Matt Growcoot, PetaPixel:
Despite the technical difficulties, there are photographs of Canada in the 1860s — including one taken of the historic moment the proclamation of Confederation was read out at Market Square, Kingston, Ontario.
I had no idea there was a photo taken when this proclamation was read.
When Apple announced Siri A.I. would not be available on E.U. iPhones or iPads at launch, it said:
Given the serious risks to users, Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.
I noted the curious mix between this pitch and Apple’s claim that — translated from French — “none of its engineers are currently working on solutions to open Siri A.I. to the competition”. I interpreted this to mean Apple was no longer working on the Agent idea for giving third-party A.I. systems comparable access. On reflection, I am more confused: is Apple throwing a red herring into the mix by claiming it is not giving competitors access to Siri A.I., something which I do not think the E.U. was asking for?
In that same post, I also reflected on how it was “refreshing to see Apple and the European Commission arguing in public and on the record instead of by leaking information to the Financial Times“.
Anyway, here are Michael Acton and Barbara Moens, reporting for the Financial Times:
A commission official said its contact with Apple on the idea was limited, and that it lacked a concrete proposal or details on how such an agent would work beyond the general concept. They said Apple “focused on obtaining a green light to delay the compliance”.
By contrast, the official said the commission’s process with Google after changes it made to its Android operating system led to a formal consultation on how the company could comply with the DMA and avoid massive fines.
To the extent Apple is not getting sufficient information about the validity of its proposals, the Commission is saying that is entirely Apple’s fault — obviously. I bet Apple thinks it is all the Commission’s fault, too. The DMA has been in effect for nearly four years and there is no reason why either party should be having so much difficulty with this proposal stage. Either the Commission is mischaracterizing Apple’s engagement, or Apple’s representatives need to be far better prepared.
One more thing I wrote last month:
Given Apple’s self-imposed problems with Apple Intelligence since WWDC 2024, I question whether many people in Europe will find this particularly disruptive or upsetting, however.
Well, according to Acton and Moens, I was quite wrong:
The dispute triggered a fierce public backlash against the commission, with European officials reporting hundreds of emails from consumers accusing Brussels of depriving Europeans of a new technology.
One EU official said that a commission spokesperson had received a stream of abusive messages, including several death threats.
A.I. really is breaking brains. Shameful behaviour.
Sony’s Sid Shuman:
As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. […]
Also Sony’s Sid Shuman:
After nearly two decades of supporting the PS3 console generation, we wanted to let you know we will be closing the PlayStation Store on PS3, as well as on PS Vita. […]
Incredibly, these announcements were made on the very same day, as if to illustrate the fragility and centralized control of the digital-only distribution Sony says is the new standard. At least physical versions of PS3 and Vita games will continue to function. Remember how, in 2023, Sony said it would yank access to media purchased by users because Sony did not renew its license with Discovery? If we cannot actually own something, I find it difficult to believe an unpaid reproduction of that thing is actually tantamount to theft.
Update: Just this week, Sony said it would remove hundreds more titles from users’ accounts in the U.K. due to its licensing with StudioCanal expiring. (Also, Sony and Discovery struck a new agreement in 2023.)
So what, I can hear you thinking. I don’t know or care what anyons are, or how gallium arsenide works. Me neither! The interesting part of this story for me is that Microsoft — a company that has a market value of $2.7 trillion and almost single-handedly created the personal computing industry — has repeatedly claimed that its Majorana processor uses these particles, and that its new version is a thousand times more reliable, and yet some other theoretical physicists have called BS on these claims, not once but several times. In other words, Microsoft keeps putting out press releases saying it has done this, and that it will build a working quantum computer using said particles within the next three years, and a number of prominent members of the industry keep saying that the company and its research scientists are full of you-know-what.
It is fascinating to see academics call out one of the world’s most valuable companies for making claims that are “perhaps even ‘fraudulent’”.
Tyler Murphy and Ben, co-founders of EasyOptOuts:
We’ve discovered vulnerabilities in Hide My Email that allow attackers to discover the meant-to-be-hidden address behind a Hide My Email address. We reported the issue to Apple over a year ago, and as of June 30, 2026, it still hasn’t been fixed. About a month ago, we realized that the vulnerabilities’ severity and scope are greater than we initially thought. […]
Apple replied — twice — that it had fixed these vulnerabilities, but Joseph Cox of 404 Media was able to reproduce the problem as recently as earlier this week. Very few details are available right now. I have seen speculation that the original email address is revealed when someone replies using their hidden email address, but the impression I get from Cox’s reporting is that no user interaction is necessary:
To test the issue I generated a new Hide My Email address and provided it to Murphy. Around five minutes later, he replied with my real email address linked to my Apple account which was supposed to be hidden.
