TikTok asks users to self-report their birthdays, and it uses tools like facial recognition to estimate users’ ages. Users under 13 only have access to a walled-off mode within the app, and they can’t share personal info or videos. But it wouldn’t be hard to lie to get around age restrictions. The app doesn’t ask for consent from guardians, and videos seem to slip through the cracks. One former TikTok employee told The New York Times that videos of children who appeared to be younger than 14 were allowed to remain online for weeks.
“As is standard practice across our industry,” the company conducts “high-level age-modeling to better understand our users and allow our safety team to better protect the safety of our younger teens in particular,” TikTok said in a statement provided to The New York Times.
The stakes are fairly high. If TikTok is found to be in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires parental permission before internet platforms collect personal info on children under 13, it could face hefty fines. Of course, TikTok knows this, it already paid $5.7 million on behalf of Musical.ly over reported COPPA violations. Now, with TikTok facing President Trump’s ultimatum to sell its US operations before September 15th or be shut down, there’s more on the line.
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There are a number of Google smart displays available now, made by the company itself and third-party manufacturers. They all house the Google Assistant but each has their own flare, and now you can get one of Lenovo’s Google smart displays for less. Best Buy’s has the Lenovo Smart Display 7 for $75 right now, which is $25 off its normal price and $5 less than the last time we saw it on sale.
I was a little worried when my colleague Chris Velazco came back from an early hands-on demo session saying that the Watch 3’s rotating bezel was lighter and smaller than the original’s and that it didn’t clunk into each notch as definitively as before. But I was relieved when I used the wheel myself. It’s a lot lighter and smaller, yes, and it glides past each notch more smoothly than before. But it doesn’t spin freely; there’s enough resistance that you have to be fairly deliberate when twisting it from one notch to the next. If the original Galaxy Watch’s bezel moved like the Big Wheel on The Price Is Right, the Watch 3’s feels more like the whizzing spinner on Wheel Of Fortune.
In between the rotating bezel and the 1.2-inch display sits a ring of small carvings for five-, 10- and 15-minute marks. It’s not a particularly helpful design flourish, especially since a regular watch would have “1, 2, 3,” to show the hours rather than the “05, 10, 15” here. Still, it’s nice to look at. Besides, the alternatives from the Apple Watch and Fitbit Versa 2 are more basic designs and squarish faces, neither of which I really care for.
Health, sleep and fitness tracking
Most of the Galaxy Watch 3’s new features revolve around making it a better health and fitness companion. The upcoming ECG tool and new blood pressure readings, could help provide more insight to your overall health. But these are pending a software update and regulatory approval in the latter case, so I wasn’t able to test them for this review.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
One of the updates that I could try was the new running coach. Samsung is not the first company to provide real-time audio and visual feedback on your jog, but the latest wearables from Apple, Fitbit and Garmin don’t. Plus, Samsung is doing it for free, which is rare. Fitbit’s Coach service requires a subscription fee, for example.
After selecting a goal from options like “light running,” “calorie burning” and “speed endurance,” you can start your run. In “light” mode, I was guided through four stages at gradually increasing speeds. The watch buzzed and told me to either slow down or speed up to hit the targets. When I met and stayed within the recommended range, the coach would tell me I was doing well, with on-screen graphics to match.
Every so often, too, the watch would say things like “Great pace, keep up this pace,” or “Think positively, you’re getting closer to your goal with every step.” It’s meant to be encouraging but, when delivered in its very robotic voice, it feels a little creepy. Plus, sometimes it would say weird things like, “Can you feel yourself working hard? What does it feel like?” and “Are you feeling well enough for exercise today?” That last one made me wonder if the watch detected some kind of anomaly and that maybe I shouldn’t work out, but it was just asking an impersonal question, not making a targeted observation.
