A federal judge in California has agreed with WhatsApp that the NSO Group, the Israeli cybersurveillance firm behind the Pegasus spyware, had hacked into its systems by sending malware through its servers to thousands of its users' phones. WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta, sued the NSO Group back in 2019 and accused it of spreading malware to 1,400 mobile devices across 20 countries with surveillance as its purpose. They revealed back then some of the targeted phones were owned by journalists, human rights activists, prominent female leaders and political dissidents. The Washington Post reports that District Judge Phyllis Hamilton has granted WhatsApp's motion for summary judgement against NSO and has ruled that it had violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). 

The NSO Group disputed the allegations in the "strongest possible terms" when the lawsuit was filed. It denied that it had a hand in the attacks and told Engadget back then that its sole purpose was to "provide technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime." The company argued that it should not be held liable, because it merely sells its services to government agencies, which are the ones that determine their targets. In 2020, Meta escalated its lawsuit and accused the firm of using US-based servers to stage its Pegasus spyware attacks.

Judge Hamilton has ruled that the NSO Group violated the CFAA, because the firm appears to fully acknowledge that the modified WhatsApp program its clients use to target users send messages through legitimate WhatsApp servers. Those messages then allow the Pegasus spyware to be installed on users' devices — the targets don't even have to do anything, such as pick up the phone to take a call or click a link, to be infected. The court has also found that the plaintiff's motion for sanctions must be granted on account of the NSO Group "repeatedly [failing] to produce relevant discovery," most significant of which is the Pegasus source code. 

WhatsApp spokesperson Carl Woog told The Post that the company believes this is the first court decision agreeing that a major spyware vendor had broken US hacking laws. "We’re grateful for today’s decision," Woog told the publication. "NSO can no longer avoid accountability for their unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, human rights activists and civil society. With this ruling, spyware companies should be on notice that their illegal actions will not be tolerated." In her decision, Judge Hamilton wrote that her order resolves all issues regarding the NSO Group's liability and that a trial will only proceed to determine how much the company should pay in damages.  

Bluesky has rolled out an update that fixes one important issue that could lead to impersonation on the decentralized social network. Now, when you verify your identity on the platform with your own domain, Bluesky will no longer free up your old .bsky.social username. In the past, going through the authentication process will make your original .bsky.social name available again, which means you'll have to sign up again to secure your old handle if you don't want impersonators to scoop it up. 

The social network has been trying to fix its verification issues, which became a significant problem after the service welcomed an influx of new users in recent months. A third-party entity from Cornell Tech who analyzed the app's userbase previously found that 44 percent of Bluesky's 100 most-followed accounts have a doppelganger. As a response, Bluesky adopted a more aggressive impersonation policy and required parody, satire or fan accounts to label themselves as such in both their handles and their bio in late November. It also explicitly prohibited identity churning, in which users would start off as impersonators to gain followers and then switch their identity later to avoid enforcement action.

In addition to reserving your old handle, the updated Bluesky app adds a "Mentions" tab in notifications, making it much easier to find replies to your posts. As The Verge notes, it also has a new button that lets you choose how replies show up, so you can choose to see them in a linear order or in threaded discussions. 

Clickbait videos have always been annoying, but there are times when they can be downright harmful. YouTube has vowed to strengthen its enforcement efforts when it comes to dealing with "egregious clickbait" on its website, particularly those that cover — or pretend to cover — breaking news and current events. The website describes egregious clickbait as "videos where the title or thumbnail promises viewers something that the video doesn't deliver."

YouTube says these videos leave viewers "feeling tricked, frustrated, or even misled" if they come to the website looking for truthful and timely information on important issues. If you've ever watched a clickbait video, you'd know that's definitely true. You may have trained yourself on being able to spot and skip them over the years, but some people might still not know the difference between clickbait and legitimate content. 

One example of egregious clickbait, according to YouTube, is if a video says "the president resigned!" without actually addressing the president's resignation. Misleading thumbails are considered egregious clickbait, as well. If a thumbnail reads "top political news" and the video doesn't contain any political news, then it will also be subjected to YouTube's enforcement action. 

