TikTok says it plans to go offline on Sunday, January 19th if the Biden administration doesn’t intervene.

The company confirms earlier reporting that it will be “forced to go dark” on the 19th unless the outgoing administration provides a “definitive statement” assuring its “most critical service providers” that they won’t be held liable for breaking the law. Those providers include Apple and Google, which together distribute TikTok through their app stores, and its hosting partners, which include Amazon and Oracle.

TikTok’s statement follows Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law banning the app unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its ownership stake. Shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling, TikTok CEO Shou Chew appealed to President-elect Donald Trump in a video but didn’t give any indication of what might happen when the law goes into effect at midnight on Saturday.

Unfortunately for TikTok, the White House has already made clear that it intends to punt the fate of the app to Donald Trump, who has promised to save it and is set to be sworn in as president on Monday, January 20th. Trump said on Friday that he spoke with China President Xi Jinping about “balancing trade, fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects.”

“President Biden’s position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President’s desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” the White House said in a statement on Friday. “Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice, which is tasked with enforcing the TikTok ban by fining its US service providers $5,000 per user with access to the app, has signaled that it’s still behind the ban.

“Authoritarian regimes should not have unfettered access to millions of Americans’ sensitive data,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday. “The Court’s decision affirms that this Act protects the national security of the United States in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.”

As the ban deadline gets nearer, politicians who voted for it have started flipping by arguing that ByteDance should have more time to divest. According to The New York Times, Senator Chuck Schumer told President Biden that allowing a ban to happen would “damage his legacy.”

You can read TikTok’s full statement about shutting down below:

The statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans.

Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19.

A law professor cited by CBS News called Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris “...so ill grounded that it comes close to being sanctionable as frivolous.” But now, the The Wall Street Journal reports that executives at CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, have discussed settling the suit while “gaming out options to reduce friction with the incoming administration” ahead of a government review of its merger with Skydance.

The paper reports that incoming FCC chairman and censor-in-chief Brendan Carr warned execs last year that presidential dissatisfaction with CBS News will make a review tougher. He’s also publicly displayed that view, saying during a Fox News interview in November, “...CBS has a transaction before the FCC. I’m pretty confident that news distortion complaint over the CBS 60 Minutes transcript is something that is likely to arise in the context of the FCC’s review of that transaction.”

The lawsuit claims that in airing two differently edited versions of Harris’ response to a question about the war in Gaza, “CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.”

But instead of mounting a defense of free speech against a lawsuit and Trump’s accusations that the network said were false and completely without merit, Paramount is considering following the example of Disney and tech oligarchs who will line up at the inauguration like Mark Zuckerberg.

The ABC News owner agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation lawsuit in December. Zuckerberg sharply redirected Meta’s policies to the right while meeting with Trump, reportedly “in part to mediate a lawsuit Trump brought against Facebook and Zuckerberg in 2021 over the platform’s suspension of Trump’s account after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.”

You’d think that TikTok would have a Plan B by now.

It’s now clear the company never planned for a scenario in which it would lose to the Supreme Court. Maybe it couldn’t, given that the Chinese government ultimately has final say on a sale. Now, TikTok’s leaders are banking on Donald Trump to save them in a last-ditch effort that will unquestionably come with strings attached.

Politically, TikTok misplayed its hand at every turn of this multi-year saga. Executives repeatedly dismissed the possibility of a ban, even going so far as to literally laugh at the idea. They were blindsided by Congress overwhelmingly agreeing on a ban. Then, they lost on appeal to the Supreme Court with only a day left before the law goes into effect. The only leverage they seemingly have left is that Trump thinks the app helped him win the election — plus their willingness to let him extract whatever pound of flesh he wants.

TikTok backed itself into this corner technically, too. It spent over $1 billion on Project Texas to try and appease concerns about US data making its way to China. Amazingly, TikTok started Project Texas before the government gave its blessing, which of course never came. US...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Instagram’s profile grids will display content as rectangles instead of squares as part of a change rolling out “over the weekend,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in an Instagram Story on Friday.

“I know some of you really like your squares. And square photos are sort of the heritage of Instagram. But at this point, most of what’s uploaded, both photos and videos, are vertical in their orientation,” Mosseri said. It’s a “bummer to overly crop them,” he added.

Mosseri recognizes that the change might be a “bit of a pain,” but he thinks that it’s a “transitional” pain. “I think people will, over the long run, be excited that more of their photos and more of their videos are actually visible as intended in the profile as opposed to aggressively cropped,” Mosseri said.

Mosseri’s justification is pretty similar to what he said in August when Instagram confirmed it was conducting a “limited test” of the change.

Instagram also announced today that it’s adding a new spot in your Reels feed where you can see videos that your friends have liked.

AT&T announced it will no longer offer its 5G Internet Air service in New York this week in response to the state’s Affordable Broadband Act going into effect on Wednesday. The company says existing users can continue to use the service for 45 days without any charges, giving them time to find an alternate broadband provider, according to CNET.

New York originally passed the Affordable Broadband Act in 2021, but the law was stalled for several years by pushbacks and legal challenges from broadband lobbying groups. Last December, the US Supreme Court declined to intervene, allowing the law to finally come into effect this month.

It follows Congress’ decision not to continue funding the federal Affordable Connectivity Program last year, which started during the covid-19 pandemic and offered discounts of up to $30 per month on home internet for qualifying households.

The law requires internet providers with over 20,000 customers to offer two affordable broadband plans to low-income households that qualify for social assistance benefits like Medicaid or the National School Lunch Program. One plan offers download speeds of at least 25Mbps for no more than $15 per month, while the other boosts that to speeds of up to 200Mbps at a maximum of $20 per month.

AT&T’s Internet Air service offered New York residents download speeds of 40 to 140Mbps (which was temporarily slowed when the company’s 5G network was busy) for $55 per month, or $60 for those not opting for autopay. Instead of complying with the new law and offering Internet Air at a discount, AT&T has instead ended its home internet services in New York. The company also doesn’t offer home internet over fiber or DSL in the state.

“While we are committed to providing reliable and affordable internet service to customers across the country, New York’s broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state,” the company said in statements provided to CNET and Ars Technica.

Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd, who stepped down as CEO at the beginning of 2024, is returning to the post in mid-March. Former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, who succeeded Herd, has resigned for “personal reasons” and will remain in the role until Wolfe Herd takes over.

“As I step into the role of CEO, I’m energized and fully committed to Bumble’s success, our mission of creating meaningful, equitable relationships, and our opportunity ahead,” Wolfe Herd says in a statement. “We have exciting innovation ahead for Bumble in this bold new chapter.”

Bumble gained popularity in part because it was set up for women to message their matches first. But in April, it introduced a redesign and a feature that let men send the first message in response to prewritten questions.

That redesign was announced following layoffs that the company said would “better align its operating model with future strategic priorities,” however, as Fortune notes, its share price has dropped by more than half since the redesign.

Dating apps have struggled as of late, following the “Bumble fumble” anti-celibacy ad it apologized for last year, as competitor Match Group (the owner of Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and other services) reported a drop in users. In Bumble’s most recent earnings report, it said that the number of paying users had increased from 3.8 million to 4.3 million over the last year, however, average revenue per paying user dropped from $23.42 to $21.17, and its total revenue dropped slightly.

A 2023 Pew Research survey found that 52 percent of respondents thought they had come across a scammer on dating sites and apps, and 51 percent of women said their experiences had been negative. In the UK, an Ofcom report last year noted that usage of each of the top three largest dating services had declined from 2023, and survey data increasingly suggests Gen Z daters aren’t using the apps as much.

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, the just-launched port of the 2010 Wii game, doesn’t include individual members of the original Retro Studios development team in the credits, as reported by GameSpot. Since the discovery, however, Nintendo has commented on the omission, giving a statement to Eurogamer.

“We believe in giving proper credit for anyone involved in making or contributing to a game’s creation, and value the contributions that all staff make during the development process,” the statement reads, which is sourced only to Nintendo and not to a specific individual. The game’s credits reveal that the port was done by Forever Entertainment.

Crediting is an industry-wide issue, and this isn’t the first time Nintendo has come under scrutiny for its crediting decisions. Some developers who worked on the original Metroid Prime — another Retro Studios game — were unhappy that Metroid Prime Remastered’s credits didn’t include the full original credits. And external translators have expressed frustrations with being left out of credits for some major Nintendo games, Game Developer reported last year.

As of late, Nintendo has also been somewhat cagey about things like voice actors and the specific studios developing its games.

A new rule requiring all vehicles to have automatic emergency braking is “flawed” and should be repealed, a new lawsuit filed by the auto industry’s main lobbying group says.