The Watch 3 shows more comprehensive analysis for runs than for other workouts. In addition to the usual average heart rate, session duration and calories burned, you’ll see feedback on your symmetry, contact time, flight time, stiffness and regularity, with advice on what areas you need to improve. You’ll get more guidance like suggested drills and charts showing your cadence and pace when you view your session in the Samsung Health app on your phone. I’m not a hardcore runner so this information isn’t super useful to me, but exacting athletes will likely appreciate the extra data.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
I may not be an expert in exercising but I’m basically an Olympic gold medalist when it comes to sleeping. Samsung updated the Watch 3’s sleep tracking to use the heart rate monitor and accelerometer data. This is a very similar approach to Fitbit, and uses the info to estimate how much time you spent in zones like REM, light sleep or deep sleep. It can also log how much time you spent awake. Samsung will assign you a score after tallying the time you spent asleep and also monitoring other factors like restlessness.
I had a terrible night drifting in and out of sleep before being awakened at 6:45 AM by a delivery person. When I looked at my watch later, I was unsurprised to see the Watch 3 had recorded four separate sleep sessions for the night, each period corresponding with times I had woken up. I don’t know all the exact times, but the watch accurately matched one instance when I remember noticing the sun was beginning to rise. Samsung scored each of these sessions between 30 and 40 (out of 100), which makes sense since they were all only about an hour long.
According to the watch, I barely spent any time in the restorative “deep sleep” zone, instead mostly hanging around light and REM sleep. There’s no real way to tell if Samsung is accurate in detecting these zones, but the Watch 3 so far matches my experience. With this, Samsung joins Fitbit in offering more insight on your sleep than Apple, even with the watchOS 7 beta that has yet to publicly roll out. The Apple Watch will log the amount of time you were asleep and note interruptions, but won’t tell you what zones you were in, which would paint a better picture of sleep quality.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Your overall wellbeing isn’t just about exercise and sleep. Tizen OS health-tracking continues to outshine Wear OS and Fitbit OS. It offers helpful widgets for logging your food and water intake, and while I’m dubious on the accuracy of its stress-tracking tool, it at least offers some guided breathing exercises to help you relax. I especially like that when the Watch 3 notices you haven’t moved in an hour, it’ll not only prompt you to get up and move, but also suggest some easy exercises you can do at your desk. Plus, when I accepted one of these recommendations and did a set of five torso twists, the Watch gave an onscreen graphic of how to do the action and tracked every single rep accurately. No other smartwatch offers this.
I like a lot of things about Samsung’s software, but I wish its heart rate monitor were faster. It takes 10 to 13 seconds to deliver a reading, at which point impatience has seemingly driven my pulse up. This could also affect its ability to keep up when monitoring your cardio zones during a workout. That said, it’s worth clarifying that, for obvious reasons, I wasn’t able to constantly keep an eye on the watch while exercising. In contrast, the Fitbit Versa 2 and the Apple Watch generally take about five seconds to produce a reading.
Blood oxygen readings and fall detection
Although Samsung added some new tools to make the Watch 3 a more robust fitness companion, it still feels better suited for more casual users than competitive athletes. New stats like VO2Max give more insight into your body’s performance during a workout, while blood oxygen (SpO2) readings are sometimes called the “fifth vital” metric by which to assess your health. (The first four are your pulse, temperature, blood pressure and respiratory rate.) These are helpful in specific circumstances but not of much use to the average person.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Samsung just released a software update that allows you to get SpO2 readings on the Watch 3, and I saw results between 98 and 99 percent. The Watch 3 interface showed me that this was on the extreme right end of a spectrum, but there was no other way to understand what that meant. Was I healthy? How did I rank against other people my age and gender? I always appreciate more data, but I had to go to Google to make sense of it. Thankfully, my result is typical (above 95 percent is normal, and you should see a doctor if you get something lower).
The Galaxy Watch 3 also offers a feature that we first saw on an Apple Watch: trip detection. It’s basically Apple’s fall detection, except Samsung went with a different name. The Galaxy Watch 3 will notice if you’ve fallen while you’re in motion, not when you’re still, and it will send an SOS message with your location to up to four designated contacts.
