I still don’t know what yesterday’s update added in terms of security for iPhones, iPads, and Vision Pros, but there is one explanation for an AirTag update that seemed to roll out a little faster than usual.

iSoftware Updates tweeted that the deployment date was set with the wrong format (24 instead of 2024 for the year), and Apple’s system started delivering it to 100 percent of devices right away instead of seeding it to just a few until Apple corrected it later.

The company was originally going to shut it down on January 1st, but now the end has finally come: Mint will disappear after tomorrow, March 23rd (so it’s a good time to finally download that data). Intuit has urged Mint users to move to Credit Karma, which is also free but not quite the same thing; however, there are alternatives. We’ve laid out a few for you:

Set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” a TikTok user cut together idyllic, quaint clips of their hometown — followed by a bunch of sterile data centers being built.

On TikTok, the medium is the message. Not everyone seems to know what a data center even is (the recommended search query below the video is “data center explained”) but the video works. This trend, as they say, has potential.

The change, which will go into effect in June 2024, comes after “a careful assessment of the impact of new regulatory requirements,” Google says. It won’t impact EU users’ ability to use the apps and clock faces they’ve already downloaded.

Google already shut down Fitbit Studio, the tool used to make apps and clockfaces for Fitbit wearables last April. It also lost several other social features as its ecosystem becomes more intertwined with Google’s.

When I suggested you should challenge the FCC’s new broadband maps — which still let ISPs lie about coverage — some readers told me it was pointless. Well... a small ISP in Ohio is now getting fined $10,000 after it was caught lying! Here’s hoping we can make bigger lying ISPs feel the heat, too.

TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker has been pushing the company for answers, now that the massive cache of customer data is circulating once again. But although a known hacker claimed responsibility in 2021, AT&T still claims its systems weren’t breached at all — and yet it wouldn’t give Whittaker any other explanation for where the data came from.

The automaker was caught by the New York Times providing micro-details about its customers driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length, to insurance companies. Clueless vehicle owners were then left wondering why their insurance premiums were going up. But now GM tells the Times it’s going to stop.

“OnStar Smart Driver customer data is no longer being shared with LexisNexis or Verisk,” a G.M. spokeswoman, Malorie Lucich, said in an emailed statement. “Customer trust is a priority for us, and we are actively evaluating our privacy processes and policies.”

No word yet on Kia, Subaru, and Mitsubishi, which also were reportedly sharing driver data with insurance firms.

this is an experience on a “subset of queries, on a small percentage of search traffic in the U.S.,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Last year, we wrote about the AI takeover of Google Search and how Google wants you to forget the 10 blue links — but back then, it was opt-in. Just this week, Google’s head of AI search became the company’s head of search, period.

While Threads continues to test the waters of federation, the team is working on other features too. Continuing a push that started with “NBA Threads” outreach events around summer league and All-Star Weekend, and snagging posts from newsbreakers like Woj and Shams, it’s now testing live scores of NBA games and plans to add other sports.

Of course, it’s March, so why not start with the Women’s and Men’s NCAA basketball tournaments and bring in the NBA during the playoffs?

The AI company is scheduled to meet with a number of studios, talent agencies, and media executives in Los Angeles next week to discuss partnerships, sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg. Getting more filmmakers familiar with Sora, OpenAI’s upcoming text-to-video generator, is a major goal of the meetings.

Although Sora is still awaiting a public release later this year, Bloomberg reports that a few A-list directors and actors have already been given access.

It’s somehow been 25 years since The Phantom Menace kicked off the Star Wars prequel era, and the film is coming back to theaters for a limited time starting on May 3rd (tickets are on sale now). Those who attend can also get a new glimpse at The Acolyte, along with hopefully a new appreciation for Jar Jar.

If you’re in the New York area on Monday, April 1st, we’ll be celebrating author (and Verge alum) Zo? Schiffer’s new book Extremely Hardcore. Tickets come with a hardcover and a drink. Space is limited, so sign up fast.

Thanks to the Digital Markets Act, Meta is gearing up to allow WhatsApp and Messenger to send and receive messages from other services. We’ve already seen screenshots of how the feature might look thanks to WABetaInfo, and now TheSpAndroid has gone one better with a video of the onboarding process, and also reports that WhatsApp could soon offer new AI-powered image editing tools; backdrop, restyle, and expand.

This New York Times article provides an overview of Kanter’s career in criticizing competition, from representing Microsoft’s offensive against Google during the Obama administration to leading the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

“In some ways, he’s still looking for that more prominent trophy to go on the mantelpiece,” said former FTC chair William Kovacic. “You win one of these monopolization cases, you can take the rest of the decade off.”

Maybe it’s because I relocated to New Jersey, but its increasingly clear that transportation apps and APIs in most of the US kind of suck. Apparently, New Jersey Transit has a gnarly one.

But thankfully the PATH, an inexpensive commuter rail that runs between New York and New Jersey, has a robust enough API to make up for its often buggy app. That’s meant one developer has built a very handy app and widget that gives you exactly what you need: an easy to read train schedule.