I am also unclear about how, as of May, the EasyOptOuts guys found the “vulnerability may have greater severity and scope” than initially reported. Ominous, though.
Also, it is pretty shameful Apple has known about this for a year and has not actually fixed it. This seems to be a common occurrence when reporting bugs of any kind. There are plenty of times I have received responses to years-old bug reports claiming a fix was delivered recently, despite the issue still being easily reproducible. And those are little things; this is a bug that, if you believe this EasyOptOuts write-up and Cox’s reporting, fundamentally undermines a privacy feature that costs money.
“boat-botany”:
Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start requiring everyone to log in. All logged-in users will continue to have access to Old Reddit, and this change will not impact logged-out browsing on reddit.com.
“New” Reddit is a janky, slow, bloated mess of a website that mostly displays text, images, and videos. “Old” Reddit is ugly but functional. The site admins are not promising the superior version will be available forever, and they are specifically calling attention to its lack of a “modern security tech stack”. I do not think “old” Reddit is long for this world — especially since Reddit is aggressively promoting its mobile app.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority:
‘Steering’ – the ability for developers to engage with customers about off‑platform options – is currently banned by Apple and restricted by Google in the UK. Lifting these constraints would allow developers to bypass mandatory fees set by platforms.
The CMA’s consultation includes principles to ensure that the fees Apple and Google charge for steering are fair and reasonable. Using an evidence-based framework, the CMA would expect steering fees to be lower than current app store charges, with savings passed onto UK customers or invested back into the developers’ businesses to support future innovation.
You will note the CMA is not saying that a smaller fee actually will result in lower prices for customers, because corporations — including developers — tend to be profit-seeking endeavours. They may increase prices when costs grow but that does not mean they do the opposite. But who cares? Lower costs permit more flexibility on pricing and, even if that money ends up in the pockets of developers instead of Apple, is that supposed to be a bad thing? Is there a reason why someone should be upset that they might pay the same amount but an indie developer gets to keep more of it?
The proposed policies are pretty straightforward from what I can see. Among other obligations, Apple is not allowed to use or require scare tactics when users are routed to an external payment mechanism and, while it is allowed to charge a steering fee, it is not allowed to count services not used by developers offering third-payments nor double-count for services already accounted for by other developer fees. Also, the CMA calls bullshit on Apple’s claim that third-party payments are particularly risky (page 32):
We note that Apple already requires the use of alternative in-app payment methods, including steering of users through a link-out, within apps offering physical goods and services. We understand that Apple has distinguished between the approach it takes to digital and physical goods and services for operational reasons, and not because of a different magnitude of risks to user security and privacy.
If this CMA proposal becomes law, it would be yet another country — I believe the seventh region, counting the E.U. as one — in which Apple’s anticompetitive App Store practices have been made illegal.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission:
Between November 2023 and August 2025, Amazon AU’s Prime contracts with more than one million annual subscribers contained what the ACCC alleges were five unfair contract terms that allowed it to unilaterally make negative changes during the contract period without offering subscribers a remedy.
It is also alleged that Amazon AU later relied on one or more of these unfair terms when it introduced ads to Prime Video in Australia in July 2024. Prior to that, Amazon Prime Video was almost entirely ad-free.
Good. Do you know how much people would love it if governments gave adequate time and funding to competition and consumer protection authorities? Going after this bait-and-switch nonsense is something prized by just about everyone more sensible than your average libertarian. More of this, and where I live, please.
Byron Kaye, Reuters:
Australia’s prime minister vowed on Friday to bullet-proof laws supporting a social media ban for under-16s as the government prepares legal action against platforms amid a steady stream of evidence that the ban has had little impact on teen use.
[…]
He did not give further details about what steps the government would take and the regulator declined to comment.