I deliberately hurled myself onto a yoga mat a few times, but never triggered the system. I even fell a couple times during my workouts, but the Watch 3 didn’t register them, possibly because I was tracking my exercise. I can’t safely test this feature to see if it will work in life-threatening situations, but at least you don’t have to wait till the Watch 3 determines you’ve fallen to get help. You can also push the home button on the side three times to call your emergency contacts and share your location with them.
Until recently, Hong Kong has had an open and free internet, unlike mainland China. Some fear the law has the ability to make individuals and companies remove content. As The Washington Post explains it “targets vaguely defined crimes including subversion of state power, collusion with foreign powers, secession and terrorism.”
After the law was passed, TikTok pulled out of Hong Kong, and Naver pulled its data centers. While Facebook and Twitter stopped reviewing data requests from Hong Kong authorities, it’s not yet clear if they’ll take a more permanent stance like Google.
In the early ‘90s, Netscape ruled the world with Navigator, an internet browser that was easy and accessible, empowering folks to get online. For $49 — unless you had a free version provided by your ISP — the nascent internet was at your fingertips. Microsoft had slept on the web and belatedly came to the conclusion that it was a threat to Windows’ global dominance. So, far later than it should, the company decided that it needed to take ownership of what we did online.
Microsoft drew, uh, inspiration from Netscape, licensing code from the browser Netscape was based on (Mosaic) and set to work. At the start, Internet Explorer wasn’t as good as Navigator. It didn’t play well with Java and was riddled with bugs. But it also had the virtue of being free, as Microsoft began giving it away with Windows updates and eventually baking it into the OS itself. This set an expectation that nobody need ever pay for a web browser ever again.
Robert Sorbo via Getty Images
In 1995, Netscape Navigator reportedly held 70 and 80 percent of the US web browser market. However, by 1998, Internet Explorer had supplanted Netscape on the back of this free giveaway. But it wasn’t just the public who had noticed: So had Bill Clinton’s Department of Justice, who had been lobbied by Netscape about what was going on.
That same year, the Department of Justice launched an antitrust action, investigating whether Microsoft had violated antitrust laws. They contended that bundling Internet Explorer with the OS, and giving it away for free, violated the first two sections of the Sherman Act. It didn’t go well for Microsoft. CEO Bill Gates was roasted in depositions by (future star lawyer) David Boies. The judge agreed, and declared in his judgment that Microsoft wasn’t just behaving anti-competitively, it also needed to be broken up.
In his decision, Judge Thomas P. Jackson said that Microsoft was attempting to hold onto a monopoly through “anticompetitive means.” He added that the company should be split into two: One building the Windows operating system and another responsible for other software. But rather than motion for a hearing to further examine if a break-up was appropriate, he just demanded it.
This immediately gave Microsoft a point of law on which to base an appeal, and Jackson’s decision would be examined in great detail by The Ringer. Department of Justice economist Daniel Rubinfeld said that his colleagues “assumed that there would be a follow-on set of hearings,” to hash out the merits of breaking up Microsoft. Then acting attorney-general Doug Melamed added that Jackson’s ruling implied that he was “tired of the case” in a way that was “irresponsible.”
The EU opened its own investigation later in 2009, eventually insisting that when people launched Internet Explorer, they should have the option to download a rival product. They were presented with a list that included Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari as well as a number of other, less well-known platforms. But this “Browser Ballot” started in 2010 and expired in 2014, when Internet Explorer was in decline.
Microsoft would eventually settle with the Department of Justice, establishing a three-person independent committee would have the power to scrutinize Microsoft’s business. The company also had to develop an internal antitrust compliance policy to ensure this didn’t happen again. But it was a case of too little, too late for Netscape, which was bought by Aol (now owned by Verizon Media, Engadget’s parent company) just as its market share began falling. By 2004, Internet Explorer had around 90 percent of the market, Navigator had faded to single digits. Microsoft had won.
