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Google is living up to its word and posting warning labels for battery-killing apps. 9to5Google spotted Google's rollout announcement, which the company previously said would arrive on March 1.
The label says, "This app may use more battery than expected due to high background activity." If you don't yet see the warnings, they may not have reached you yet. Google says the banners will "roll out gradually to impacted apps" in the coming weeks.
Play Store battery warningGoogleWarning labels aren't the only stick in Google's fight against infringing apps. They may also be excluded from discovery services like Play Store recommendations.
Google's definition of battery-draining apps centers around Android's "partial wake lock" mechanism. This service allows an app to keep the phone's processor running even while the screen is off. There are logical exceptions where apps do need this: audio playback, location access, etc. But the company apparently sees too many abusing that API for other reasons. And Google wouldn't want people to assume the problem is with the hardware and switch to an iPhone — because then we're talking about money.
If you're a developer, Google's
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We've known Apple would follow up its blockbuster film F1: The Movie with live coverage of F1 races in 2026. Now that we're approaching the first grand prix weekend of the year, the company has provided details on what fans can expect to see inside the Apple TV app and beyond.
There's already a dedicated F1 channel in the Apple TV app, which is where you'll stream races live when the time comes. You can also watch practice sessions, sprint races and both pre- and post-race coverage. Apple offers a number of additional F1 videos there (I'd recommend watching the one on the new rules) and you'll be able to stream the latest season of Drive To Survive on Apple TV as well.
Apple will offer the F1 TV feed as the main broadcast alongside the Sky Sports feed for all races. If you'll recall, ESPN used to show the Sky Sports feed with Sky's commentary team for its coverage of F1. Apple says it'll broadcast every grand prix in 4K (Dolby Vision) with 5.1 audio (no mention of Dolby Atmos).
As part of Apple's deal with F1, Apple TV subscribers get F1 TV Premium for the 2026 season. This gives you access to things like onboard cameras, team radios and live telemetry in
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Who needs Half-Life 3 or Beyond Good & Evil 2? Roku, in an attempt to gamify content discovery on its platform, has cooked up a gaming announcement for the ages. Behold: Roklue. Yes, that's a real name that someone with a job title and (likely high) salary came up with.
Roklue (shudder) will quiz players on "the movies and TV shows that everyone is talking about," along with classic "beloved favorites." When it references a movie or show, it will provide a link for you to tune in on your device. The initial version is an Oscar season tie-in ("Roklue: Awards Season") that debuts on Saturday. This inaugural version is produced by B17 Entertainment, a Sony-owned company.
Roku says it will rotate thematic content throughout the year. Variety reports that those will center around music festivals, the Emmys and holidays.
Apart from that name, which should come with a gag-reflex warning, Roklue sounds harmless enough. You play a trivia game to find new stuff to stream; Roku grows its engagement. Win-win. But with corporate schemes like this, it's always worth wondering where further monetization might eventually come into play. Think something like linking to series on platforms you don't yet subscribe to. (Hello, kickback.)
On March 7, you'll fi
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Today the White House announced that several major players in tech and AI have agreed to steps that will keep electricity costs from rising due to data centers. Under this Ratepayer Protection Pledge, companies are agreeing to practices that are intended to protect residents from seeing higher electricity costs as more and more businesses create power-hungry data centers. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI have all apparently signed on. A few of the participants — Amazon, Google and Meta — had conveniently timed press releases patting themselves on the back for their participation and touting whatever other policies they have for mitigating the negative impacts of data center construction.
The main provisions of the federal pledge have tech companies agreeing to "build, bring, or buy the new generation resources and electricity needed to satisfy their new energy demands, paying the full cost of those resources." It also claims they will pay for any needed power infrastructure upgrades and operate under separate rate structures for power that will see payments
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Anthropic is aiming to lure customers from ChatGPT and Gemini with a new memory import tool that's available to free users as of today. Conversations and memories from other AI providers can be imported into Claude, so new users will not need to start from scratch.
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