The website will start cracking down on clickbait videos in India — it didn't say how it will expand from there, but we've asked it for more information. For now, it will delete any video that violates this policy without issuing strikes. After it goes through old videos, it will then prioritize new uploads, presumably so that they don't reach more people that they should. 

• "The Brutalist," starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pearce, is 3 hours and 35 minutes.
• Over the last few years, blockbusters have become longer and longer.
• Three-hour movies are becoming more common, like "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Oppenheimer."

Multiple movies in recent years have clocked in at three hours long, from "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Oppenheimer" to this year's architectural epic, "The Brutalist."

The reaction to these lengthy running times ranges from joy to begging for an intermission, and in the case of "The Brutalist," those prayers were answered: The film has a 15-minute intermission built into its runtime.

A long runtime isn't an unprecedented move. There have been many movies throughout cinematic history that have clocked in at three hours or more, including some of the highest-grossing movies of all time, like "Avengers: Endgame" and "Avatar: The Way of Water."

If you ever have a spare afternoon, here are 23 three-hour-long movies that will eat up a significant chunk of your day.

'The Wolf of Wall Street': 3 hours

"The Wolf of Wall Street," directed by Martin Scorsese, is based on the true story of Jordan Belfort and his escapades as the leader of a stock brokerage firm that ended up breaking federal laws. The movie was well-received by both critics and audiences, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

"'The Wolf of Wall Street' is a magnificent black comedy: fast, funny, and remarkably filthy," wrote The Atlantic.

'Oppenheimer': 3 hours

"Oppenheimer," one-half of the biggest movie phenomenon of last year ("Barbenheiemer"), stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

The film follows Oppenheimer from his time as a university student in the United Kingdom through World War II and the atomic bomb detonations, the security clearance hearing that ended his career in politics, to the end of his life.

The Ringer wrote that the "level of shock and awe" exhibited in "Oppenheimer" is "breathtaking," yet sometimes also "taxing."

'Dances with Wolves': 3 hours, 1 minute

Kevin Costner both starred in and directed the 1990 film "Dances with Wolves," which follows a Civil War-era lieutenant in the US Army who is positioned in a remote outpost on the western frontier. He eventually becomes part of a Native American tribe.

His directorial debut was applauded and even earned Costner the best director Academy Award. It also won best picture. Newsweek wrote, "Costner directs with the confidence of a Hollywood veteran well aware that entertainment comes before earnestness."

'Avengers: Endgame': 3 hours, 2 minutes

"Avengers: Endgame" didn't have an easy job to do — tie up a full decade of Marvel movies while simultaneously setting the stage for Phase 4. But somehow, it worked. It also managed to rake in nearly $2.8 billion at the box office.

As Business Insider's Kirsten Acuna wrote, "'Endgame' is an emotional punch straight to the gut," and "a very satisfying conclusion to this adventure that started back in 2008 with Tony Stark."

'The Deer Hunter': 3 hours, 3 minutes

"The Deer Hunter" combined the star power of Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken in a movie about the effects that the Vietnam War had on residents of their small Pennsylvania town.

The Hollywood Reporter called it "the great American film of 1978."

'Pearl Harbor': 3 hours, 3 minutes

Notorious 2001 flop "Pearl Harbor" only garnered a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes — probably for its less-than-stellar performances.

"For all the 118 actors listed, the movie offers almost no sense of authentic humanity," wrote the Associated Press.

'The Green Mile': 3 hours, 9 minutes

"The Green Mile," based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, is about a death row inmate who appears to have supernatural healing powers.

The Montreal Film Journal called it "a wonderful picture with a deeply human core."

'Babylon': 3 hours, 9 minutes

"Babylon" is an epic story of Old Hollywood, following three characters, played by Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, and Brad Pitt, as they make their way in 1920s Los Angeles.

The film was divisive. The London Evening Standard called it a "disaster of biblical proportions," while the Wall Street Journal said it was one of the "richest and most ambitious films" of the year.

'Cleopatra': 3 hours, 12 minutes

Real-life lovers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton teamed up to play historical power couple Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in "Cleopatra."

