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At last! California residents can block data brokers selling personal info

At last! California residents can block data brokers selling personal info

Data brokers scrape together your most personal information—including where you’ve lived in the past and who belongs to your family, both immediate and extended—and then sell it openly on the web. As you might guess, that can be a hazard not just for online privacy and security, but also for your real-world safety. But this danger may soon ease, thanks to California’s Delete Act ( SB 362 ), which is now going into full effect. Passed in 2023, the law requires a system for residents to remove themselves from all data broker sites with a single request, beginning in 2026. (A previous California law mandates that data brokers must register with the state .) Currently, that covers over 500 data brokers. Now that January 1 has arrived, so too has the state’s new DROP site (“Delete Request and Opt-out Platform”), which can be found at https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/ . To use the opt-out tool, California residents must take three steps: Confirm their California residency. Create a profile that contains basic personal information. File the DROP request, which will then be sent to all 545 brokers currently registered in California. DROP requests became available at the start of January 2026. Data brokers must begin honoring the requests on August 1, 2026, at which time they have 90 days to remove all of your information. Afterward, they must delete data every 45 days. State of California Think of this as similar to the United States’ national Do Not Call Registry , which lets you put in a single request to block all telemarketing calls. The difference? Right now, this only applies to California residents. But consumer protection laws in California often spread to other states, either through direct influence or because accommodating such legislation will change businesses’ standard operations. For example: Credit freezes started in California, and eventually spread to other states with slight variations. The 2017 Equifax hack then caused them to become standardized (and free) across the U.S., after Congress took up the matter. What makes the Delete Act so exciting is that until now, removing your info from data broker sites was like playing whack-a-mole. You’d get it purged from some people-finder sites, only for the same data (or even fresh data) to appear on new ones. It was a never-ending task. Now you only have to put in the request once . Here’s to hoping residents of other states get to enjoy the same simplicity, too.

Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin

Meta refocuses on AI hardware as metaverse layoffs begin

As we expected , Meta has begun laying off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division, which focused on virtual reality and metaverse products, Bloomberg reports . The company will refocus on developing wearables, like its recent batch of AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, according to a memo from CTO Andrew Bosworth. The news isn’t too surprising. Reality Labs has lost more than $70 billion since the beginning of 2021, and while Meta has done a solid job of delivering desirable consumer VR headsets and smart glasses, that business hasn’t been nearly profitable enough to justify the cost. And of course, Mark Zuckerberg’s huge gamble on the metaverse, which involved renaming the company from Facebook to Meta in 2021, has gone nowhere. Developing… This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-refocuses-on-ai-hardware-as-metaverse-layoffs-begin-145924706.html?src=rss

Dell admits users don’t care about AI PCs, refocuses on what matters

Dell admits users don’t care about AI PCs, refocuses on what matters

Last week at CES 2026, AI-capable Copilot+ PCs were all over the convention show floor , with many PC makers promoting their so-called “AI PCs” with NPUs and other cutting-edge features. AI PCs have been hyped since 2024 as the next evolution of home computing, but it appears consumers aren’t buying into the new technology. That’s according to Dell’s sentiment at CES 2026, where an executive confirmed that the company would shift its focus away from AI PCs and re-center itself on the areas consumers care about: “We’re getting back to our roots with a renewed focus on consumer and gaming.” In other words, very few users seem to be buying new computers solely for the ability to run AI models and features locally. Dell might just be the first of many makers who are catching on to the lack of consumer interest in AI PCs. This goes hand in hand with Dell’s other refocusing efforts after listening to its consumers: the bringing back of its XPS line . Going forward, Dell will continue to sell computers with Copilot+ PC branding to comply with its partnership agreement with Microsoft, but the company’s marketing efforts won’t emphasize AI. It’s unclear how this shift will affect the pricing and availability of Dell PCs, as current market conditions and AI-driven RAM shortages are expected to drive up the costs of PCs by up to 20 percent .

Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica are discussing potentially doubling Ray-Ban Meta production to 20M+ units by the end of 2026 and possibly as high as 30M+ (Bloomberg)

Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica are discussing potentially doubling Ray-Ban Meta production to 20M+ units by the end of 2026 and possibly as high as 30M+ (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Sources: Meta and EssilorLuxottica are discussing potentially doubling Ray-Ban Meta production to 20M+ units by the end of 2026 and possibly as high as 30M+ —  Meta Platforms Inc. and EssilorLuxottica SA are discussing potentially doubling production capacity for AI-powered smart glasses …

Apple bundles creative apps such as Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro into a single subscription

Apple bundles creative apps such as Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro into a single subscription

Apple has been putting more onus on its services for the past several years — the company makes tens of billions of dollars in revenue from that side of the business, which it claimed had a record year in 2025 . Apple is nudging a little more in that direction with a new subscription bundle called Apple Creator Studio . This allows creators to pay a single fee ($13 per month or $129 per year) to use Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro , Motion, Compressor and MainStage. Subscribers will get access to “premium content” in Pages, Keynote and Numbers (as well as in Freeform later this year). Of course, there are AI features too. Apple Creator Studio will be available starting on January 28 and you can try it out at no cost through a one-month free trial. College students and educators can subscribe to Apple Creator Studio for $3 per month or $30 per year. Up to six people can access all of the plan’s features if one person in a Family Sharing group subscribes. Apple noted that Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Logic Pro, Motion, Compressor and MainStage will still be available as one-time purchases for Mac through the Mac App Store. Given that those can be pretty pricy (going up to $300 for Final Cut Pro), the subscription could be enticing to many burgeoning creators. This seems like Apple’s attempt to muscle in on Adobe’s territory , especially now that it’s bringing AI features to many of these apps. Adding new features to productivity apps like Numbers and Keynote means Apple’s taking a shot at the likes of Microsoft 365 Copilot (yeeeeah, that’s what Office is called now) and Google Workspace as well. On Mac and iPad, Final Cut Pro has a new feature called Beat Detection. Apple suggests this makes “editing video to the rhythm of music fast and fun.” It uses an AI model from Logic Pro to analyze music tracks and display a Beat Grid. The idea here is to visualize song parts, beats and bars to help editors align their cuts with the music. The Montage Maker tool in Final Cut Pro on an iPad. Apple An AI-powered Montage Maker tool can stitch together “a dynamic video based on the best visual moments within the footage.” You’ll be able to tweak these montages and use an Auto Crop tool to reframe the clip into a vertical format to make it a better fit for social media. Final Cut Pro has transcript and visual search functions too. Logic Pro, MainStage, Pixelmator Pro (which is coming to iPad with Apple Pencil support) and Motion will all have AI-powered features as well. As you might expect, you’ll need an Apple Intelligence-capable device to use some of these. Apple is also introducing something called the Content Hub. This media library includes “curated, high-quality photos, graphics and illustrations.” As for Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, you’ll be able to access premium templates and themes in those otherwise-free apps with a Apple Creator Studio plan. Subscribers will be able to try beta versions of new features, such as a way to generate a draft of a Keynote presentation text based on an outline, and a Magic Fill tool to generate formulas and fill in tables in Numbers. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-bundles-creative-apps-such-as-final-cut-pro-and-logic-pro-into-a-single-subscription-145210038.html?src=rss

Pixelmator Pro isn't dead, and is coming to iPad

Pixelmator Pro isn't dead, and is coming to iPad

Pixelmator Pro is being enhanced with an iPad version, Apple has confirmed, with a tablet version of the app coming as part of the Apple Creator Studio. Pixelmator Pro on iPad - Image Credit: Apple Apple acquired the team behind Pixelmator Pro in late 2024, but aside from some feature updates in June, it seemed like Apple hadn't done much to the art app. On Tuesday, Apple confirmed that big changes are on the way. Forming part of the new Apple Creator Studio , Pixelmator Pro is promoted as a key image-editing tool in the app collection. While already fully-featured on the Mac , the main thrust of the announcement for the app is its traversal over to iPad. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums