SpaceX surpassed the 10,000-satellite milestone for its Starlink constellation after two Falcon 9 launches on Oct. 19 added 56 more satellites to orbit. The company now operates about two-thirds of all active satellites worldwide and continues to break reuse records. Space.com reports: A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink internet satellites lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 3:24 p.m. EDT (1924 GMT; 12:24 p.m. local California time). Those 28 included the 10,000th Starlink spacecraft ever to reach orbit, which a SpaceX employee noted on the company's launch webcast: "From Tintin to 10,000! Go Starlink, go Falcon, go SpaceX!" It was also the 132nd Falcon 9 liftoff of the year, equaling the mark set by the rocket last year -- and there are still nearly 2.5 months to go in 2025. [...] This launch was the second of the day for SpaceX; less than two hours earlier, another Falcon 9 sent 28 more Starlink satellites up from Florida's Space Coast. That earlier liftoff was the 31st for that Falcon 9's first stage, setting a new reuse record.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Sunday that it is investigating an airliner that was struck by an object in its windscreen, mid-flight, over Utah. "NTSB gathering radar, weather, flight recorder data," the federal agency said on the social media site X. "Windscreen being sent to NTSB laboratories for examination." The strike occurred Thursday, during a United Airlines flight from Denver to Los Angeles. Images shared on social media showed that one of the two large windows at the front of a 737 MAX aircraft was significantly cracked. Related images also reveal a pilot's arm that has been cut multiple times by what appear to be small shards of glass. The captain of the flight reportedly described the object that hit the plane as "space debris." This has not been confirmed, however. After the impact, the aircraft safely landed at Salt Lake City International Airport after being diverted. Images of the strike showed that an object made a forceful impact near the upper-right part of the window, showing damage to the metal frame. Because aircraft windows are multiple layers thick, with laminate in between, the window pane did not shatter completely. The aircraft was flying above 30,000 feet -- likely around 36,000 feet -- and the cockpit apparently maintained its cabin pressure.

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Investigators recovered the OceanGate Titan sub's underwater camera nearly intact, discovering a SanDisk SD card that survived the 2023 implosion and still contained 12 images and 9 videos. TechSpot reports: Scott Manley, the science communication YouTuber, gamer, astrophysicist, and programmer, posted about the latest find: a hardened SubC-branded Rayfin Mk2 Benthic Camera containing the undamaged SD card. The titanium and synthetic sapphire crystal camera is rated to withstand depths of up to 6,000 meters (19,685 feet) -- the Titan imploded at around 3,300 meters (10,827 feet). The casing is intact, though the lens is shattered and the PCBs are slightly damaged. Incredibly the SD card inside the camera was undamaged. Tom's Hardware reports that it's almost certainly a SanDisk Extreme Pro 512GB, which costs around $62 on Amazon. The camera's SD card was found to be fully encrypted, divided into a small partition for operating system updates and a larger one for user data. Due to impact damage from the accident, several components of the system-on-module (SOM) board -- including connectors and the microcontroller -- were broken, complicating the data extraction process. [...] After determining the data wasn't encrypted beyond the file system level, they successfully accessed the SD card contents using the manufacturer's proprietary equipment and procedures.

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Foreign hackers breached the National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) by exploiting unpatched Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities. The intrusion happened in August and is possibly linked to either Chinese state actors or Russian cybercriminals. CSO Online notes that "roughly 80% of the non-nuclear parts in the nation's nuclear stockpile originate from KCNSC," making it "one of the most sensitive facilities in the federal weapons complex." From the report: The breach targeted a plant that produces the vast majority of critical non-nuclear components for US nuclear weapons under the NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE) that oversees the design, production, and maintenance of the nation's nuclear weapons. Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T) manages the Kansas City campus under contract to the NNSA. [...] The attackers exploited two recently disclosed Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities -- CVE-2025-53770, a spoofing flaw, and CVE-2025-49704, a remote code execution (RCE) bug -- both affecting on-premises servers. Microsoft issued fixes for the vulnerabilities on July 19. On July 22, the NNSA confirmed it was one of the organizations hit by attacks enabled by the SharePoint flaws. "On Friday, July 18th, the exploitation of a Microsoft SharePoint zero-day vulnerability began affecting the Department of Energy," a DOE spokesperson said. However, the DOE contended at the time, "The department was minimally impacted due to its widespread use of the Microsoft M365 cloud and very capable cybersecurity systems. A very small number of systems were impacted. All impacted systems are being restored." By early August, federal responders, including personnel from the NSA, were on-site at the Kansas City facility, the source tells CSO.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted increases the opacity of Liquid Glass and adds more contrast. Apple says that the new toggle was added because during the beta testing period over the summer, user feedback suggested that some people would prefer to have a more opaque option for Liquid Glass. The added setting provides additional customization in iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1. Increasing opacity and adding contrast applies to Liquid Glass throughout the operating system, including in apps and Lock Screen notifications.