And then, just as soon as it had, it began to lose. Firefox had been slowly eating small chunks of Microsoft’s market share, and then in 2008, Google’s Chrome turned up. The two browsers between them were breaths of fresh air compared to Internet Explorer, with its numerous flaws. Its lack of standards compliance, persistent faults and the ease at which it would crash meant power users hated it.
There are a number of market share sources, each with slightly different statistics, but the trend is unmistakable. From owning the market in 2004, Microsoft’s dominance was eroded pretty much constantly. By 2013, Internet Explorer had less than 30 percent of the market, with the spoils being shared by Chrome, Firefox and Apple’s Safari, as iOS grew into the juggernaut it is today. Internet Explorer wound up a joke that even Microsoft had to laugh at.
Microsoft would, eventually, replace Internet Explorer with Edge, a new browser that has since been redeveloped to use Google’s Chromium engine. It fixes many of the problems that people ever had with its predecessor.
The brush with the government was a chastening experience for Microsoft and one that may have dented its ambitions. Senator Richard Blumenthal and academic Tim Wu wrote in The New York Times that the case forced Microsoft to be more cautious. “Imagine a world in which Microsoft had been allowed to monopolize the browser business,” they wrote, “Microsoft would have controlled the future of the web.”
They argued that Microsoft, even with a more friendly Department of Justice under G.W. Bush, was far less aggressive. And in doing so, allowed a space into which Google, Facebook, Amazon and others could grow on their own terms. And yes, they added, while it was ironic that those companies were now in the line of fire, it was evidence of a healthy market.
In fact, Microsoft has hardly suffered from its apparent indiscretion, becoming one of the wealthiest companies in the world. It’s more profitable now than it was at the height of its notoriety, despite the fact that many of its rivals are now soaking up the attention.
The makers of real-time messenger Slack say that its business is being ripped off by Microsoft Teams, which is now bundled as part of Office 365. “They created a weak, copycat product,” said Slack general counsel David Schellhase “and tied it to their dominant Office product.” Schellhase added that it’s the same play Microsoft adopted in their (admittedly successful) attempt to topple Netscape Navigator. Slack has now filed a complaint with the European Commission, asking for regulators to investigate the behavior.
But that is for the future. We’re at the very start of Big Tech’s antitrust reckoning, but it’ll be interesting to see how all of this shakes out. Maybe, we’ll see a whole new wave of innovation and a whole new bunch of companies emerging from the conflicts. What will the next tech giant create in the wake of what happens in the next few years? We don’t know, but perhaps it’ll be just as interesting as what came after Internet Explorer.
A California state appeals court has ruled that Amazon can be held liable for damages and injuries caused by faulty products sold on its third-party marketplace. The decision is for a lawsuit filed by Angela Bolger, who purchased a replacement laptop battery from Amazon seller Lenoge Technology HK Ltd, which operates under the name E-Life. In her complaint, Bolger said the battery burst into flames while the laptop was on her thighs, giving her third-degree burns on her arms and legs.
The San Diego Superior Court previously decided that Amazon couldn’t be legally responsible for what happened, because it merely acted as a service provider. However, the appeals court disagreed and proclaimed that Amazon can’t be shielded from liability by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says online platforms can’t be held responsible for the content users post.
But really, this is all just a distraction. Fortnite’s App Store removal is a Trojan Horse, and inside, the Epic Games Store lies in wait. Sweeney’s true goal is to get the Epic Games Store on mobile devices — meaning iOS and Android alike — but right now, the App Store is the perfect target.
Epic Games
To understand why Epic is taking such drastic action now, and why it’s choosing Apple to make this point, we don’t have to look far. On July 29th, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to probe the anticompetitive nature of four of the largest technology companies in the United States — Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. It was a virtual spectacle, with the billionaire CEOs answering questions about their corporate power and policies for five hours straight, including Apple head Tim Cook. (OK, quite a few of those hours were filled with Republicans trying to prove anti-conservative bias on social media platforms, but substantive questions were asked, too).
