"Made By Google" Event Is Set For 12 August

Google has just sent out press invitations to its next Made by Google event, and it's slated for 12 August in New York City. The invitation, shared by 9to5 Google, shows what appears to be a metallic gold device, and a tease for "the next generation of Pixel."

The company is expected to unveil its line of Pixel 11 devices, including the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. According to Tom's Guide, leaked info shows the base model Pixel 11 will start at 256GB of memory, and a price tag close to or over US$ 1,000, with a 1TB version of the Pixel 11 Pro, Pro XL and Pro Fold models, possibly topping out over US$ 2,000.

Google's also expected to unveil the Pixel Watch 5, and no major design updates have been leaked so far. Ditto the next generation of Pixel Buds ear buds.

What has changed since last year's event is the escalating shortage of RAM, better known as RAMmaggedon, which has prompted Apple, Microsoft and others to raise prices on consumer products. Whether the memory and storage issues will push Google to raise Pixel prices, and by how much, is still to be seen.

It's a little unusual for Google to hold a Made by event in the evening, but the invitation lists 3 p.m. PT/ 6 p.m. ET as the start time. In addition to being a few weeks earlier than last year's Made by Google, which was held 20 August, this year's event arrives a month ahead of Apple's expected September event, where rumors have the iPhone maker introducing its first-ever foldable phone.

No word yet if "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon and/or a live studio audience will return for this year's event. Fallon (for some reason) demonstrated the Pixel 10 at the 2025 Made by Google.

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Meta Is Facing Stiff Penalty In Social Media Addiction Trial

There are now four U.S. states that are seeking a combined US$ 1.4 trillion in penalties from Meta in an upcoming trial over charges the company has misled the public about the safety of its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey allege the social media giant designed its algorithms to be addictive for young users, and in a new filing, Meta says the states are seeking penalties out of proportion with the alleged offenses. As first reported by Reuters, the penalty total sought by the states is close to Meta's market cap of US$ 1.5 trillion.

"A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement," the company argues in its 6 July filing with the U.S. District Court of Northern California.

The filing is in response to a June hearing where the states described how they were calculating the potential penalties in the case, multiplying the number of violations by the fine amount set by each state's law. The states said the total number of violations is based on an estimate of how many teens and young users may have been affected by Meta's practices.

Meta claims in its recent filing that the states' calculations "sweep in, and double count, every single teen who uses Meta's platforms, and every single month in which a teen uses Meta's platforms for more than a half-hour." Meta argues that the monetary claims sought by the states "are not linked to wrongful conduct or supported by the record."

In a 30 June statement, Davenport praised the district court's decision to deny Meta's attempt for a summary judgment, which allows the case to continue to trial.

"We are thrilled that a federal district court has ruled that our case against Meta will proceed to trial," Davenport said. "For years, Meta has failed to protect kids on Facebook and Instagram, endangering their mental health while profiting at their expense. Our office is proud to co-lead this case against Meta on behalf of a bipartisan coalition of state AGs, and we look forward to proving our case against Meta in court."

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an email that the lawsuit "alleges Meta has prioritized profits over the safety of kids and fueled the mental health crisis we see impacting a generation of American children. The California Department of Justice looks forward to holding Meta fully accountable at trial in August."

A total of 29 states have filed suit against Meta in federal court, with the majority of the cases focused on allegations that the social media giant violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by gathering data on underage users without their parents' consent. The trial, set for August in Oakland, Calif., will focus on the alleged COPPA violations, as well as the states' claims that Meta violated state consumer protection laws when it misled users about its platforms' safety.

Meta has denied the allegations.

In the past, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has largely shielded internet companies from being held liable for its users' content and for making "good faith" efforts to moderate content. But the most recent legal actions against social media platforms have focused on how the platforms were designed.

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Google Limits Meta's Use Of Gemini For Chatbot

Earlier this year, Google limited Meta's use of its Gemini AI, after the Facebook and Instagram parent company tried to buy more computing capacity than the search giant was able to provide, the Financial Times reported.

The Gemini cap, which Google put into place in March, has held back some of Meta's internal AI projects, according to the FT. Google has put limits on other companies as well as its backlog of cloud contracts continues to grow.

