stomach its grotesque violence and a bit more difficult to anticipate how its unhinged story would unfold. But Barbarian also worked surprisingly well as a commentary on who really benefits from the redevelopment of decaying cities.Barbarian's unpredictable tonal shifts and impressive production value made it feel like Cregger had captured lightning in a bottle - the kind that is often difficult to replicate. But with his new thriller, Weapons, Cregger proves tha …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've been on the Home Assistant grind for quite a while at this stage. It's a fantastic way to automate your smart home, linking up services and devices you never would have thought possible. I have some truly magical automations that bridge services in ways I couldn't do with any other software, like using a spare slider on my GoXLR Mini to control my light brightness, or deploying my own voice assistant that sounds and acts like GLaDOS. It's amazing, and I absolutely love that for the time I've spent on it, I've got a lot out of it.

Sometimes you just don't need that clunky old desktop PC. Even if you've gutted it and rebuilt with modern parts, an ATX desktop case takes up a ton of space. And that's not including the keyboard, monitor, and mouse you need to actually use your desktop. This is why mini PCs and all-in-one desktops exist. While I've had a desktop PC for the last several years, I've gone through various tech permutations for my daily device, from a laptop to a desktop to an all-in-one.