Cook was there to defend Apple against accusations that the company regularly steamrolls rival developers on the App Store, which operates as a monopoly on the iOS platform. Apple is the guardian of both the App Store and iOS, the operating system that powers 1.5 billion devices across the globe.
Cook’s message on July 29th was clear: The App Store doesn’t favor or block any programs for Apple’s own gain.
“We treat every developer the same,” Cook said. “We have open and transparent rules. It’s a rigorous process. Because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality, we do look at every app before it goes on, but those rules apply evenly to everyone.”
And then, on August 7th, Apple had to publicly explain why it was blocking xCloud, Stadia, GeForce Now and other cloud-gaming platforms from the App Store.
Essentially, Apple said these services can exist on the App Store as long as they submit each game on the storefront for individual review. This is a prohibitive rule, considering xCloud alone has more than 100 games, with new additions rolling in all the time. Meanwhile, non-gaming streaming services like Netflix, YouTube and Spotify are free to operate on the App Store without these restrictions.
Microsoft pulled the xCloud preview app from iOS in early August, and on the 7th, it released a scathing statement about Apple’s approach to cloud gaming.
“Unfortunately, we do not have a path to bring our vision of cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to gamers on iOS via the Apple App Store. Apple stands alone as the only general purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming and game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass. And it consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content.”
Apple has absolutely bent the App Store rules in specific cases — most notably for one of the other companies at the antitrust hearing, Amazon. While most apps have to implement clunky web workarounds in order to use their own payment services on iOS, in April the Prime Video app added direct purchases through Amazon, completely sidestepping Apple’s fees. Apple said it was part of an existing program that allows “premium subscription video entertainment providers” to sell directly to users on the App Store, but the policy is rarely used and shrouded in mystery to even the most avid Apple followers.
Apple is reluctant to allow third-party storefronts on iOS because enabling direct payments cuts into the company’s lucrative, longstanding revenue-sharing model. As a rule, Apple collects 30 percent of an app’s revenue in its first year on the store, and 15 percent afterward. When Cook says “84 percent of the time it’s zero,” he’s talking about free-to-play programs with no in-app purchases, which tend to rely on integrated ads to generate a return.
30 percent is high. Developers across gaming platforms have been increasingly vocal about the unsustainable nature of a 30-70 revenue split, and Sweeney is often shouting the loudest. Epic has come for Google, Apple, Microsoft, and most pointedly, Valve, the company that runs Steam.
The Epic Games Store is itself a challenge to Steam, as it offers developers a revenue cut of 88 percent, with Epic taking 12 percent. Steam has charged developers 30 percent for more than a decade — longer than the App Store or Google Play have existed — and after a year and a half of this competition, Valve has shown no signs of changing its policies.
Today, Apple said Epic is seeking a special deal, but that’s not true. We’re fighting for open platforms and policy changes equally benefiting all developers. And it’ll be a hell of a fight! https://t.co/R5A48InGTg
So, Epic has turned its attention to Apple, a company already struggling with issues of monopoly and the limits of capitalism. Mobile is the fastest-growing segment within gaming, and putting the Epic Games Store on billions of handheld devices could translate into exactly that much money for Sweeney’s company — which is admittedly already rolling in cash, thanks to Fortnite and the Unreal Engine.
Throughout his testimony, Cook repeated the idea that Apple doesn’t enjoy a dominant market share in any part of its business. When asked about the unchecked power that Apple has to change revenue-sharing prices for developers on the App Store, Cook flipped the question sideways and answered it as a platform issue.
“For developers, they can write their apps for Android, or Windows, or Xbox or PlayStation,” Cook said. “We have fierce competition at the developer side and the customer side, which is essentially so competitive I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business.”
The creator of the Hey email app — which was also briefly, scandalously blocked on the App Store this year for attempting to circumvent Apple’s 30 percent cut — live-tweeted the antitrust hearing and scoffed when Cook named Xbox and PlayStation as direct iOS competitors.