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U.S. Grandmaster and beloved chess commentator Daniel Naroditsky has tragically passed away at the age of 29. "The news has sent shockwaves around the chess community, which is grieving the loss of one of the most beloved and influential voices," reports Chess.com. From the report: The devastating news was first shared by Naroditsky's club, Charlotte Chess Center, on Monday, and confirmed by Chess.com with multiple sources: "It is with great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of Daniel Naroditsky. Daniel was a talented chess player, educator, and cherished member of the chess community. He was also a loving son, brother, and loyal friend. We ask for privacy for Daniel's family during this extremely difficult time. Let us honor Daniel by remembering his passion for chess and the inspiration he brought to us all." Naroditsky, who was three weeks away from turning 30, has long been known as one of United States' most talented players. He achieved his grandmaster title at the age of 18 in 2013, and placed fifth among the highest-ranked juniors in 2015. His last FIDE-rating is 2619, which places him among the top 150 in the world, or the 17th highest-ranked in the United States. He has a peak rating of 2647 from 2017. He leaves a legacy that spans strong over-the-board competition and highly popular chess instruction and commentary on streaming platforms.

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has issued criminal subpoenas to Roblox, calling it a "breeding ground for predators" and accusing the platform of profiting while failing to protect children. NBC News reports: The subpoenas will allow prosecutors to gather more information about the alleged criminal activity on the platform, including evidence related to suspected predators and victims, according to Uthmeier. The concerns prompted Roblox to invest heavily in protecting younger users on its platform by tightening messaging rules for children under 13, intensive content moderation and AI-powered monitoring. In an emailed statement to Reuters, Roblox said it prohibits sharing images and videos in chat, uses filters designed to block the exchange of personal information, and is working to implement age estimation for all users accessing chat features. "While no system is perfect, our trained teams and automated tools continuously monitor communications to detect and remove harmful content," a Roblox spokesperson said.

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Kohler has launched the Dekoda, a $599 smart toilet camera that analyzes users' waste to track hydration, gut health, and detect potential issues like blood. "It also comes with a rechargeable battery, a USB connection, and a fingerprint sensor to identify who's using the toilet," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The Dekoda is currently available for preorder, with shipments scheduled to begin on October 21. In addition to the hardware purchase fee, customers will need to pay between $70 and $156 per year for a subscription. If you're uneasy about the privacy implications of putting a camera right below your private parts, the company says, "Dekoda's sensors see down into your toilet and nowhere else." It also notes that the resulting data is secured via end-to-end encryption.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has added web and mobile interfaces for Claude Code, its immensely popular command-line interface (CLI) agentic AI coding tool. The web interface appears to be well-baked at launch, but the mobile version is limited to iOS and is in an earlier stage of development. The web version of Claude Code can be given access to a GitHub repository. Once that's done, developers can give it general marching orders like "add real-time inventory tracking to the dashboard." As with the CLI version, it gets to work, with updates along the way approximating where it's at and what it's doing. The web interface supports the recently implemented Claude Code capability to take suggestions or requested changes while it's in the middle of working on a task. (Previously, if you saw it doing something wrong or missing something, you often had to cancel and start over.) Developers can run multiple sessions at once and switch between them as needed; they're listed in a left-side panel in the interface. Alongside this web and mobile rollout, Anthropic has also introduced a new sandboxing runtime to Claude Code that, along with other things, aims to make the experience both more secure and lower friction. In the past, Claude Code worked by asking permission before making most changes and steps along the way. Now, it can instead be given permissions for specific file system folders and network servers. That means fewer approval steps, but it's also more secure overall against prompt injection and other risks. You can learn more about "Claude Code on the web" through the company's blog and official YouTube channel. Note: the new features are available in beta as a research preview, and they are available to Claude users with Pro or Max subscriptions.