Rotten Tomatoes said it best: "This colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word — an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop."

'Avatar: The Way of the Water': 3 hours, 12 minutes

Director James Cameron's long-awaited follow-up to 2009's "Avatar" (which itself is 2 hours and 42 minutes long) came 13 years later and is even more of a spectacle than its predecessor.

"The Way of Water" continues the story of Jake Sully and his love, Neytiri, along with their blended family of biological and adopted children, as they once again face the greed of the human race trying to exploit Pandora's natural resources.

Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio called the film an "astounding epic."

'The Right Stuff': 3 hours, 13 minutes

"The Right Stuff" is based on the true story of Chuck Yeager and his fellow test pilots who were chosen for Project Mercury, the first crewed spaceflight.

"Rarely has a film made a historic accomplishment seem so vivid and personal," wrote The Hollywood Reporter. "It makes you wonder, quite suddenly, why there aren't more movies like this."

'Titanic': 3 hours, 14 minutes

The tragic love story of Jack and Kate, two passengers on the doomed RMS Titanic, was forever immortalized in this tearjerker.

Vox reviewer Alyssa Wilkinson watched the film for the first time in 2017 and found it to be still effective.

She wrote that it "swept me off my feet almost from the get-go, a grand epic romance-disaster that reminded me, in the middle of my overstuffed-with-movies life, of what we mean when we talk about the power of cinema."

'Schindler's List': 3 hours, 15 minutes

Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning drama is about the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German man who defied the Nazis and saved more than 1,000 Jews by employing them at his factory.

"With seemingly effortless grace and skill, 'Schindler's List' balances fear and exaltation, humor and horror, love and death," wrote The Chicago Tribune.

'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King': 3 hours, 21 minutes

The final movie of "The Lord of the Rings" saga concluded with the entire Fellowship of the Ring working together to save Middle Earth from the evil all-seeing eye of Sauron.

Though its running time tired some people out — "Yes, the running time is long, and yes, those many endings in a slow, dreamy coda left me feeling spent — better spent than I can ever remember," wrote The Wall Street Journal — it became the first and only "Lord of the Rings" movie to win the Academy Award for best picture.

'The Godfather Part II': 3 hours, 22 minutes

This follow-up to "The Godfather" combined the origin story of mob boss Don Vito Corleone with the rise of his son, Michael, in the rare sequel that's just as good as, if not better than, the original.

"One of the most ambitious and brilliantly executed American films, a landmark work from one of Hollywood's top cinema eras," wrote The Chicago Tribune.

'Malcolm X': 3 hours, 22 minutes

Denzel Washington starred as the titular Malcolm X, one of the most famous and divisive leaders in Black history.

Newsweek wrote, "[Director Spike] Lee and company have performed a powerful service: they have brought Malcolm X very much to life again, both as man and myth."

'Barry Lyndon': 3 hours, 23 minutes

"Barry Lyndon," directed by Stanley Kubrick, follows the titular character, played by Ryan O'Neal, for around 40 years of his life, as he rises from a lower-class gambler to the husband of a lady — and then sinks back to being a gambler.

As Rotten Tomatoes wrote, the film is "cynical, ironic, and suffused with seductive natural lighting."

'Killers of the Flower Moon': 3 hours, 26 minutes

One of the best movies of last year was "Killers of the Flower Moon," starring frequent Scorsese collaborators like Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, along with new additions like Lily Gladstone and Jesse Plemons.

The film is based on the real murders of members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, also known as the Reign of Terror, in the 1920s.

"Killers" was called "grand, classic film-making" and "an American tragedy of the highest order" by The New Statesman.

'The Irishman': 3 hours, 29 minutes

"The Irishman" reunited De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and more of some of the most iconic actors of the last 50 years to tell the decadeslong story of Union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), mob enforcer Frank Sheeran (De Niro), and mob leader Russell Bufalino (Pesci).

Even though it's a hefty 3 1/2 hours, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "there are 209 minutes in 'The Irishman' and not one of them is wasted."

