You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed at mass government surveillance, try, try again. Only two days after India backpedaled on its plan to force smartphone makers to preinstall a state-run "cybersecurity" app, Reuters reports that the country is back at it. Its said to be considering a telecom industry proposal with another draconian requirement. This one would require smartphone makers to enable always-on satellite-based location tracking (Assisted GPS).The measure would require location services to remain on at all times, with no option to switch them off. The telecom industry also wants phone makers to disable notifications that alert users when their carriers have accessed their location. According to Reuters, India's home ministry was set to meet with smartphone industry executives on Friday, but the meeting was postponed.India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears on a screen to deliver a speech remotely as other leaders attend the 22nd ASEAN - India Summit during the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur on October 26, 2025. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool / POOL / AFP) (Photo by RAFIQ MAQBOOL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) RAFIQ MAQBOOL via Getty ImagesPredictably, proponents claim the plan is about helping law enforcement keep you safe from the bad guys. (See also: Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.) The administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long been concerned that law enforcement agencies cant obtain precise enough locations during investigations. Cell tower data alone can be off by several meters. And hey, what's the privacy of 1.4 billion people next to tracking criminals with an extra 10 ft. or so of accuracy, right?Apple, Google and Samsung are said to oppose the move and have urged the Modi government to reject it. The lobbying group India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), which represents them, reportedly wrote in a confidential letter this summer that the proposal has no precedent anywhere in the world. The group's letter described the measure as a "regulatory overreach," which is probably putting it mildly. They warned that it could compromise military personnel, judges, corporate executives and journalists.In a statement sent to Engadget, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sounded the alarm on the proposal. "Requiring phones to have A-GPS enabled all the time would be a horrifying decision by the Indian government with significant impacts on the privacy of everyone in the country, EFF Senior Staff Technologist Cooper Quintin said. With this change, the phone company and law enforcement get your exact location at any time, potentially even without legal due process."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/india-is-reportedly-considering-another-draconian-smartphone-surveillance-plan-173500327.html?src=rss
Philo has a decent discount for newcomers who are looking for a solid bundle of live TV channels and on-demand streaming services. New subscribers can get their first month of access to the Core plan for $25. That's a discount of $8.
For your 25 bucks, you'll gain access to more than 70 channels, including AMC, BBC America, Comedy Central, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, several MTV stations, Nickelodeon and TLC. AMC+, HBO Max basic with ads and Discovery+ are included at no extra cost.
Philo is our pick for the best cheap live TV streaming service. Having unlimited DVR is welcome and recordings expire after one year, which is three months longer than many competing platforms. There's no contract either, so you can cancel at any time.
The platform also offers more than 110 free channels, but unfortunately there are no local channels and there's not much in the way of sports programming. Other notable channels, such as Bravo and Freeform are missing too. However, if the lineup of channels and streaming services covers all your needs, Philo is a solid streaming option, especially with the discount.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/new-philo-subscribers-can-get-their-first-month-of-access-for-25-171033925.html?src=rss
Meta has cut several deals with news publishers to help provide real-time data for its AI chatbot services, as reported by Axios. The commercial agreements will allow its Meta AI chatbots to better answer user queries about news and current events.
These are multiyear deals where publishers will be compensated for the use of their content, but we don't have any monetary specifics. The contracts do stipulate that Meta's chatbots will link out to articles when answering news queries, potentially offering a slight traffic boost to publishers.
The news partners include USA Today, People, Le Monde and CNN. However, there are also a whole lot of conservative outlets included in today's announcement, such as Fox News, The Daily Caller and Washington Examiner. It's a good thing Meta's AI will provide the aforementioned links, just in case a chatbot says something crazy about whatever nonsense culture war topic is going on that day.
Meta has announced that this is just a first step and that it will be adding more news partners to cover more topics in the future. This is an interesting move because Meta has long-been averse to paying news companies for access to content. It stopped paying US publishers for access to news in 2022 and the Facebook news tab went away entirely last year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-cuts-deals-with-several-news-publishers-for-ai-use-163404107.html?src=rss
The European Commission has fined Elon Musks X 120 million (around $140 million) for breaching its transparency rules under the Digital Services Act. The European Unions executive arm announced that it was investigating the social media companys blue checkmarking verification system first introduced when it was still known as Twitter last year, along with other alleged DSA violations. Todays verdict concerns the "deceptive design" of the checkmark, as well as "the lack of transparency of [X's] advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers."