The details matter. In general, though, anything that makes age gating more effective must presumably make accessing age-gated websites more difficult for everyone. Proponents will argue that it is worth the collective sacrifice because it will add a layer of protection for children. I sympathize with that argument, but I think it over-simplifies a complex story and presents a solution with serious problems — for instance, the possibility of data leaks.
Sean Hollister, the Verge:
“We have to do something about it as fast as possible, because people will find this and resell it. It will do damage,” Sammy Azdoufal told me in May.
Azdoufal is the security researcher who used Claude Code to help discover that every DJI Romo robot vacuum cleaner and a million baby monitors and security cameras were embarrassingly easy to hack. This time, he says he discovered over 985,000 photo IDs sitting on the public internet for any half-decent hacker to steal.
These I.D.s included passport scans and driver’s licenses because they have the kind of information you need to buy weed. And this is in-person purchasing at clubs in Spain. I am hopeful that age gating technology vendors are more competent, perhaps destroying their copy of a document and storing only a confirmation token. But without better oversight, we simply have no idea and should have no confidence.
(Via Bruce Schneier who, for whatever reason, links not to Hollister’s report but instead a presumably A.I.-assisted rewrite hosted at the domain previously associated with — no joke — Cambridge Analytica.)
Kyle Chayka, the New Yorker:
As Claude Design catches on among Anthropic users, a generic-design aesthetic is emerging that’s as noticeable as text-based A.I. tics such as overenthusiastic em-dash usage or “not X … but Y” constructions. In slide decks and on website interfaces, there’s a predominance of beige- and cream-colored backgrounds, rusty orange-hued accents, and large serif typefaces that are italicized and highlighted in zealous attempts to emphasize. Subheadings are often “tracked out,” in design parlance, with spaces between the letters, and there’s an inexplicable prevalence of ticker-like text bars, as if the website were a cable-news show. […]
An off-white background? Rusty orange accent colours? Well, darn.
I paused to think about what I found inspiring at this time, and what feels fundamentally me. The answer lay in a mix of blueprints, indigo dyes, and selvedge denim. Add in some mid-century Americana via compartmentalized typography, and here we are. In hindsight, I’ve used shades of blue a number of times with Weightshift, but had left it behind. The blues are back.
I am choosing to see myself as someone who is not competing with A.I. I can’t anyway, on either price or so-called “efficiency.” I probably didn’t want that kind of work anyway. I find myself being more deliberate in design decisions, and writing too, so my work resembles something made, not generated.
Now that a method of mass production has reached the knowledge work sector, it is interesting to see a whole class of people try to find and eradicate any whiff of A.I. from their work, regardless of whether it was put there by human or machine.
Josh Marinacci, building on top of my metaverse rundown:
Let’s get to one of the big points of the article I started this rant with, that if VR couldn’t be popular during a global lockdown when everyone had lots of free time and was trapped inside, then it would never be popular. While that might be true for Horizon, it is not true about VR in general. Truthfully VR was dying before COVID. I know because I was there.
I worked in Mozilla’s Mixed Reality group from 2017 to 2020. I saw all of this first hand. Most investments were turning sour before COVID.
Marinacci’s closer-to-the-inside voice is worth your time if you are at all interested in this bizarre chapter in tech company history. If anything, I think it lends credence to my theory that the pandemic was the fuel powering these dreams, since it became the justification for maintaining investors’ waning interest — until it was not.
Terrence O’Brien, the Verge:
But this isn’t some fluke, or temporary supply chain problem. Companies are choosing data center clients over ordinary buyers because “the same chip earns far more inside an AI server than inside a consumer device,” according to Srikanth Jagabathula, professor of technology, operations, and statistics at the NYU Stern School of Business. Regardless of whether people are clamoring for more AI, and more AI data centers, or not.
O’Brien frames this question around the recent Apple price increases, but this observation can be generalized in a way that does not require tackling the question of whether the company’s extraordinary margins should cushion its customers against increasing costs. If someone wants to go out and buy a computer right now, they are going to be paying through the nose for any spec above the entry-level. Even if they want to buy a relatively “thin” client, it still needs plenty of RAM — in part because local models need it, itself a part of this issue.
There is, therefore, no way to opt out of this technological push when buying something new. That makes sense if you think of the family of artificial intelligence technologies as a feature, not a product. But it does mean we all end up paying for this explosive market regardless of whether we think any of this is a prudent, sensible, or ethical technology.