Both companies declined to comment. But the FT notes that Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned during a first-quarter earnings call in April that the company's already substantial revenue from cloud contracts would have been higher if it had not been "compute-constrained in the near term."

Meta does not have its own cloud business, but the company said in February during its fourth-quarter earnings announcement that it planned to spend as much as $135 billion this year in an expansion of its AI plans. In April, it launched its Muse Spark AI model developed by its Meta Superintelligence Lab, but it has lagged rivals in the race to compete in the generative AI boom.

According to the FT, Meta uses Gemini internally to automate some of its safety processes, for its chatbots and for some coding and workflows, along with other models including Anthropic's Claude.

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Windows 10 Gets A New Lease On Life

A few days ago, Microsoft quietly announced that it will extend support for Windows 10 through 2027, even though the operating system officially reached the end of support on 14 October 2025. Initially, the company had planned to offer just one additional year of updates under its Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, but the new decision gives Windows 10 a longer lifeline.

However, critics and groups like The Restart Project, which helped co-develop the "End of 10" toolkit to support Windows 10 users who can't upgrade to Windows 11, claimed that Microsoft's move to continue pushing security updates to Windows 10 beyond its end-of-support feels like a last-minute snooze button, which only acts as a band-aid on a bleeding system.

They argued that the move would force up to 400 million working PCs into early retirement, prompting many users to brand it as programmed obsolescence rather than anything else. It also seems like an outright, blatant attempt designed to make users transition to Windows 11.

However, if previous complaints lodged are anything to go by — Microsoft's stringent hardware requirements for the operating system, coupled with arguments of flawed design elements, including unnecessary AI and Copilot integrations, will only widen the digital divide, making the jump even harder.

Currently, users enrolled in Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program will continue receiving critical security patches for one additional year, extending coverage beyond the original end-of-support date of 14 October 2025, through 14 October 2026.

As highlighted in the recent poll results, a clear majority of participants (68 percent) indicated they plan to continue running Windows 10 on their devices following Microsoft's support extension. Interestingly, 19 percent of respondents said they have already upgraded to Windows 11, highlighting a smaller but notable shift toward the newer operating system.

Granted, only 321 people voted, so we need to take the results with a pinch of salt.

If you are still running Windows 10 on your PC, you can take advantage of the extended lifeline by enrolling in the ESU program for free by signing in with a Microsoft account, or pay for access via 1,000 Microsoft reward points or US$ 30.

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Australia's Floating Solar Panels Could Address Water Crisis

Australia was reported to be on the edge of a water shortage crisis. Farming represents the biggest drain on the continent in this context, using 70 percent of the country's water supply, though the issue is also compounded by prolonged periods of drought and increased human activity. In the spirit of preserving its water supplies, the country has designed a new kind of floating solar panel that could help.

Called floating photovoltaics (FPV), these solar panels can be found in the country's dams and water reservoirs. Essentially, they form a sort of roof over these bodies of water, trapping evaporation in by covering the water's surface. At the same time, they provide renewable energy to power grids in much the same way that standard solar panels help the environment.

These floating solar panels have the potential to save a lot of water. The dams and reservoirs across Australia see 1,400 gigaliters of water evaporate each year. As reported by Bloomberg, one company developing these panels has claimed these panels can reduce that evaporation by more than half.

In an attempt to save water in the country, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency invested AUS$ 8.5 million in an initiative designed to deploy more floating solar panels across its irrigation farms in 2025.

Wannon Water currently has one of Australia's largest floating solar panel systems, generating over 600,000 kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity each year over Warrnambool's Brierly Basinin southern Victoria.

The 1,260 panels installed in the network capture direct sunlight not just from the sky above but from its reflection on the water's surface below. Since they have been installed, they have helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by close to 600 tons every year. A similar installation of 644 floating solar panels by Gippsland Water is generating enough kilowatts to power 90 homes per day at peak capacity in the region as well.

What's unique about these floating solar panels is that they don't completely cover the water source like some other strategies designed to reduce evaporation. This is a plus because it avoids triggering algal blooms and keeps the water clean. With so many environmental benefits, floating solar panels are becoming a critical part of not just Au energy plans going forward, but also Germany, California, and other regions.

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