The suit was filed in US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by the Alliance of Automotive Innovation, which represents most of the major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and Toyota. The group is asking the court to overturn the new rule, which was finalized last year, requiring all vehicles to have automatic emergency braking (AEB) by 2029.

Under the rule, all vehicles will be required to be able to “stop and avoid contact” with other vehicles at speeds of up to 62mph. In addition, AEB systems must apply the brakes automatically “up to 90 mph when a collision with a lead vehicle is imminent, and up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected.” Vehicles must also be able to detect pedestrians in both daylight and darkness. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says the new rule will help prevent hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries every year.

But after the rule was finalized, the alliance petitioned NHTSA to “reconsider” it, arguing that current technology was insufficient to meet the high standards outlined by the regulation. The group also claimed that its suggestions were rejected during the rulemaking process, and urged NHTSA to reconsider several key provisions in order to make it more achievable by the target date.

But NHTSA denied the group’s petition, stating that the requirements were “practicable” and that the overall aim is to “force” the industry to adopt new technology in order to meet the goals of saving lives and preventing injuries.

“NHTSA acknowledged that the final rule is technology-forcing,” the agency said in its response, “but emphasized that the standard is practicable and no single current vehicle must meet every requirement for an FMVSS to be considered practicable under the Safety Act.”

The auto alliance says that it has spent “more than a billion dollars” developing AEB over the years, but doesn’t want this lawsuit to be seen as undermining its own technology. And it says it much prefers the “voluntary agreement” that preceded the mandate.

“This litigation by Alliance for Automotive Innovation should not be interpreted as opposition to AEB, a lack of confidence in the technology, or an objection to AEB’s widest possible deployment across the U.S. vehicle fleet,” the group says in a press release. “Rather, this litigation is about ensuring a rule that maximizes driver and pedestrian safety and is technologically feasible.”

But consumer and safety advocates aren’t buying it.

“The AEB Rule is the most impactful regulation for roadway safety issued in years,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, in a statement. “Considering that automaking is America’s largest manufacturing sector, employs 10 million Americans, generates five percent of the U.S. GDP and drives $1 trillion into the economy annually, it is remarkable that it would be unable to meet the requirements in the AEB Rule by September 2029.”

And William Wallace, Consumer Report’s director of safety advocacy, said, “It is profoundly disappointing that automakers are suing to block this lifesaving automatic emergency braking rule. Car companies have brought impressive safety technology to our roads, but AEB performance among new vehicle models is uneven. This rule is needed because everyone on our roads should be able to benefit from automatic emergency braking systems that meet reasonable minimum standards.”

Castlevania: Nocturne season 2 gets philosophical about what it means to be a monster who loves.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Falling debris from the SpaceX Starship explosion yesterday created what looked like a meteor shower, or a colorful fireworks show based on videos shared by people in the area, but it also delayed flights.

Eight and a half minutes after launch yesterday, the upper stage of the SpaceX Starship “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” following the separation from its booster and the start of its ascent to space.

The footage of the explosion’s aftermath was shared to social media and Reddit. Some of it was recorded inside planes flying nearby, and many flights were diverted around the debris field, or delayed until all the fragments touched down.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it had “briefly slowed and diverted planes around the area where space debris was falling,” according to Reuters.

The 7th test flight of Starship was at least a partial success, marking the second time SpaceX successfully caught the Super Heavy booster with its launch tower. It was also the first time one of the booster’s Raptor engines was reused from a previous flight.

The launch was a testbed for a redesigned propulsion system, an improved flight computer, and the craft’s heat shield. It’s unclear if any of these were factors in the failure, but SpaceX says that, according to “initial data,” the explosion was potentially the result of a fire that developed in the ship’s rear section.

The company says that “Starship flew within its designated launch corridor” and “any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.” The falling debris put on a show in the evening sky over the Caribbean and was captured by several tourists who seemed both amazed and slightly anxious about what they were witnessing.

A screenshot shared by the flight tracking website FlightRadar24 to its X account yesterday showed several aircraft in holding patterns or being diverted following the incident, while another showed flight departures from Miami and For Lauderdale airports being delayed by 45 minutes.

The last time SpaceX lost the Starship was during its third test flight last March. Although it was the first flight where the Starship completed its full-duration ascent burn, SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft shortly before it was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Now that TikTok has finally reached the end of its legal options in the US to avoid a ban, somehow its future seems less clear than ever.