The Commission's issue with Xs verification system is that where blue checkmarks were once something that Twitter that Twitter vetted, they can now be bough by anyone. According to the EU, this puts users at risk of scams and impersonation fraud, as they cant tell if the accounts theyre engaging with are authentic. "While the DSA does not mandate user verification, it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place," it wrote in a statement.
The EU has also ruled that Xs advertisement repository employs "design features and access barriers" that make it difficult for good faith actors and the general public to determine the source of online ads and spot scams or threat campaigns. It says that X fails to provide information pertaining to both the content of an ad and the entity paying for its placement.
The third alleged infringement concerns the public data that companies are required by the DSA to make available to qualifying researchers. The European Commission claims that Xs practices in this area are unnecessarily prohibitive, therefore "effectively undermining research into several systemic risks in the European Union."
X has 60 working days to respond to the EUs non-compliance decision the first of its nature on blue checkmarks, and 90 days to submit an "action plan" of how it will address the alleged breaches relating to its advertising repository and access to public data. Failure to comply could result in financial penalties.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/x-hit-with-140-million-fine-from-the-eu-161259324.html?src=rss
The 2026 FIFA World Cup draw is this Friday. (Hector Vivas - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Hector Vivas - FIFA via Getty Images
The draw for the 2026 World Cup is this Friday at 12 PM ET, where well learn which group the 39 qualified countries and three host nations will land in for the international soccer tournament. The 2026 World Cup draw will air live on Fox. Pre-show coverage of the draw begins at 11:30 a.m. The venues and kickoff times for the World Cup group stage games be announced the following day. Tickets for the World Cup are already available.
Here's how to watch the 2026 World Cup draw live, plus what you need to know about buying World Cup tickets, before or after the groupings are announced.
How to watch the 2026 World Cup draw:
Date: Friday, Dec. 5
Time: 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT
Location: Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
TV channel: Fox
Streaming: Fox One, DirecTV, YouTube via VPN and more
When is the 2026 World Cup draw?
The World Cup draw will take place on Friday, Dec. 5. All the group stage venues and kickoff times will then be announced the following day, on Saturday, Dec. 6
2026 World Cup draw start time:
The World Cup draw will officially kick off at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT, though there will be pre-show coverage of the event as early as 11:30 a.m. ET.
What channel is the World Cup draw on?
The World Cup draw will air across Fox networks, including Fox and via the Fox Sports app. Coverage will also likely air on FS1.
How to watch the World Cup draw:
For those with live TV access, you may be able to watch Fox totally free over the air. But if not, here's how we recommend tuning in.
How to watch the World Cup draw for free:
In the U.S., the draw will air on Fox, but globally in many regions, a livestream of the draw will be available to watch via YouTube livestream, totally free. If you dont have access to Fox, you might want to consider trying a VPN, so you can tune into the World Cup draw free livestream.
Dont want to navigate a VPN? Many live TV streaming services offer free trials, so you can also tune into the 2026 World Cup draw for free via a free trial.
When is the 2026 World Cup?
The 2026 World Cup begins on June 11, 2026 and runs through July 19, 2026.
Where will 2026 World Cup games be held?
There will be 15 host cities for the 2026 World Cup throughout the U.S., Mexico and Canada. They are:
United States
Atlanta Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA
Boston Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
Dallas At&T Stadium, Arlington TX
Houston NRG Stadium, Houston, TX
Kansas City GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO
Los Angeles Sofi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
Miami Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
New York/New Jersey MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
Philadelphia Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
San Francisco Bay Area Levis Staium, Santa Clara, CA
Seattle Lumen Field, Seattle, WA
Mexico
Mexico City Estadio Azteca, Coyoacan, Mexico City
Monterrey Estadio BBVA, Gudalupe, Nuevo Leon
Guadalajara Estadio Akron, Guadalajara
Canada
Toronto BMO Field, Toronto, ON
Vancouver BC Place, Vancouver BC
How to get 2026 World Cup tickets:
Individual match tickets are now available to purchase through the FIFA website. To purchase tickets that are part of a multi-game or hospitality package, you can sign up here to receive more information. In addition, there will also be a final ticket lottery held after this week's draw; fans will be able to submit applications for specific matches once the group-stage matchups have been revealed to try and grab a limited number of lower-priced tickets at select matches. (An exact date for this lottery has not yet been revealed but you can sign-up to receive up-to-date information on the FIFA site.)
When do 2026 World Cup tickets go on sale?
Tickets for the 2026 World Cup are now on sale, though the match schedule doesn't specify team groupings (yet). Find tickets on FIFA's website
Find tickets on StubHub
How much are 2026 World Cup tickets?