'Ben-Hur': 3 hours, 32 minutes

Charlton Heston, one of the most legendary actors in history, starred as the titular Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince who is sold into slavery and must journey back home to Jerusalem, all the while meeting historical figures like Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ himself.

The Telegraph wrote that "the story of how a man takes on the tyranny of the Romans, with all sorts of horrible consequences to himself and his family, is powerful and gripping."

'The Brutalist': 3 hours, 35 minutes

"The Brutalist," which is directed by Brady Corbet and hits theaters on December 20, is the story of Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) as he moves to the United States in the aftermath of the Holocaust. When he is hired by an enigmatic client (Guy Pearce), his life begins to unravel.

"Similar in tone to such Paul Thomas Anderson films as 'There Will Be Blood' and 'The Master,' Mr. Corbet's often-staggering movie casts an unsentimental look at the price of greatness," wrote The Wall Street Journal.

'Lawrence of Arabia': 3 hours, 36 minutes

"Lawrence of Arabia," based on the life of British soldier T.E. Lawrence in WWI-era Middle East, is separated into two parts and even has an intermission.

"'Epic' is an over-used word in cinema, but David Lean's 1962, near-four-hour journey with T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) into the Arabian desert is surely the gold standard for films grand in scale, design and delivery," wrote Time Out on the film's 50th anniversary.

'Gone with the Wind': 3 hours, 58 minutes

This nearly four-hour sprawling story is about Scarlett O'Hara, a Civil War-era woman who lives on a Georgia plantation and deals with love, loss, and eventually is determined to start her life anew.

While the film has been criticized for its dubious portrayal of the Civil War and slavery, Time Out wrote, "No one watches 'Gone with the Wind' for historical accuracy. What keeps us coming back is four-hours of epic romance in gorgeous Technicolor."

A company called Elevation Lab has released an accessory for the Apple AirTag that extends its battery life by up to 10 years and makes it waterproof. The TimeCapsule is essentially a case that contains your AirTag and two AA batteries. You don't need to open your AirTag and tinker with it — you only have to remove its backplate and coin battery before attaching it to the case. As you can see, it will make your tracking device a lot bigger and considerably heftier, so it's mostly ideal for use with large objects, such as vehicles and big suitcases. 

As Elevation Lab says in its announcement, the TimeCapsule could make it easier to manage multiple AirTags. You won't have to change their batteries every year anymore just to make sure they'll work as intended if you lose your stuff. That said, the batteries you use will dictate how long it would take before you have to unscrew the case and replace them.

The Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries Elevation Lab reommends are 1.5V each and have a capacity of over 3,000mAh, which is why they can power an AirTag for up to a decade. Other AA batteries will work with the case, but they may not be as effective, depending on their specs. The amount you spend for the whole setup will depend on the batteries you choose, but the case itself will set you back $20.

Honda is officially introducing two Series 0 electric vehicle prototypes at CES next year, and the company says they'll be available for purchase around the world sometime in 2026. The vehicles will be based on the futuristic-looking concepts the company presented at CES 2024, including a flagship model called the Saloon that featured an aerodynamic design. They'll be the company's first entries in the Series 0 lineup, which are also expected to feature an advanced driver-assisted system and, over the coming years, AI-powered automated driving features. 

In addition to presenting the prototypes themselves, Honda will also introduce a new proprietary vehicle operating system that the Series 0 cars will use. Plus, it will give you a look at the SoC powering the vehicles during the event. Honda trailed behind competitors in terms of making the transition to electric vehicles, but its first electric SUV, the Prologue, became one of the best-selling EVs in the US after its release in the country earlier this year. The company will unveil its new EV prototypes during its press conference in Las Vegas that will be held on January 7 at 10:30AM PT/1:30 PM ET. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube, but we'll also keep you updated on the latest news from CES 2025. 

LG has announced the 2025 refresh for its QNED evo lineup of premium LCD TVs, along with new features coming with the 40 to 100-inch models that include the capability to wirelessly receive and play 4K content. The company introduced its 4K wireless solution last year on its more expensive OLED M-series TVs, but this rollout will give more people access to its technology. 