“Lol,” he wrote. “Yeah, we should have written HEY for PlayStation. That was our mistake.”
Though Android is gaining ground, iOS has historically represented more than half of the overall mobile gaming market, bringing in more revenue than Google Play and third-party Android storefronts combined. And on iOS, Apple makes all the rules.
Well. Epic’s lawyers might have something to say about that.
This week was dominated by Microsoft’s Surface Duo news, with the company finally unveiling full details and availability info for its dual-screen device since it was first showed off last year. Cherlynn and Devindra discuss why this is such a compelling product and spell out some concerns that could hold the Duo back. How can Microsoft justify the controversial price tag and is the software any better than previous efforts? Our hosts also take a deeper look at Cherlynn’s experience reviewing the Galaxy Watch 3 and provide updates on some Intel and Avatar news that came out this week.
Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to let us know on our form or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Snap has updated its Lens Studio platform so artists and developers can create custom Lenses — the company’s term for AR experiences — that leverage full body tracking. Snapchat’s maker has created two templates, Full Body Triggers and Full Body Attachments, that can conjure up various effects based on what the user is doing inside the frame. As a tutorial video explains, these include toggling virtual objects, playing short pieces of animation and particle bursts. Before, developers could use a Skeletal template to track eight points on the upper body. The new templates, meanwhile, can monitor 18 points including the user’s knees and ankles.
There’s an obvious application for these new developer tools: dance videos. The genre has always been popular across various social platforms including YouTube and Instagram. TikTok’s monumental rise, however, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — which has forced many to stay indoors and find new ways to entertain themselves — has encouraged people to create even more body-grooving clips. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Snapchat wants to support the trend with new artist and developer tools. If you don’t want to download and learn Lens Studio, fear not: Snapchat has already released four creator-made Lenses — Star Burst, Be You, Alone and Be Happy — that you can try right now in the app.
If you’re planning a trip after our shared isolation comes to an end — or if you’re ready to get out of the house right now, we’ll try not to be too judgy — then keep an eye on Google. It’s rolling out updates to search and its Trips section that include COVID-19 advisory info, as well as notes on which hotels or vacation rentals offer free cancellations if your plans change.
— Richard
Intel dishes on Tiger Lake, ‘SuperFin’ transistors and what lies ahead
Including its first discrete graphics card.
Intel Corporation
Intel recently delivered some disappointing news about its move to 7nm processes, but it does have advanced technology inside laptops, which you should see. For its Architecture Day 2020, engineers talked up advancements like SuperFin, which should “deliver its biggest speed improvement ever within a single node.” Devindra Hardawar tried out laptops with the new tech back at CES and saw performance suggesting that new Tiger Lake CPUs in future mainstream laptops will do a better job with gaming.
Apple is reportedly planning ‘Apple One’ subscription bundles
That could launch later this year along with new iPhones.
Apple’s push toward services could expand in a new way soon. A Bloomberg report describes “Apple One” bundles that tie together some of its different services for a discount. The cheapest will reportedly combine Apple Music and Apple TV+, followed by pricier options that stack Apple Arcade then Apple News + and finally iCloud storage on top.
Epic uses ‘Fortnite’ to start a war with Apple and Google
They kicked the game out of their stores, and now Epic is suing.
Epic Games
Enjoying a game of Fortnite on your mobile device just got a bit more complicated. Epic Games has been noisy about its objections to the control that Apple and Google have over app installs on their mobile platforms and the fees they impose on developers who sell software via the App Store on iOS and Play Store on Android.
So on Thursday, the company flipped a switch that enabled a “Mega Drop” in Fortnite. It promised a 20 percent discount on buying the in-game V Bucks currency as long as players paid Epic directly — using the same framework it applies to PC gamers — instead of going through Apple or Google. That violates the TOS on both platforms, and before long, the game disappeared. Epic has filed lawsuits against both companies as a result, and while gamers on Android may be able to sideload future versions, players on iOS won’t be able to get updates or install the game for now.