Currently, individual tickets for the 2026 World Cup run anywhere from $1,400 to $3,500 (if you're searching for tickets for matches in Mexico or Canada, don't be scared off by their higher price tags they're all in the same price range after adjusting for conversion rates). Tickets for the group stage, knockout rounds, and the bronze final are currently available. It's important to note that FIFA is employing a dynamic pricing strategy, so prices may fluctuate as we get closer to the tournament, depending on demand. For those lucky enough to enter and be selected in the ticketing lottery, prices are significantly less they're broken out into four categories based on seating, and range from $60 to $620, but these prices are not available to the general public.
Hospitality packages, which guarantee entry to multiple matches are also on sale now and start at $5,300. (Note that depending on the venue and package you select, some of these packages can cost up to $68,000 per person, and while that price includes food, drinks and premium seating, it doesn't include travel expenses or accommodations.)
Tickets are also available through FIFA's own resale marketplace and on third-party resale sites like StubHub already have single-game matches available, with some starting around $275 per seat and going up from there, depending on the game and venue. Find tickets on StubHub
Find tickets on FIFA's Ticket Resale Marketplace
2026 World Cup Schedule
(All times Eastern)
The 2026 World Cup will begin on Thursday, June 11, 2026, and the final is scheduled for Sunday, July 19, 2026. You can take a look at the existing schedule here.
Group Stage
June 11 June 27, 2026
Knockout stage matches
Round of 32: June 28 July 3, 2026
Round of 16: July 4 July 7, 2026
Quarterfinals: July 9 July 11, 2026
Semifinals: July 14 15, 2026
Bronze Final (3rd Place Match): July 18, 2026
Final: July 19, 2026
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-to-watch-the-2026-fifa-world-cup-draw-live-today-120501930.html?src=rss
The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune have filed separate lawsuits against Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement. The Times said it had sent Perplexity several cease-and-desist demands to stop using its content until the two reached an agreement, but the AI company persisted in doing so. In the lawsuit [PDF], the Times accused Perplexity of infringing on its copyrights at two main stages. First, by scraping its website (including in real time) to train AI models and feed content into the likes of the Claude chatbot and Comet browser. Second, in the output of Perplexity's products, with the Times accusing the companys generative AI products of often reproducing its articles verbatim. The Times also says Perplexity damaged its brand by falsely attributing completely fabricated information (aka hallucinations) to the newspaper.The Chicago Tribune also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity for similar reasons. "Perplexitys genAI products generate outputs that are identical or substantially similar to the Chicago Tribunes content, the newspaper claimed in its suit. Upon information and belief, Perplexity has unlawfully copied millions of copyrighted Chicago Tribune stories, videos, images and other works to power its products and tools."These lawsuits are the latest in dozens of legal cases involving copyright holders and AI companies in the US. The Times, for instance, previously sued OpenAI and Microsoft. It accused the companies of training their large language models on millions of its articles without permission. That case is ongoing.Copyright holders have licensed their content to AI companies in some cases, though. OpenAI has struck multiple deals with media companies. The Times and Amazon reached an agreement this year that's said to be worth as much as $25 million per year to the media company.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-new-york-times-and-chicago-tribune-sue-perplexity-over-alleged-copyright-infringement-153656431.html?src=rss
Another CES is nearly upon us, another year where well see new gadgets aplenty from giant companies and tiny ones youve never heard of. And the not-so-secret secret of CES is that many of these things never make it to market but usually it isnt things companies like Samsung show off. But here we are, nearly six years since Samsung first showed off its Ballie personal robot and it is nowhere to be found.For those who may not recall, Ballie is an adorable circular robot that can putter around your house and project things onto the floor and wall. Its kind of a virtual assistant on the go. Samsung first revealed this tiny robot at CES 2020, but it was more of a prototype than something anyone expected to purchase. And then there was a global pandemic and we all sort of forgot about weird ball-shaped robots for a few. But Samsung triumphantly unveiled a larger and more refined Ballie at CES 2024, saying it would be on sale that year! Well, that didnt happen, but a year later Ballie was back at CES again. Samsung promised it would go on sale in 2025, and followed up with a press release this past April saying it was on track for a summer launch in Korea and the US. As far as I can tell, thats the last weve heard of it. But with CES looming again, I cant help but feel like Samsung will roll Ballie out once more, trying to sell the dream of a cute robotic companion who just gets you. I spent some time watching Ballie do