Its True Wireless 4K solution requires the use of the company's Zero Connect Box, so the reality is that it's not fully wireless. But once you plug your devices into that external box, you'll be able to transmit 4K content with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz to the TV from as far as 30 feet away without having to run cables directly into the set. The only thing that needs to be plugged into the TV itself is its power cord. 

In addition to the True Wireless feature, the updated QNED evo TVs also use LG's new Dynamic QNED Color Solution that enables them to produce colors closer to how they appear to the naked eye in real life. They come with AI capabilities, as well, such as the ability to upscale images more naturally and to make voices stand out more against background sounds. The new QNED evo models will ship with the new AI Magic Remote that comes with a dedicated AI button. LG says that a long press on the AI button will allow users to make personalized searches for viewing preferences and recommendations. A user can ask the remote to recommend movies for their trip to Paris, for instance, and the AI will be able to suggest films based on the European capital in genres they enjoy based on their viewing habits. 

LG has yet to announced the new QNED evo TVs' availability and pricing, but it will most likely showcase them and reveal more information at CES next year. 

You can now access Apple's answer to Google Street View on the web. As 9to5Mac reports, Apple has enabled Look Around for the beta version of Apple Maps on the web, letting you literally look around and explore the cities where it's available. The company has a full list of "Look Around" locations on its website, and it includes select cities in the US, Japan and several countries in the European Union. To start exploring a place on your desktop, you only have to click on the binocular icon at the bottom left corner of the map. Like on Street View, you'll be able to virtually fly across roads and drag the screen to show more of the place with the feature's 360-degree images. 

Apple launched the beta version of Maps for the web in July, with a number of limitations. Access was limited to certain devices and browsers. While you could already use it to look up directions and guides, it didn't roll out with Look Around, though Apple promised to add more features in the coming months. Although Look Around's coverage is pretty limited at the moment, MacRumors previously reported finding clues in Apple Maps suggesting that the company is working on expanding its availability. Apple apparently has plans to add smaller cities and rural areas to the Look Around network, as well as to add more countries, such as Egypt, China and Mexico.

Waymo will deploy its driverless cars in Japan and will test its technology in another country for the first time. According to CNBC, the company will begin testing its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025 and expects to remain in the country for an "extended period." During the vehicles' experimental phase, which will last for several quarters, human drivers from the Japanese taxi company Nihon Kotsu will operate Waymo's cars so that its technology can map the city. Particularly, they're driving Waymo's Jaguar I-PACEs through the streets of Shinjuku, Shibuya and Tokyo's other key areas.

The data gathered from those tests will then be used to train the company's self-driving system. Waymo will also be recreating Tokyo's driving conditions in a closed course in the US, where it will put more of its robotaxis to the test, and will be using data collected from that effort for training. The company has yet to announce when it will open rides to the public, but it has already formed a partnership with Japan's "GO" taxi app, which will presumably offer driverless rides to users in the future. As CNBC notes, Japan is keen to introduce driverless rides as a transportation option despite its efficient train system due to its aging population. Last year, it amended its laws to allow level 4 autonomous driving on its roads. 

In the US, Waymo operates its driverless cars in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It announced several plans to introduce its vehicles to more locations over the past months, however, and raised $5.6 billion to fund its expansion to Austin and Atlanta next year. Waymo will also be deploying its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Miami in early 2025 and will offer rides to the public in the city sometime in 2026. 

ORLANDO, Florida—On Wednesday, Jared Isaacman made his first public appearance since his nomination earlier this month to become NASA's next administrator. Although his remarks were short on specifics, Isaacman endorsed a vision that would signal radical departures from the way NASA does business.

He talked of commercial investment, a thriving space economy, and going fast and taking risks. These talking points are familiar to anyone who has listened to NASA's leadership in recent years, and there has been tangible progress in the agency's partnerships with commercial companies. However, NASA is leaving some commercial expertise on the field, or in this case, on the ground.

"I love all about the commercial space industry right now," Isaacman said in a discussion at the Space Force Association's Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Florida. "They’re all generally doing the same thing, which is putting a lot of their own dollars on the line because they believe in the future that it holds."