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Cybercriminals are exploiting weak email authentication settings in Zendesk, using the platform's customer support systems to bombard targets with thousands of spam and harassing messages that appear to come from legitimate companies like The Washington Post, Discord, and NordVPN. KrebsOnSecurity reports: Zendesk is an automated help desk service designed to make it simple for people to contact companies for customer support issues. Earlier this week, KrebsOnSecurity started receiving thousands of ticket creation notification messages through Zendesk in rapid succession, each bearing the name of different Zendesk customers, such as CapCom, CompTIA, Discord, GMAC, NordVPN, The Washington Post, and Tinder. The abusive missives sent via Zendesk's platform can include any subject line chosen by the abusers. In my case, the messages variously warned about a supposed law enforcement investigation involving KrebsOnSecurity.com, or else contained personal insults. Moreover, the automated messages that are sent out from this type of abuse all come from customer domain names -- not from Zendesk. [...] In all of the cases above, the messaging abuse would not have been possible if Zendesk customers validated support request email addresses prior to sending responses. Failing to do so may make it easier for Zendesk clients to handle customer support requests, but it also allows ne'er-do-wells to sully the sender's brand in service of disruptive and malicious email floods. "We recognize that our systems were leveraged against you in a distributed, many-against-one manner," said Carolyn Camoens, communications director at Zendesk. "We are actively investigating additional preventive measures. We are also advising customers experiencing this type of activity to follow our general security best practices and configure an authenticated ticket creation workflow."

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In two separate reports, Apple and Samsung are said to report underwhelming sales of their new ultra-thin smartphones. According to The Elec, Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air while Samsung has canceled its planned Galaxy S26 Edge smartphone after disappointing sales of the Galaxy S25 Edge, Korea's NewsPim claims. MacRumors reports: Samsung apparently halted work on the Galaxy S26 Edge this week, informing employees internally that the product line would be discontinued. Internal discussions in September shifted priorities toward the more conventional "Plus" form factor after confirming that consumer demand for ultra-slim flagships was weaker than expected. [...] Samsung will apparently instead add a Galaxy S26 Plus model to its 2026 lineup, reverting to the company's traditional three-tier structure of base, Plus, and Ultra variants. Despite the cancellation, development of the Galaxy S26 Edge was already complete. Development of the S26 Plus is expected to begin before the end of the third quarter of 2025. The atmosphere inside the company is said to be "chaotic" and "embarrassed" following the sudden lineup revision. Samsung reportedly plans to sell through existing inventory of the Galaxy S25 Edge and cease further production once stock is depleted. As for Apple's iPhone Air, here's what MacRumors is reporting: The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing significantly better than the iPhone 16. The iPhone Air is apparently the outlier; Apple plans to reduce production by one million units this year. Meanwhile, Apple plans to increase production of all other models by two million units. The overall production forecast of the iPhone 17 series this year has also been increased from 88 million units to 94 million units for the start of 2026.