its thing in a carefully controlled demo at CES 2024, and I cant say I was overwhelmed by its purported usefulness or thought thered be much of a market for this thing. I now cant help but wonder if Samsung has data backs up my intuition. If this thing was going to sell like gangbusters, it likely wouldnt be subjected to such a long and public gestation period. It reminds me a little of one of my favorite Samsung gaffes, the Galaxy Home smart speaker. It was announced at a time when Apple and Google were challenging Sonos and Amazon with voice-activated speakers of their own, moving Siri or the Google Assistant from your phone to a more omnipresent place in your home. The first rumor of the Galaxy Home happened way back in 2017, and the speaker was officially revealed and briefly shown off by Samsung in August of 2018. My immediate reaction was that this product made very little sense for both Samsung and potential customers Bibxy sucked, and there were plenty of speakers with better voice assistants. Apparently, Samsung agreed. After multiple years of vague commitments and references to the Galaxy Home, Samsung just stopped talking about it. Oddly enough, a Galaxy Home Mini speaker was briefly released in South Korea, part of a promotion for people who pre-ordered the Galaxy S20. But I dont think you could ever just walk into a store and buy one, and the larger Galaxy Home never materialized at all. Ballie isnt quite the abandonware situation that the Galaxy Home was, at least not yet. After all, its only been about eight months since Samsung dropped that press release claiming it would arrive soon. The company has definitely pushed Ballie in a more public way than the Galaxy Home, making it a little harder to just drop entirely. Maybe well see a revamped Ballie with even more weird tricks next month, or maybe well just get another vague promise that itll arrive in 2026. After failing to deliver two years in a row, though, Im not going to expect Ballie to show up as a real product until I can punch in my credit card and pre-order it... not that Id do that anyway. Ballie needs to show that its a lot more than a cute rolling robot before Samsung gets my cash. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/where-the-hell-is-samsungs-ballie-robot-151112829.html?src=rss
RAM prices have gone wild, mostly thanks to AI. In this episode, Devindra chats with Will Smith (Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod) about the state of the RAM industry, as well as other hardware we expect to get more expensive. (SSD prices are definitely creeping up too!). Also, we discuss Meta poaching Alan Dye, one of Apple's design executives, and what this could mean for Meta's upcoming devices. And yes, whatever they have next will likely revolve around AI.Subscribe!iTunesSpotifyPocket CastsStitcherGoogle PodcastsTopicsMark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, plans deep cuts to his companys metaverse development 1:09Longtime Apple UI designer Alan Dye to join Metas AI division 7:08US DOT cuts fuel efficiency standards, doubles down on gas cars 25:40Waymo autonomous cars recently started driving more aggressively 31:30Amazon halts its anime dub beta because it sounded terrible 38:00WTF, RAM?? Will Smith joins to talk about why RAM prices are spiraling upward 44:05Around Engadget: Metroid Prime 4 is a return to form after 18 years on ice 1:04:42Working on 1:07:36Pop culture picks 1:08:32CreditsHost: Devindra HardawarGuest: Will SmithProducer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North and Terrence O'BrienThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/engadget-podcast-wtf-is-up-with-ram-with-will-smith-from-the-tech-pod-141442002.html?src=rss
Hackers with links to China reportedly successfully infiltrated a number of unnamed government and tech entities using advanced malware. As reported by Reuters, cybersecurity agencies from the US and Canada confirmed the attack, which used a backdoor known as Brickstorm to target organizations using the VMware vSphere cloud computing platform.
As detailed in a report published by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security on December 4, PRC state-sponsored hackers maintained "long-term persistent access" to an unnamed victims internal network. After compromising the affected platform, the cybercriminals were able to steal credentials, manipulate sensitive files and create "rogue, hidden VMs" (virtual machines), effectively seizing control unnoticed. The attack could have begun as far back as April 2024 and lasted until at least September of this year.
The malware analysis report published by the Canadian Cyber Centre, with assistance from The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), cites eight different Brickstorm malware samples. It is not clear exactly how many organizations in total were either targeted or successfully penetrated.
In an email to Reuters, a spokesperson for VMware vSphere owner Broadcom said it was aware of the alleged hack, and encouraged its customers to download up-to-date security patches whenever possible. In September, the Google Threat Intelligence Group published its own report on Brickstorm, in which it urged organizations to "reevaluate their threat model for appliances and conduct hunt exercises" against specified threat actors.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/chinese-hackers-reportedly-targeting-government-entities-using-brickstorm-malware-133501894.html?src=rss
