Policy

The settlement would resolve an investigation by California’s Civil Rights Department, which had for years been investigating claims from employees who said they were retaliated against for using parental, disability, and family-care leave.

Employees who used these benefits said they were denied raises, promotions, and stock awards as a result. Microsoft, which has previously been lauded for its leave policy, denied the allegations.

The board previously said the policy “disproportionately restricts free expression” because while the term is “sometimes used by extremists to praise or glorify people who have died while committing violent terrorist acts,” there are also alternate meanings.

In a test, Meta said, removing the term when “paired with otherwise violating content” captured “the most potentially harmful content without disproportionality impacting voice.”

Correction: Meta said it’s implementing the Board’s recommendations, not seeking further guidance.

A look at the era of the non-disclosure agreement, subject of pop songs and nearly as common as water in Silicon Valley. Paradoxically, though, being as loud as possible makes it harder for the likes of Jeff Bezos to come after you.

Apple is bumping up the energy density of the battery in its next iPhones, letting them last longer between charges, claims supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Kuo notes that more density means more heat, so Apple is encasing them in stainless steel, which he says will also mean they’re easier to replace — something the EU now requires.

Recently, Apple unceremoniously dropped Apple Pay Later, which already felt like an odd, risky choice for the brand, not even a year after launching the small loans program.

Why? Regulation, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman:

In May, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced increased scrutiny of “buy now, pay later” services, saying providers would need to follow the same regulations as credit card companies ... The increased regulation wasn’t something Apple wanted to deal with, I’m told ...

If you owned an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus between September 16th, 2016 and January 3rd, 2023 and met certain requirements, you may be eligible to claim part of a settlement after a class action lawsuit over issues with the Apple devices’ microphones.

The deadline was originally June 3rd, 2024, but it was extended earlier this month to July 3rd instead.

Apple cited “regulatory uncertainties” and “interoperability requirements” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) as reasons for delaying its AI features on EU iPhones, but Margrethe Vestager suggested something more sinister is at play at a Forum Europa event on Thursday:

“I find that very interesting, that they say ‘we will now deploy AI where we’re not obliged to enable competition.’ I think that is the most stunning, open declaration that they know 100 percent that this is another way of disabling competition where they have a stronghold already.”

Here’s a summary that includes tech policy issues and also some of the most unhinged stuff we heard tonight.

Things mentioned:

China, tariffs, semiconductor chips, Charlottesville, the border, “space age materials,” the Green New Deal, environment, election “fraud,” opioids, Twitter(???), having sex with porn stars, Hunter Biden laptop, golf handicaps(??????)

Things not mentioned:

TikTok, Facebook, FISA warrantless surveillance, EVs, intellectual property, broadband policy, artificial intelligence (thank god!!!)

Googled that for you because we’re all thinking the same thing. And yes it has now been slightly over 90 minutes since the start.

It was a yes or no question.

There were a lot of words said, none of which was exactly a yes. Instead, Trump reminded us he still hasn’t really accepted the results of the past election.

On account of, you know, Twitter permanently suspending his account for inciting violence.

“I convinced Samsung to invest billions of dollars in the United States,” Biden adds.

As Gaby noted earlier this year:

The overwhelming majority of fentanyl seized by Customs and Border Protection — more than 90 percent — is smuggled through official border crossings by US citizens, not by migrants making unauthorized border crossings. 

Uh, China, tariffs, not exactly answering the question...

But a lot of them pay into both. Billions, even!

He says he had the best. He tried to roll back more than 100 environmental protections while in office. Is that what he’s bragging about in the debate?

Now we have no jobs, no cash, and no H2O.

They got back answers about immigration, HBCUs, insulin, and clean air and water (which is not the same as climate change).

They should’ve workshopped it, is all I’m saying. Green New Steal, maybe?

(In any case, Congress has not actually passed a Green New Deal.)

Does he mean, like... that it happened? I don’t know. What a time to cut to ads.

Just gonna throw out this old Verge feature about the Portland van snatchings.

“51 intelligence agents said that the laptop was Russia disinformation,” Trump said. “It wasn’t. That came from his son Hunter — it wasn’t Russia disinformation.”

Trump is extremely sore about The Atlantic’s reporting that he said a cemetery for soldiers was full of “suckers” and “losers,” calling it a lie that was printed in “a third-rate magazine.”

Was that a reference to tariffs on goods from China? Was that a commitment to drilling for oil? What on earth was that line about Medicare?

The Verge will not be doing a shot every time someone says “TikTok,” but we’ll be posting our live commentary here.