The Supreme Court couldn’t have been more direct: the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, as applied to TikTok, withstands First Amendment scrutiny and can take effect on January 19th. The court agreed that the government had a compelling national security interest in passing the law and that its rationale was content neutral. The solution proposed — forcing Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok or see it ousted from the US — was ruled appropriately tailored to meet those ends.

Yet the government’s response hardly feels like a victory lap. In fact, despite being still under ByteDance’s control, it’s not clear that anyone in the US government will even act like TikTok is banned on the 19th.

“TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling today. “Given...

Read the full story at The Verge.

In his first statement since the Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban TikTok from the US on Sunday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew offered no insight into what would happen to the app in just a few days. Instead, he took the opportunity to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump.

“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew says in a video on the platform. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”

In discussing Trump’s TikTok views, Chew is speaking his language. After all, the incoming president is famous for keeping close tabs on his TV ratings and recently declared he had a “warm spot” for TikTok after seeing how the platform played a role in his campaign. It’s TikTok’s most public attempt to butter Trump up before he takes over the Oval Office on Monday (one day after the ban takes effect), but Chew has already visited him at Mar-a-Lago and plans to attend his inauguration, along with several other tech CEOs.

Trump has previously declared his intention to save TikTok but has not said how he’d do so. After Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, he asked the public to “respect it” and said, “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.” Earlier on Friday, he said he’d spoken with China’s President Xi Jinping about TikTok, among other things, calling it a “very good” call.

Chew’s statement seems to indicate that TikTok believes appealing to Trump is now its most promising path to remaining viable in the US. Even so, Trump’s options are somewhat limited. The most effective path, if he could achieve it, would be to somehow broker a deal to get ByteDance (with China’s allowance) to sell TikTok and comply with the law’s divestiture requirements. Otherwise, he could instruct his Justice Department not to enforce the ban, possibly through an executive order — but that might not be enough to reassure companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle that they won’t risk serious penalties by continuing to provide service for TikTok.

In the meantime, we still don’t know how TikTok itself will handle the impending ban, which takes effect the day before Trump is sworn in. The company has reportedly planned to go dark in the US in that case. “Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives as your online home for limitless creativity and discovery, as well as a source of inspiration and joy for years to come,” Chew says. “More to come.”

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and even TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew are among the powerful tech leaders lined up to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, but Nvidia’s CEO won’t be joining them.

Reuters reports that when asked about his attendance, Jensen Huang said he would instead be celebrating the Lunar New Year “on the road” with employees and their families.

While Huang won’t be present at the President-elect’s ceremony, he said he will “look forward to congratulating the Trump administration when they take office.” Huang also told reporters outside Nvidia’s New Year party in Taipei that he discussed increasing the production of Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell artificial intelligence chips with Chung Ching Wei, the chairman of Nvidia’s main supplier, TSMC.

Nvidia is estimated to control 90 percent of the market share of AI chips. The company criticized a new AI framework announced by the Biden administration last week that would limit how many AI chips companies can send to different countries. In its blog post, Nvidia praised the more lax regulatory environment put in place by the first Trump administration and said it looks forward to “a return to policies that strengthen American leadership.”

Nvidia is notably not among the list of companies and tech execs to have donated to Trump’s inauguration, with Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Apple’s Tim Cook having each pledged $1 million to fund the ceremony. Huang also hasn’t appeared at Mar-a-Lago to schmooze Trump directly, unlike top execs from other companies like Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Samsung is sweetening the benefits for some subscribers of its extended warranty plans with a new deal: unlimited same-day glass repairs at no extra cost. Previously, a busted screen would cost subscribers $29 — and those on Samsung’s less-expensive Care Plus plan will continue to pay that price. But if you’re prone to breaking screens and you’re on the Care Plus Theft and Loss plan, you won’t pay anything extra.

The new policy includes cracked glass on your phone’s outer screen, back panel, and even the inner screens on folding phones, according to Samsung spokesperson Dale Hogan.

That’s a big deal, considering that repairing a cracked inner screen can cost hundreds of dollars without an extended warranty. Just one inner screen repair would probably make the Care Plus plan worth it, though the value is a little fuzzier for slab-style phones.

Image: Samsung

Samsung groups its phones into tiers and sets pricing for repairs based on those groups. You can also pay monthly for a three-year term or once upfront, but your policy will only cover two years. The monthly cost for a Tier 4 device, which includes the likes of the Galaxy S24 Ultra or any of Samsung’s folding phones, is $18. The Galaxy S24 Plus costs a little less, at $15 per month, and the regular S24 is $10.

