Supreme Court justices today expressed skepticism of AT&T and Verizon's claim that the Federal Communications Commission's procedure for imposing fines violated their right to a jury trial. But companies regulated by the FCC may come out ahead in the long run even if the carriers lose this case.

AT&T and Verizon, which were fined a total of $104 million for selling users’ real-time location data without consent, claim the FCC's penalty system deprived them of the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. During oral arguments today, justices repeatedly pointed out that carriers could have obtained a jury trial if they chose not to pay the fines and waited for the government to begin an enforcement action in court.

But even if AT&T and Verizon lose this case, they could get a victory of sorts because the FCC and justices seem to agree that FCC fine decisions are nonbinding and require a court decision to enforce them. A government lawyer told justices that the FCC may change the language of its forfeiture orders to make it clearer that fines don't have to be paid until after a jury trial.

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The critically acclaimed second season of Apple TV's dystopian sci-fi drama Silo ended on one heck of a cliffhanger, with at least one major character's fate unclear. The streamer just released the first teaser for S3, in which events from the first two seasons rewind to give us the briefest glimpse of the lushly green, seemingly idyllic early days of the silo community, centuries before.

(Spoilers for the first two seasons below.)

As previously reported , Silo is based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey. It's set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years. Outside is a toxic hellscape that is only visible on big screens in the silo’s topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: Anyone who says they want to “go out” is immediately granted that wish—cast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras. But those who make that choice die soon after because of the toxic environment.

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We’ve seen enough product announcements from Framework at this point that today’s updates feel more or less routine. The biggest new thing is an updated motherboard with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 processors that can either be dropped into the existing Framework Laptop 13 or bought as part of the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro. Updated screens, keyboards, and other parts—mostly compatible with Framework’s existing laptops, mostly meant to address specific complaints about, or missing features in, those products—are also available.

But the company has also decided to place more emphasis than usual on its support for Linux.

The company’s teaser site for today's announcements encouraged users to “follow the white penguin,” a Linux-y reference to The Matrix (1999) (or maybe a Matrix -y reference to Linux’s mascot ). Framework has always officially supported various Linux flavors on its systems, but the Laptop 13 Pro will be the first pre-built Laptop that can ship with Linux installed from the factory, and the system features Framework’s first officially Ubuntu Certified system . Framework CEO Nirav Patel is even trying to position the Laptop 13 Pro as “MacBook Pro for Linux users.”

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OpenAI now faces a criminal probe after ChatGPT advised a gunman ahead of a mass shooting at a university in Florida, where two people were killed and six were wounded last year.

In a press release , Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier confirmed that the investigation into OpenAI's potential criminal liability was launched after reviewing shocking chat logs between ChatGPT and an account linked to the suspected gunman, Phoenix Ikner.

The 20-year-old Florida State University student is currently awaiting trial "on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder," Politico reported . At a press conference, Uthmeier revealed that the logs showed that ChatGPT provided "significant advice" before Ikner allegedly "committed such heinous crimes." The attorney general emphasized that under Florida's aiding and abetting laws, "if ChatGPT were a person," it too "would be facing charges for murder."

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Meta will begin tracking the mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes of its US employees to generate high-quality training data for future AI agents, Reuters reports .

The news organization cites internal memos posted by the Meta Superintelligence Labs team in reporting on the new Model Capability Initiative employee-tracking software. That software will operate on specific work-related apps and websites and also make use of periodic screenshots to provide context for the AI training, according to the memo.

"This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work," the memo reads, in part, Reuters reports.

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Microsoft announced Tuesday that subscribers to its Game Pass service will see significant price reductions starting today. But those subscribers will also be losing included day-one access to Activision's popular Call of Duty series from now on.

In the US, the price of a Game Pass Ultimate subscription will drop to $22.99 a month (down from $29.99, down roughly 23 percent), while the more limited PC Game Pass will drop to $13.99 a month (from $16.49, down roughly 22 percent). Going forward, neither subscription will include launch day access to new Call of Duty games, which will not be available on Game Pass until the following holiday season. Previous Call of Duty games will continue to be available to Game Pass subscribers, though.

"Game Pass Ultimate has become too expensive for too many players," recently named Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said in a social media post accompanying the announcement, echoing sentiments shared in an employee memo leaked to The Verge last week . "We’ll keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players."

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Framework has been selling and shipping its modular, repairable, upgradable Laptop 13 for five years now, and in that time, it has released six distinct versions of its system board, each using fresh versions of Intel and AMD processors (seven versions, if you count this RISC-V one ).

The laptop around those components has gradually gotten better, too. Over the years, Framework has added higher-resolution screens in both matte and glossy finishes, a slightly larger battery, and other tweaked components that refine the original design. But so far, all of those parts have been totally interchangeable, and the fundamentals of the Laptop 13 design haven’t changed much.

That changes today with the Framework Laptop 13 Pro, which, despite its name, is less an offshoot of the original Laptop 13 and closer to a ground-up redesign. It includes new Core Ultra Series 3 chips (codenamed Panther Lake), Framework’s first touchscreen, a new black aluminum color option, a larger battery, and other significant changes.

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When Framework launches a new laptop, it usually takes the opportunity to put out some other refinements to its designs. Although its updates for the Framework Laptop 16 aren't as significant as the changes to the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro, they address a number of complaints and requests that will make the upgradeable workstation look and function better.

The Laptop 16 is getting one new CPU option, though it’s in the same Ryzen AI 300 chip family that Framework used in its late-2025 refresh . The six-core Ryzen AI 5 340 option slots in below the eight-core Ryzen AI 7 350 configuration, and it brings the Laptop 16’s current starting price down to $1,599 for a pre-built system or $1,249 for a DIY Edition (down from $1,799 and $1,499, respectively). Continued RAM or storage price increases could eventually reduce or nullify those savings, but they're available for now.

Many of the Laptop 16’s other upgrades are primarily cosmetic. One is a new “Translucent Smoke Gray Bezel” option, which joins the existing black, orange, and lavender bezels.

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Newly unsealed emails reveal the sneaky ways that Amazon colludes with rivals to raise prices across the Internet on "everything from diapers to clothing to furniture," California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleged in a press release Monday.

"Amazon and a competitor will knowingly stop price matching each other, so that one retailer can increase its price, and the other retailer can match to the new, higher price," Bonta alleged, pointing to one of three such schemes described in Amazon emails. "Thus, both competitors start selling at a higher price, increase their profits, and consumers pay more."

The emails surfaced in a lawsuit that the state of California filed in 2022, accusing Amazon of wielding its tremendous influence as the world's largest retailer to pressure vendors into increasing prices on rival e-commerce websites or removing products from cheaper platforms entirely. According to The New York Times , these emails offer "a rare behind-the-scenes look at how Amazon operates its $2.66 trillion empire."

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