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A network of classified Starshield satellites built by SpaceX for the U.S. government is transmitting signals on radio frequencies reserved for Earth-to-space commands. According to NPR, it may violate international standards. From the report: Satellites associated with the Starshield satellite network appear to be transmitting to the Earth's surface on frequencies normally used for doing the exact opposite: sending commands from Earth to satellites in space. The use of those frequencies to "downlink" data runs counter to standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency that seeks to coordinate the use of radio spectrum globally. Starshield's unusual transmissions have the potential to interfere with other scientific and commercial satellites, warns Scott Tilley, an amateur satellite tracker in Canada who first spotted the signals. "Nearby satellites could receive radio-frequency interference and could perhaps not respond properly to commands -- or ignore commands -- from Earth," he told NPR. Outside experts agree there's the potential for radio interference. "I think it is definitely happening," said Kevin Gifford, a computer science professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder who specializes in radio interference from spacecraft. But he said the issue of whether the interference is truly disruptive remains unresolved. [...] Tilley says he's detected signals from 170 of the Starshield satellites so far. All appear in the 2025-2110 MHz range, though the precise frequencies of the signals move around.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: When teachers rely on commonly used artificial intelligence chatbots to devise lesson plans, it does not result in more engaging, immersive or effective learning experiences compared with existing techniques, we found in our recent study. The AI-generated civics lesson plans we analyzed also left out opportunities for students to explore the stories and experiences of traditionally marginalized people. The allure of generative AI as a teaching aid has caught the attention of educators. A Gallup survey from September 2025 found that 60% of K-12 teachers are already using AI in their work, with the most common reported use being teaching preparation and lesson planning. [...] For our research, we began collecting and analyzing AI-generated lesson plans to get a sense of what kinds of instructional plans and materials these tools provide to teachers. We decided to focus on AI-generated lesson plans for civics education because it is essential for students to learn productive ways to participate in the U.S. political system and engage with their communities. To collect data for this study, in August 2024 we prompted three GenAI chatbots -- the GPT-4o model of ChatGPT, Google's Gemini 1.5 Flash model and Microsoft's latest Copilot model -- to generate two sets of lesson plans for eighth grade civics classes based on Massachusetts state standards. One was a standard lesson plan and the other a highly interactive lesson plan. We garnered a dataset of 311 AI-generated lesson plans, featuring a total of 2,230 activities for civic education. We analyzed the dataset using two frameworks designed to assess educational material: Bloom's taxonomy and Banks' four levels of integration of multicultural content. Bloom's taxonomy is a widely used educational framework that distinguishes between "lower-order" thinking skills, including remembering, understanding and applying, and "higher-order" thinking skills -- analyzing, evaluating and creating. Using this framework to analyze the data, we found 90% of the activities promoted only a basic level of thinking for students. Students were encouraged to learn civics through memorizing, reciting, summarizing and applying information, rather than through analyzing and evaluating information, investigating civic issues or engaging in civic action projects. When examining the lesson plans using Banks' four levels of integration of multicultural content model (PDF), which was developed in the 1990s, we found that the AI-generated civics lessons featured a rather narrow view of history -- often leaving out the experiences of women, Black Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Asian and Pacific Islanders, disabled individuals and other groups that have long been overlooked. Only 6% of the lessons included multicultural content. These lessons also tended to focus on heroes and holidays rather than deeper explorations of understanding civics through multiple perspectives. Overall, we found the AI-generated lesson plans to be decidedly boring, traditional and uninspiring. If civics teachers used these AI-generated lesson plans as is, students would miss out on active, engaged learning opportunities to build their understanding of democracy and what it means to be a citizen.

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A potential tragedy was narrowly averted at a Wikipedia conference in Manhattan when two volunteer editors tackled an armed man who stormed the stage and threatened to kill himself during a keynote speech (source paywalled; alternative source). The gunman, who claimed he was protesting Wikipedia's policy banning self-identified pedophiles, was disarmed and taken into custody after community members swiftly intervened. The New York Times reports: The armed man came striding up the aisle at a conference for Wikipedia editors Friday morning in Manhattan, several witnesses said. The man, draped in a multicolored flag, walked onto the stage and stood next to Maryana Iskander, the chief of the nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia, interrupting her speech. He announced that he was going to kill himself. He held a gun near his head and pointed it toward the ceiling. The audience of well over a hundred people panicked. "People started yelling, 'Get down, get down!' and people started ducking behind their chairs," said Bill Adair, a journalism professor who was there and is writing a book on Wikipedia. A man in an orange sweatshirt rushed the stage. He was not in law enforcement, but a Wikipedia contributor on the conference's "trust and safety team": Richard Knipel, the City University of New York's "Wikimedian-in-residence." He grabbed the gunman from behind. Another Wikipedian on the trust and safety team, Andrew Lih, had been standing watch in the aisle and charged forward, too. "I saw the gun he's holding go from pointing up at the ceiling to sweeping down toward the room, and as it swept across me I said 'Oh, my god,' and I ducked down, but I still kept moving" said Mr. Lih, a digital strategist who works with museums and libraries. "I grabbed his arm," he continued. "He was still clutching his gun pretty hard. I pried his fingers away from it, removed it from his hands and put it down." The gun was loaded, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending investigation. In seconds, a potential scene of bloodshed had been averted, a life may have been saved, and two volunteer editors of an online encyclopedia had become unlikely heroes.