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Two years ago next week, NASA's Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to wrap up what, at first glance, seemed to be a highly successful unpiloted test flight that made a return to the Moon feel within reach.

The Orion capsule descended under parachutes, right on target near a US Navy recovery ship on December 11, 2022. In 25-and-a-half days, the Orion spacecraft entered the Moon's sphere of influence, flew within about 60 miles (100 kilometers) of the lunar surface, and, for the most part, worked as designed in deep space. On top of that, the rocket's launch vehicle, NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System, also performed near-flawlessly on its first flight, known as Artemis I.

However, once NASA engineers got a closer look at the Orion spacecraft, their optimism faded. They saw cracks in the craft's heat shield and divots in the ablative thermal protection layer resembling potholes on a neglected street. This isn't what engineers expected, and they spent the next two years investigating the cause of the problem and determining whether it posed a safety risk for NASA's next Artemis mission, Artemis II. If the results weren't favorable, NASA might have to disassemble the Orion spacecraft, pushing back the flight a year or more beyond the Artemis II mission's already-delayed launch date.

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China's new Long March 12 rocket made a successful inaugural flight Saturday, placing two experimental satellites into orbit and testing uprated, higher-thrust engines that will allow a larger Chinese launcher in development to send astronauts to the Moon.

The 203-foot-tall (62-meter) Long March 12 rocket lifted off at 9:25 am EST (14:25 UTC) Saturday from the Wenchang commercial launch site on Hainan Island, China's southernmost province. This was also the first rocket launch from a new commercial spaceport at Wenchang, consisting of two launch sites a short distance from a pair of existing launch pads used by heavier rockets primarily geared for government missions.

The two-stage rocket delivered two technology demonstration satellites into a near-circular 50-degree-inclination orbit with an average altitude of nearly 650 miles (about 1,040 kilometers), according to US military tracking data.

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Bluesky has updated its impersonation policy to be "more aggressive" after third-party analysis highlighted its verification problem. The Bluesky Safety account said that the social media service is removing accounts that are impersonating other people and those squatting on handles. Bluesky doesn't have a conventional verification system, so it's easy for unscrupulous users to pretend to be someone else either for attention or to scam other people. That may not have been a serious problem in the past, but the recent influx of new users threw the issue into stark relief. 

While users can verify their identities on Bluesky by linking their account to a domain name, the process isn't as straightforward as paying for a checkmark. They'd have to add a string of text to the DNS record associated with their domain so that they could claim their URL. For instance, we could claim the Engadget.com handle on Bluesky if we go through this self-verification process. Individuals can link their accounts to personal domains or pay for Bluesky's custom domain service. In its new announcement, the platform say's it's working with organizations and high-profile individuals to set up their verified handles.

That said, when a user verifies their account, their old handle (typically username.bsky.social) gets freed up and becomes available to other people who sign up. Alexios Mantzarlis, the third party from Cornell Tech who analyzed the app's userbase, found that 44 percent of Bluesky's 100 most-followed accounts have a doppelganger. That is why Bluesky now requires parody, satire or fan accounts to label themselves as such in both their handles and their bio. If they don't, or if they only indicate the nature of their account in one of those elements, then they'll be treated as an impersonator and will be removed from the platform. 

Bluesky now explicitly prohibits identity churning, as well. Accounts that start as impersonators with the purpose of gaining new users, and who then switch to a different identity in an attempt to circumvent the ban, will still get booted off the app. Finally, it says it's exploring "additional options to enhance account verification," though they're not quite ready for rollout. 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can now go after scammers posing as tech support providers even if it's the consumer who called them up. It has just approved amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule that expands its coverage to include "inbound" calls to companies pitching "technical support services through advertisements or direct mail solicitations." Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, explained that the new rule will allow the agency to hold these scammy businesses accountable and to get money back for the victims. 

"The Commission will not sit idle as older consumers continue to report tech support scams as a leading driver of fraud losses," Levine also said, because the rule's expansion would mostly help protect consumers 60 years and older. According to the agency, older adults reported losing $175 million to tech support scams in 2023 and were five times more likely to fall for them than younger consumers. 

Tech support scams typically trick potential victims into calling them by sending them emails or triggering pop-up alerts claiming that their computer has been infected with malware. Scammers then ask their targets to pay for their supposed services by wiring them money, by putting money in gift or prepaid cars or by sending them cryptocurrency coins, because those methods can be hard to trace and reverse. They've long been a problem in the US — the agency shut down two massive Florida-based telemarketing operations that had scammed victims out of $120 million in total way back in 2014 — but the issue has been growing worse over time. The $175 million victims reported losing in 2023 was 10 percent higher than the reported losses to tech support scams in 2022. 

As the FTC notes, the Telemarketing Sales Rule has been updated several times since the year 2000 before this latest amendment. The first amendment in 2003 led to the creation of the Do Not Call Registry for telemarketers, while subsequent changes were made to cover pre-recorded telemarketing calls and debt collection services.

Casetify has launched a new anime collection, this time based on the popular mecha series Gundam. And just like its collaboration with Neon Genesis Evangelion, its new collection of mobile accessories comes with an AirPods Pro case designed to look like a robot's head. Specifically, it looks like the head of the RX-78-2 Gundam, the mobile suit piloted by Amuro Ray from the first Gundam anime that aired in 1979. It is quite enormous and not easy to carry around, but the smaller RX-78-2 Gundam Hard Shell Case is, and it fits inside the 3D robot head along with your AirPods. 

In addition to what's considered the centerpiece of the collection, Casetify's Gundam's accessories include phone cases, wireless chargers and grip stands as well as MacBook and iPad covers. Their designs reflect the motifs of the RX-78-2 Gundam and the MS-06S Char's Zaku II, the mobile suit piloted by Char Aznable from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. That means you can choose from products representing the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon, the two factions at war in the original show. 

You can sign up to be waitlisted for Casetify's Gundam collection on the company's Co-Lab website starting on November 29. The collection goes on sale on December 9, but collaboration items tend to sell out quickly. It's probably wise to get yourself on the waitlist if you're looking to buy any of them, especially the 3D AirPods Pro case. 

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The satellite-to-phone service T-Mobile and Starlink first announced back in 2022 has gotten a lot closer to deployment. As SpaceNews and Reuters report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted the companies conditional approval to provide T-Mobile subscribers coverage using Starlink satellites in locations that can't be reached by the carrier's network. Specifically, the FCC has given them permission to use up to 7,500 second-generation Starlink satellites for the service, as long as they do not interfere with other networks. 

The commission has deferred on deciding whether to allow Starlink to increase its satellites' radio emission power in order to be able to provide real-time voice and video calls. From the very start, though, the companies intended to launch the service with messaging capabilities before expanding it until it can offer data and voice. When the companies introduced the project, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said they were envisioning a future wherein you're connected on your mobile phone as long as you have a view of the sky, even if you're in the middle of the ocean. By providing subscribers with supplemental coverage from space, they'll still be able to stay in touch with loved ones — or ask for help in case of emergencies — from far flung locations cell towers don't typically reach. 

"The FCC is actively promoting competition in the space economy by supporting more partnerships between terrestrial mobile carriers and satellite operators to deliver on a single network future that will put an end to mobile dead zones," said FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel.

While the companies announced their teamup back in 2022, the commission only set a regulatory framework for supplemental coverage from space (SCS) services in March this year. Those rules are meant to ensure that satellite-to-phone services wouldn't affect the quality of 4G and 5G networks. AT&T previously raised concerns that T-Mobile's and Starlink's service, in its proposed state, could interfere with existing wireless services. The carrier also has plans for satellite services of its own in partnership with AST SpaceMobile and said it intends "to provide the demonstrations necessary to show that they will not cause interference to any authorized terrestrial system." 

T-Mobile and Starlink sent and received the first text messages using the technology back in January. In the months that followed, the FCC had given them permission to enable satellite texting in certain locations so that people could stay connected in hurricane-hit areas.