That’s not exactly cheap, and you’d have to crack your screen a lot to justify the price difference between Care Plus and Care Plus Theft and Loss. A two-year Care Plus plan for the Galaxy S24 Ultra costs $259 if you pay upfront; that’s $90 less than the Care Plus Theft and Loss plan. You’d have to get three screen repairs to break even between the two plans.

Theft and Loss includes a lot of other benefits, of course, like replacing your device for a flat fee if it goes missing. And if you’re worried about your folding phone’s inner screen, the pricier Care plan could certainly give you some more peace of mind. In any case, benefits like these getting better are the kind of inflation we like to see.

Nintendo’s taking the Switch 2 on tour. With the console now revealed, the next question on everyone’s mind (outside of what games will be available at launch) is when will we be able to get our hands on it. While Nintendo hasn’t shared the release date for the console, it is offering the chance for the public to preview it before launch at a series of live events held across the world. Here’s what you need to know in order to demo the Switch 2.

The Switch 2 will be demoed in several cities across North America: New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Toronto. You can see the exact dates and locations on Nintendo’s website here. (There will also be events across Europe and Asia with registration for London and Tokyo already live.) But getting the chance to play for yourself isn’t as simple as showing up and waiting in line. There’s a registration process to go through first and registering doesn’t guarantee you’ll get in.

First, anyone who wishes to attend must have a Nintendo account, including children aged seven years or older. If you don’t have an account, they’re free to make and young children can be registered under a Nintendo family account. Children younger than seven don’t need to register.

For families or folks who want to attend as a group of up to six people, all members must have a Nintendo account that’s linked to a Nintendo Family group and everyone in the group must attend the same session.

Registration opens on Friday January 17th at 12PM PT / 3PM ET and closes on January 26th. Tickets are free but awarded by lottery, similar to what Nintendo does for admission to its museum. So once you’ve registered, you have to wait. There are multiple hour-long sessions for each day of the event but you can only register for one time slot. (Really, Nintendo?) Trying to sign-up for additional time slots will require you to cancel your previous registration.

The website doesn’t indicate exactly when folks will be notified if they’ve been selected, just that it should happen shortly after the registration window closes.

As with anything Nintendo, demand will be high so if you’re vying for a chance to see the Switch 2 early, good luck. You’ll need it.

Microsoft made a trio of announcements this week that are going to be very important for how the company approaches its big AI bet in 2025. It started off by creating a new AI engineering group to focus its developers on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsoft and its customers. Microsoft then announced pay-as-you-go agents for its relaunched Copilot Chat for businesses, and it finished the week by bundling Office AI features into Microsoft 365 for consumers and raising the subscription price.

All three of these announcements are linked to Microsoft’s insatiable hunger to win at AI. The company still prioritizes security through employee performance reviews, but it increasingly feels like promoting AI is an equally high priority.

The new engineering group is a good example of Microsoft’s priorities. Led by former Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh, the new CoreAI – Platform and Tools division will combine Microsoft’s Dev Div and AI platform teams together. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the reorganization as “entering the next innings of this AI platform shift” and said it will “reshape all application categories.” Nadella has regularly said that the pace of...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Every January, fitness tech and wearable companies love to remind us about New Year’s Resolutions. For a small number of people, New Year’s features, challenges, and marketing campaigns will be exactly the push they need. For everyone else, they’re another reason to feel bad about yourself.

The start of the new year is when Peloton Bikes go on sale, Apple trots out its annual Ring in the New Year Challenge badge and new Fitness Plus content, and anecdotally, it’s when I see a lot of friends suddenly start logging miles in Strava. But this year, I saw a new marketing tactic: Quitter’s day.

Quitter’s day is the second Friday in January — the day when most people throw in the towel on New Year’s Resolutions, fitness related or otherwise. Apple rolled out an Apple Watch commercial around it, encouraging people to “quit quitting” with a little extra wrist-based motivation. Popular strength training app Ladder also jumped on the trend with a humorous ad hinting that, if you just have Ladder coaches in your ear, you too can avoid quitting.

