Disney agreed to $50M settlement over claims it made live-TV streaming expensive

Disney agreed to $50M settlement over claims it made live-TV streaming expensive

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay $50 million to subscribers of YouTube TV and DirecTV’s live TV streaming services to settle a lawsuit that claimed that Disney forced these services to raise their prices.

In November 2022, four YouTube TV subscribers filed a class action complaint (PDF) against Disney in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. They accused Disney of entering “anticompetitive agreements with YouTube TV” and other companies that provide access to broadcast channels via the Internet.

The complaint argued that Disney forced over-the-top (OTT) live TV services to cost more by requiring distributors to include ESPN, which Disney owns, with their base packages.

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Experimental wine bottle tracks oxygen moving through the cork

Experimental wine bottle tracks oxygen moving through the cork

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

Most people perceive a cork in a bottle of wine as a simple plug meant to keep the liquid in and the outside world out. In the recent study published in Science Advances, a team of French scientists demonstrated the cork is way more than that. By regulating the oxygen transfer into and out of the wine bottle, it works almost as another ingredient.

“Twenty years ago, our group focused on the oxidation and aging of wine and all its parameters,” Thomas Karbowiak said. “Oxygen diffusion through cork stoppers is one of these parameters.” Karbowiak is a chemist at the University of Burgundy, France, and the senior author of the study.

The mini-bottle experiment

Oxidation is one of the key drivers of wine aging. A slow, limited ingress of oxygen helps wine mature, smoothing out harsh tannins and bringing out an aromatic complexity. But when too much oxygen gets into the bottle too quickly, it can make the wine stale, brownish in color, and unpleasant to drink. That’s because it will also react with alcohol and phenols in the same process that makes a cut apple turn brown.

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Google starts lowering Play Store fees, making good on Epic Games settlement

Google starts lowering Play Store fees, making good on Epic Games settlement

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding.

Until a few years ago, Google followed an Apple-like approach to app store billing, charging most developers a 30 percent commission for transactions in the Play Store. That was the only option, too. Directing users to make purchases outside the store was not allowed, and that's what got Epic in hot water in 2020. Epic added cheaper external billing to the Android and iOS versions of Fortnite, getting the game pulled from both stores and prompting a lawsuit.

Apple managed to (mostly) win its case, but Google tripped up in how it tried to control the Play Store while keeping a more open appearance. The judge in the case was set to impose some dramatic remedies in 2024, including forcing Google to distribute third-party app stores in Google Play. The settlement, which Google has noted will end its dispute with Epic globally, doesn't go that far. However, developers are about to get the promised fee reductions.

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White House app auto-downloads to government phones, can't be uninstalled

White House app auto-downloads to government phones, can't be uninstalled

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

In May, the White House announced that its new app would be automatically downloaded onto the work phones of millions of government employees. The problem: Federal workers hate it and can’t get rid of it.

Employees of the US Department of Agriculture, the State Department, and the Department of Labor, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, say that they were disturbed when the app appeared on their phones. Some attempted to delete it, but to no avail.

“I deleted it as a test and it came immediately back,” says an employee from the USDA.

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White House drastically shortens deadline for dropping quantum-vulnerable crypto

White House drastically shortens deadline for dropping quantum-vulnerable crypto

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

The White House is drastically shortening the deadline for government agencies and organizations to adopt new quantum-resistant encryption systems that will withstand attacks that use quantum computers, as the federal government seeks to protect decades’ worth of secrets belonging to militaries, banks, governments, and most individuals on Earth.

The executive order, titled Securing the Nation against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks, requires computing systems for “high-value assets” and “high-impact systems” to transition to post-quantum cryptographic key establishment schemes by December 31, 2030, and to quantum-safe digital signature schemes by December 31, 2031.

Heading off a significant threat

The new deadline, which for many organizations is about five years sooner than the previous one, comes on the heels of recent research showing that the resources and cost for building a cryptographically relevant quantum computer are far less than previous consensus estimates. In response, Google, Cloudflare, and other companies recently tightened their timelines for moving off vulnerable systems to 2029.

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US's climate.gov site, taken down by Trump, relaunched by nonprofit

US's climate.gov site, taken down by Trump, relaunched by nonprofit

fivenewscrypto    juin 25, 2026   

Over decades, researchers in the US government and programs it sponsored built up a tremendous number of climate resources, from comprehensive analyses to massive datasets to basic explainers meant to inform the public. And people within the government built the climate.gov website to make it all accessible. But if you try to navigate there today, you get redirected to the climate page of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and are greeted with the following message:

In compliance with Executive Order 14303 (“Restoring Gold Standard Science”), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s June 23, 2025 Memorandum (“Agency Guidance for Implementing Gold Standard Science in the Conduct & Management of Scientific Activities”), 15 USC § 2904 (“National Climate Program”), 15 USC § 2934 (“National Global Change Research Plan”), and 33 USC § 893a (“NOAA Ocean and Atmospheric Science Education Programs”), you have been redirected to NOAA.gov. Future research products previously housed under Climate.gov will be available at NOAA.gov/climate and its affiliate websites.

Climate.gov was essentially gone, and the team that deleted implied that it happened because climate research somehow failed to uphold what the administration was calling "gold standard science."

But the people who put together climate.gov didn't go away. While the government didn't hesitate to delete inconvenient climate information, dedicated volunteers outside the government managed to preserve copies of much of the material, which the federal government is prohibited from copyrighting. The volunteers and former climate.gov admins got together and launched climate.us. On Tuesday, the team announced that it had completed the project to restore everything lost when climate.gov shut down.

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Odd police video shows drone removing knife from motionless suspect

Odd police video shows drone removing knife from motionless suspect

fivenewscrypto    juin 24, 2026   

In a supposed “nationwide first” use of drones to disarm a person, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office in California promoted a video showing how a small quadcopter drone used a dangling magnet to remove a knife from the hand of a motionless suspect.

The promotional video shared to Facebook and Instagram on June 22, 2026, uses the Mission: Impossible film franchise theme to dramatize video footage of the incident that took place earlier in the month, which involved what the video describes as a “felony suspect armed with a knife and a firearm” who “was not responding to negotiators.” The sheriff’s office is just one among hundreds of US police departments and sheriff’s offices that have deployed camera-equipped drones to assist first responders.

In a Facebook post, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office described having surrounded the suspect’s residence with a SWAT team after the “known felon and parolee-at-large was seen earlier with a firearm.” A first drone deployed to the scene located the suspect hiding in a corner of the garage, but also spotted the motionless suspect holding a knife in one outstretched arm.

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