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Amazon is investing hundreds of millions into the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, a next-generation small modular reactor project in Richland, Washington, developed with X-energy and Energy Northwest. "The question now is will it be enough to kick off a new wave of U.S. nuclear energy innovation -- a field that America largely soured on by the 1980s?" writes GeekWire. From the report: The facility will be located near Richland, Wash., near Energy Northwest's Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant. The initial goal is to install a cluster of four small modular reactors (SMRs) that can produce up to 320 megawatts of power, but the overall vision is to construct 12 reactors total, with a capacity of nearly one gigawatt. If all the funding, permitting and public support come together, construction should start within the next five years, with the plant coming online in the 2030s. [...] For Amazon, its support of the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility is part of a much bigger initiative. The company has set a goal of deploying 5 gigawatts of nuclear power in the U.S. by 2039. "One thing that Amazon does well is scale technology," said Brandon Oyer, Amazon Web Services' head of power and water for North and South America. "We've done this over and over again ... We'll go and make an investment and then learn how to scale that up, drive out cost, make it more readily available." Targeting SMRs for amplification was a "natural fit," Oyer added. The company believes nuclear aligns with its climate ambitions. Amazon matches all of its electricity use with clean power and is the largest corporate purchaser of wind, solar and other renewable sources. That said, it is struggling to cut its carbon footprint to reach a goal of net-zero emissions by 2040 as the AI-boom stokes energy use. Amazon reported that its carbon footprint grew by 6% last year. Amazon has dibs on half of the 320 megawatts of electricity that will be generated by the first four reactors at the Washington site, but will take all of it if the power prices are too high for local utilities to afford. Cullen said that if everything goes well with the initial phase, it would be straightforward to build the other eight reactors as the permits will encompass the complete build out. The added reactors would produce enough electricity for about one million homes and should come at a lower cost. "Amazon recognizes the role they can -- and are willing -- to play," Cullen said. The company can take some of the early risk and bring that catalytic capital, he said, which is "every, very difficult for utilities to do."

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Hackers breached financial services firm Prosper, stealing the personal data of roughly 17.6 million people, including Social Security numbers, income details, and government IDs. "We have evidence that confidential, proprietary, and personal information, including Social Security Numbers, was obtained, including through unauthorized queries made on Company databases that store customer information and applicant data. We will be offering free credit monitoring as appropriate after we determine what data was affected," the company says. "The investigation is still in its very early stages, but resolving this incident is our top priority and we are committed to sharing additional information with our customers as appropriate." BleepingComputer reports: Prosper operates as a peer-to-peer lending marketplace that has helped over 2 million customers secure more than $30 billion in loans since its founding in 2005. As the company disclosed one month ago on a dedicated page, the breach was detected on September 2, but Prosper has yet to find evidence that the attackers gained access to customer accounts and funds. However, the attackers stole data belonging to Prosper customers and loan applicants. The company hasn't shared what information was exposed beyond Social Security numbers because it's still investigating what data was affected. Prosper added that the security breach didn't impact its customer-facing operations and that it has reported the incident to relevant authorities and is collaborating with law enforcement to investigate the attack. [...] The stolen information also includes customers' names, government-issued IDs, employment status, credit status, income levels, dates of birth, physical addresses, IP addresses, and browser user agent details. Have I Been Pwned revealed the extent of the incident on Thursday.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Hyperscale datacenters stateside will consume 22 percent more grid power by the end of 2025 than a year ago, and are forecast to need nearly three times as much electricity by the end of the decade. Warnings about datacenters' rising energy draw are coming thick and fast of late, and this latest one from 451 Research (now a part of S&P Global) comes with figures and cautions about how fast this change may occur and what grid resources will be required to meet it. The bit barn building boom is largely fueled by estimated demand for new machine learning models, which require highly configured servers packed with power-hungry GPUs to develop and train. The power and cooling infrastructure required also mean it is easier to build a new facility rather than attempt to retrofit an existing one. As a consequence, utility power to datacenters in America is estimated to jump 11.3 GW to 61.8 GW by the end of this year. 451 calculates this will rise again to 75.8 GW in 2026, then 108 GW in 2028, before hitting 134.4 GW by 2030. These figures also exclude enterprise-owned facilities, only considering those of the hyperscale tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, alongside leased and crypto-mining sites. The research identifies Virginia and Texas as the two states with by far the highest requirement for bit barn energy supplies in the US this year. 451 forecasts that Virginia's datacenter load, made up of leased and hyperscale facilities, will reach 12.1 GW in 2025, up from 9.3 GW last year. In Texas, demand is driven by cryptomining and leased capacity, and is slated to hit 9.7 GW this year, from less than 8 GW previously. However, the search for an optimum location is seeing datacenter operators explore emerging markets such as Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma and smaller cities in West Texas, looking for "stranded power" and alternative energy generation opportunities, the report says.