I was on the ground at the giant CES trade show during this year’s Quitter’s day. CES is a week where I’m lucky if I get one workout in, eat three...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Much of Amazon’s experimentation in the Kindle line has generally led to bigger devices that are easier to read, but the Kindle Colorsoft is the first that ventures beyond a fully monochromatic viewing experience. Of course, that comes with a higher price tag than comparably sized Kindles, but if you’re a Prime member, you can finally save a bit. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition has dropped to $229.99 ($50 off) at Amazon in its first sale.

We feel the Kindle Colorsoft’s 7-inch display offers the best color available in an ebook reader yet, thanks to better-than-average vividity and contrast. It makes browsing and reading books more pleasant, if nothing else. But there are other improvements we like, such as faster page-turning performance and smoother zooming. Those benefits aren’t necessarily exclusive to the Colorsoft, however, as all of Amazon’s newer Kindles have achieved similar results, thanks to performance bumps and software updates. This includes the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite, which the Colorsoft takes its design cues from.

But like most newer Kindles, it’s still lacking physical page turn buttons. That’s a bit of a damper for something that costs considerably more and has a display that needs to be kept pristine. And while the color is great, the display’s maximum 300ppi resolution is halved when using it — something to keep in mind, especially if you already have trouble reading standard text sizes on the Kindle’s display at full resolution. Its advertised eight-week battery life also falls short of the 12 weeks you can squeeze out of the Paperwhite. That’s still plenty, though, and you have convenient charging options between USB-C and wireless (the latter requires a separately sold $39.99 dock).

Finally, before you decide whether to purchase one, it’s worth noting that early Kindle Colorsoft units suffered from a display issue that caused yellow discoloration. Amazon says it has since addressed the issue with a combination of hardware and software tweaks. It even halted shipments temporarily while it investigated the issue and has allowed buyers to refund or replace their devices. If you buy one and happen to encounter the defect, Amazon should provide a remedy without much fuss.

A fire broke out at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Central California Thursday. The battery power plant is the largest in the world according to the company, Vistra, that owns it.

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation orders for nearby residents and closed parts of Highway 1 in response. County Health officials have asked other residents to shelter indoors with windows and doors closed and to switch off ventilation systems.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County Supervisor Glen Church told KSBW-TV.

The company will investigate the cause of the fire once it’s out, Vistra spokesperson Jenny Lyon told The Mercury News. Vistra did not immediately respond to an email from The Verge. It completed an expansion of the facility in 2023, adding more than 110,000 battery modules needed to store renewable energy. Energy storage facilities like this one are essential for power grids to be able to keep enough excess solar and wind energy so it’s available when the sun goes down and winds wane.

This isn’t the first battery fire in the area. A nearby Pacific Gas & Electric battery plant stocked with Tesla batteries caught fire back in 2022. The year prior, Vistra had to temporarily shut down its battery plant at Moss Landing after a malfunctioning smoke detector and heat-suppression system sprayed water on its batteries, Canary Media reported.

The current blaze is unrelated to fires burning further south that have devastated Los Angeles County.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) are putting pressure on big tech firms to explain their motives for donating to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. In letters to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Uber, the lawmakers express concerns about the companies making contributions to “avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor.”

Over the past several weeks, Google, Microsoft, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all donated $1 million apiece to Trump’s inauguration, while Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, each contributed $1 million. Many of these tech execs have already met with Trump, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is even hosting an inauguration party for the incoming president, according to The New York Times.

These sizable donations surpass the amount most of these companies contributed to President Joe Biden’s inauguration fund in 2021. A filing with the Federal Election Commission shows Uber donated $1 million to the event, followed by Microsoft with a $500,000 contribution, Google at $337,500, and Amazon at $276,509. Apple donated just $43,200 to Biden’s inauguration, while Meta and OpenAI didn’t contribute at all.

In the letters, Sens. Warren and Bennet draw attention to the regulatory scrutiny the Biden administration has directed toward big tech firms. “You have a clear and direct interest in obtaining favors from the incoming administration: your company and many other Big Tech donors are already the subject of ongoing federal investigations and regulatory actions,” the lawmakers write. “These donations raise questions about corruption and the influence of corporate money on the Trump administration, and Congress and the public deserve answers.”

Biden echoed these concerns in a farewell message this week, saying he was particularly worried about the “potential rise of a tech industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.”

Sens. Warren and Bennet have posed several questions to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Uber, asking for their “rationale” behind the contributions as well as “when and under what circumstances” the companies decided to make a donation. They’re giving the companies until January 30th to respond.

Update, January 17th: Added post from Altman.