Kif Leswing, CNBC:
But while tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, which both announced price hikes this week, have a hefty cash cushion, supply chain leverage and customers numbering in the millions or billions, a much wider swath of businesses face potentially dire straits. Most consumer electronics companies have little margin to spare and can’t confidently raise prices in an economy already grappling with inflationary pressures.
Luke James, Tom’s Hardware:
Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron were sued on June 25th in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where 17 plaintiffs accuse the three memory makers of illegally coordinating to restrict DRAM supply and inflate prices that the complaint says have risen roughly 700% over four years. The class action, filed as Garciaguirre v. Samsung Electronics and assigned to Judge Noel Wise, invokes Section 1 of the Sherman Act and targets companies that together hold around 90% of the global DRAM market. Samsung and SK hynix have pleaded guilty to criminal DRAM price fixing once before, with the latter paying a $185 million fine in April 2005.
The complaint (PDF) and docket are available on CourtListener which, notably, contains a reminder that these same companies did this before.
But times change, and so too does a man’s fashion. Zuck still shows up in photos in his boxy heavyweight tees, but he’s begun to rotate in—and even favor—soft, textured, lifelessly tasteful polos like the heather gray number above, or the long-sleeve taupe Prada joint he wore buttoned to the top at the Prada show at Milan Fashion Week back in February:
[…]
Perhaps even more notably, when he does wear t-shirts these days, he’s demurely tucking the chain inside: […]
Mark Zuckerberg’s regular reinvention is fascinating to me. There is nothing wrong with his changing how he dresses, just as there is nothing wrong if you or I do the same, but he clearly has a communications goal for these personal makeovers. His discovery three years ago of six-figure wristwatches and ostentatious streetwear was, in part, about signalling allegiance to vulgarity and masculinity when that was seemingly trending. Now, the cultural tides are shifting again and Zuckerberg needs to play the role of a studious and careful CEO who will manage his company’s contributions to artificial intelligence responsibly, so he is wearing soft polos.
Then there are the CEOs who wear the same thing every day, and that is pretty weird, too.
Jason Snell, Macworld:
A new pivot point for Apple? Seems like a good time for a new pivot for me, too. This year has been full of milestones for me, from appearing on “Jeopardy!” to reviewing David Pogue’s book about Apple for The Wall Street Journal, to crowdfunding a new podcast about Apple history. Along the way, I’ve had to say goodbye to some longstanding projects.
That’s my long way of saying that this is my last More Color column at Macworld. […]
Snell would likely not appreciate it if I mentioned how old I was when I first read his byline, so I will not, but I will point out that I continue to love what he is doing independently at Six Colors. My congratulations for an amazing run.
Jeff Carlson, CNet:
Apple’s Certified Refurbished store has been a sanctuary for people who balk at the prices of new Apple products, but it provided little shelter from today’s increases across many of its lines. Reconditioned items are also more expensive.
These increases seem to be driven less by the current refurbished lineup and more by what happens when Apple adds inventory from its newly-pricier products — which sucks. Even explaining it to myself feels dishonest.
Rukhsar Ali and Anis Heydari, CBC News:
“The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge,” Apple said in a statement to CBC News. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”
The company has shielded customers from increases thus far, it said. “But we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac.”
I do not think you need me to emphasize the qualifier words in that final sentence to understand what Apple is telegraphing. Bummer I did not buy a new Mac yesterday when I could not afford to, so now I can not afford to but even more.
Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends.
I will miss Malik’s writing, of course. I will also miss his photography, where he had found a distinctive and recognizable style that was very often breathtaking.
Here is a little marketing pop quiz for you: the company you work for wants to increase the prices of its products across the board urgently — and by a significant amount — because key components are suddenly more expensive. Which strategy do you choose?
Wait until there is a good time, like the next product launch cycle, and swallow an unpredictable cost increase until then.
Rip the bandage off immediately, knowing this will cause alarming headlines and a corresponding drop in sales that could be expected by making anything more expensive.
Pre-announce it with a small delay, thus giving you a temporary sales boost as people scramble to get their orders in at current prices, and to soften the blow when the increases hit.
The first two options have clear problems. The third has effectively no down-side, given the circumstances, and clearly telegraphs the unusual nature of the increase, which is why it is what Apple went with.