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Apple has struck a five-year, $750 million deal to become the exclusive U.S. home for Formula 1 starting in 2026. "Apple is paying a significant premium over the $90 million per year currently paid by ESPN, whose F1 broadcast deal expires at the end of 2025 after holding the rights in the U.S. since 2018," notes Variety. From the report: According to Apple, it will deliver the Formula 1 programming with a "more dynamic and elevated viewing experience," and both parties expressed optimism that the deal will attract new motorsports fans in America in the years ahead. The company is rebranding the video-streaming service, which launched in 2019 as Apple TV+, to remove the plus sign. It's another big move by Apple into sports, which also has streaming deals with MLB and Major League Soccer. The F1 agreement and follows Apple's partnership with Formula 1 for original film "F1 The Movie," starring Brad Pitt, which raked in $629 million worldwide at the box office this year -- the highest-grossing sports movie of all time and Pitt's highest-grossing feature to date. "F1 The Movie" will debut on Apple TV on Dec. 12, 2025.

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Amazon's Ring has announced a partnership with Flock Safety, the AI-powered camera network already used by ICE, the Secret Service, and other federal agencies. "Now agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with 'evidence collection and investigative work,'" reports TechCrunch. From the report: Flock cameras work by scanning the license plates and other identifying information about cars they see. Flock's government and police customers can also make natural language searches of their video footage to find people who match specific descriptions. However, AI-powered technology used by law enforcement has been proven to exacerbate racial biases. On the same day that Ring announced this partnership, 404 Media reported that ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy had access to Flock's network of cameras. By partnering with Ring, Flock could potentially access footage from millions more cameras.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Texas is being sued by a Big Tech lobby group over the state's new law that will require app stores to verify users' ages and impose restrictions on users under 18. "The Texas App Store Accountability Act imposes a broad censorship regime on the entire universe of mobile apps," the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) said yesterday in a lawsuit (PDF). "In a misguided attempt to protect minors, Texas has decided to require proof of age before anyone with a smartphone or tablet can download an app. Anyone under 18 must obtain parental consent for every app and in-app purchase they try to download -- from ebooks to email to entertainment." The CCIA said in a press release that the law violates the First Amendment by imposing "a sweeping age-verification, parental consent, and compelled speech regime on both app stores and app developers." When app stores determine that a user is under 18, "the law prohibits them from downloading virtually all apps and software programs and from making any in-app purchases unless their parent consents and is given control over the minor's account," the CCIA said. "Minors who are unable to link their accounts with a parent's or guardian's, or who do not receive permission, would be prohibited from accessing app store content." The law requires app developers "to 'age-rate' their content into several subcategories and explain their decision in detail," and "notify app stores in writing every time they improve or modify the functions, features, or user experience of their apps," the group said. The lawsuit says the age-rating system relies on a "vague and unworkable set of age categories." "Our Constitution forbids this," the lawsuit said. "None of our laws require businesses to 'card' people before they can enter bookstores and shopping malls. The First Amendment prohibits such oppressive laws as much in cyberspace as it does in the physical world." The lawsuit was filed in US District Court for the Western District of Texas. CCIA members include Apple and Google, which have both said the law would reduce privacy for app users. The companies recently described their plans to comply, saying they would take steps to minimize the privacy risks.

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