Hartley Charlton, of MacRumors, has the full list of changes in U.S. dollars, to which Apple anchors its worldwide prices:
The average price increase is $269.23. The iPhone, AirPods, Studio Display, and accessories such as the Apple Pencil are seemingly the only unaffected product lines.
In pure numbers, the biggest increase is by $1,300 to the high-end Mac Studio. In relative terms, the Apple TV carries a 50% premium compared to yesterday. In reputation, however, the loser has to be the MacBook Neo, which was launched less than four months ago with its $600 base price a marketing factor as loud as its lime green finish. I do not think it is a worse product at $700, but I think the price bump so close to its introduction indicates the wild world of component costs. Notable, too, that the iPhone lineup remains unchanged — for now.
Canadian pricing is now eye-watering. A few examples:
MacBook Neo: $949, from $799
MacBook Air: $1,799, from $1,499
MacBook Pro: $2,799, from $2,399 (with the M5 Pro, $3,499 compared to $2,999; and with the M5 Max, $5,799 compared to $4,999)
Mac Mini: $1,099, from $799
Mac Studio: $3,499, from $2,699 (with the M3 Ultra, $7,499, from $5,499)
When choosing the URL slug for this post, I first assumed apple-price-increases-2026 would be enough; on second thought, I figured I would add june, just to be safe.
Paresh Dave and Lauren Goode, Wired:
Meta left potentially sensitive information collected from employee laptops accessible to anyone inside the company, according to an internal security notice seen by WIRED and three current employees familiar with the issue.
The data, which was collected as part of a divisive initiative to train artificial intelligence models, is believed to include keystrokes, mouseclicks, and content displayed on the computer screens of Meta’s US employees.
Katie Paul and Jaspreet Singh, Reuters:
Meta said on Monday it will pause an internal program that tracks employee mouse movements and digital activity for AI training as the social media giant investigates data security concerns.
Meta staying in character by doing something creepy, badly.
Cynthia Khoo, writing for the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s Policy Options:
If Bill C-22 passes as is, it could put in place one piece of a bigger cross-border law enforcement data-sharing system, as envisioned in the CLOUD Act and other international data-sharing treaties.
Once completed, this system could further expose Canadian residents and our human rights to U.S. government and corporate surveillance apparatuses and their well-documented abuses of power. This is the last thing Canada needs in an era of destabilized relations with an increasingly authoritarian Trump administration.
Therefore, the federal government should withdraw Bill C-22’s provisions involving sharing data with foreign states, among other provisions, or otherwise suspend the bill’s progress through Parliament until and unless the government has provided opportunities for full public and parliamentary debate.
This bill, while well-intentioned, needs a lot of correction.
While I am criticizing the New York Times’ odd framing choices, here is a more substantial critique from Alejandra Caraballo:
Over the last several years it has become readily apparent that there has been a shift in the editorial framing and focus of the New York Times when it regards issues relating to transgender people. This is particularly pronounced when it comes to issues of gender affirming care for transgender youth. The Times has contested this accusation of bias or editorial shifting of their priorities and framing, often by pointing to individual stories and claiming that the stories are rigorously fact checked and true. The issue is that any particular article can be argued about in isolation about whether or not the framing is biased against transgender people but when viewed in the aggregate the shift can become much more pronounced and difficult to defend.
To assess the framing of thousands of articles, Caraballo ran the text through three different large language models plus VADER. Caraballo notes the LLMs fared better at interpreting words in a greater context.
Setting aside the technology, it is alarming to see the Times’ coverage shift, and so noticeably in 2022. Caraballo attributes this to several predominantly internal factors, including losing the paper’s only openly trans writer, but I stumbled across another possible external influence.
Hope Pisoni, Uncloseted Media:
[The Manhattan Institute’s] attacks on education also target K-12 schools. Starting in 2022, it began frequently demonizing schools for teaching “radical gender” ideology and “transitioning kids without parental consent.” Wuest says this is because disparaging public schools supports its longtime policy goals related to school choice. She cites a 2022 speech by [Christopher] Rufo at Hillsdale College.
The links in the quoted paragraph primarily go to the innocuous-seeming City Journal, though it is a publication of the Manhattan Institute. It ran loads of articles in 2022 from Rufo taking things out of context to, as Pisoni writes, advance the broader conservative policy goals of the Institute and stirring up a broader panic about trans people. And the Times loves taking direction from Rufo.