Venture through the afterlife of the gods while playing as Faye.

Today’s Liverpool vs Sunderland live streams signal the start of a new era at Anfield, as Andoni Iraola takes charge of his first game as Reds manager in this pre-season friendly at Geodis Park, Nashville.

The Spaniard was appointed last month following a hugely successful three-year spell at Bournemouth, culminating in a club-record sixth-place finish in the Premier League that saw the Cherries qualify for Europe for the first time. However, expectations are very different at Liverpool, who ended last season one position above Bournemouth but still sacked previous manager Arne Slot, despite the Dutchman leading them to the title 12 months earlier. Iraola’s initial 31-man squad for the US tour, which also includes games against Wrexham and Leeds, features new signing Jeremy Jacquet and the 20-year-old centre back could get his first outing in red against Sunderland.

Roku built its streaming player business around a simple proposition: spend relatively little money, plug one into an HDMI port and escape whatever miserable interface came installed on the television.

That escape route just became considerably more expensive.

Roku has raised the U.S. list prices of its entire standalone streaming lineup, with the Roku Ultra increasing from $99.99 to $149.99 and the Streaming Stick 4K climbing from $49.99 to $79.99. The hardware has not been redesigned, and Roku has not announced new features to soften the blow. You are paying more for the same streamer because the AI industry has apparently reached the television stand.

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New Roku Streaming Player Prices

The new U.S. list prices are:

The Streaming Stick 4K receives the largest percentage increase at approximately 60%, while the Ultra and Streambar SE each rise by 50%. 

Roku is temporarily discounting several products back to their previous prices through its online store, while Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers may continue selling remaining inventory at the older figures until it is replenished. That makes the current sale more useful than the usual countdown clock designed to create panic over a remote control. 

Why Is Roku Raising Prices?

A Roku executive told The Desk that shortages involving memory and other components forced the company to increase prices. Manufacturers have shifted more production capacity toward higher margin chips used by AI data centers, tightening supplies of the less glamorous components found inside streaming players, televisions and other consumer electronics. 

The timing is slightly awkward.

Only in May, Roku CEO Anthony Wood argued that Roku OS required less memory than competing platforms, giving the company a bill of materials advantage as component costs increased. Wood described the situation as “generally great for our business.” Less than three months later, the Roku Ultra costs another $50. 

Roku’s hardware business has never been the company’s largest source of profit. The devices place Roku OS inside more homes, where Roku earns money from advertising, subscriptions, transactions and The Roku Channel. Device revenue fell 16% during the first quarter of 2026, while the platform business generated more than 90% of company income. 

That makes these increases more surprising. Inexpensive hardware has always been the front door to Roku’s considerably more lucrative advertising business.

The front door now has a cover charge.

Are Buyers Getting Anything New?

No.

The current Roku Streaming Stick 4K still supports 4K/60Hz video, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG, long range dual band Wi Fi and Dolby encoded audio passthrough. It remains a compact and easy to use streamer, but the specifications are unchanged from the model that cost $49.99 last week. 

The Roku Ultra continues to offer HDMI 2.1, Wi Fi 6, Ethernet, USB playback, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Dolby Atmos and the rechargeable Voice Remote Pro. Those features made sense at $99.99 and earned the Ultra a clear position above Roku’s sticks. At $149.99, the competition becomes much harder to ignore. 

How Do the New Prices Compare?

The $79.99 Roku Streaming Stick 4K now costs twice as much as Amazon’s $39.99 Fire TV Stick 4K Select, which supports 4K and HDR10+ but omits Dolby Vision. Amazon’s $34.99 Fire TV Stick HD also undercuts Roku’s new $39.99 HD model. 

The Google TV Streamer 4K costs $99.99, only $20 more than Roku’s Streaming Stick 4K. Google includes 32GB of storage, 4GB of memory, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, Ethernet, smart home controls and Gemini for TV. It is not as small or portable, but it now looks like the stronger value for a primary home theater system. 

The Roku Ultra remains less expensive than the Apple TV 4K, which now starts at $199, but the gap has narrowed to $49. Apple offers a faster A15 Bionic processor, 64GB of storage, stronger gaming performance, HomeKit integration and tight compatibility with AirPods, HomePods and other Apple hardware. 

Roku still has important advantages. Its interface remains easier to navigate than Fire TV, the platform is broadly neutral about which service receives prominence, and its search and free television offerings are useful. Roku also supports Apple AirPlay, HomeKit, Alexa and Google Home.

The problem is that simplicity feels less persuasive when the simple box costs $150.

Who Should Buy One?

Existing Roku users who value the familiar interface and want another player for a bedroom or secondary television should look for remaining inventory at the old prices.

The Streaming Stick Plus remains the most sensible model for ordinary 4K televisions when discounted to $39.99. Buyers who need Dolby Vision should consider the Streaming Stick 4K, but $79.99 is difficult to recommend when the Google TV Streamer costs only $20 more.

The Ultra still makes sense for users who need Ethernet, USB playback, Wi-Fi 6 and Roku’s best remote. At $149.99, however, it is no longer the automatic premium Roku choice it was at $99.99.

The Bottom Line

Roku has not ruined its streaming players. It has damaged the value proposition that made them so easy to recommend. The interface remains approachable, the app support is extensive and the hardware continues to work well. None of that changed when the price tags did.

The Streaming Stick 4K moving from $49.99 to $79.99 is the hardest increase to defend, while the $149.99 Ultra now sits uncomfortably between the more capable $99.99 Google TV Streamer and the considerably more powerful $199 Apple TV 4K.

Roku says component shortages are responsible, and there is ample evidence that AI infrastructure is consuming memory production that once supplied ordinary consumer products. That does not mean buyers need to accept the first new price they see.

Purchase remaining inventory at the old price, wait for the inevitable promotion or compare the alternatives carefully. Roku may still offer one of the cleanest ways to stream television, but cleanliness apparently costs another $10 to $50 now.

Price & Availability

The new Roku list prices are effective now in the United States.

Roku is currently offering temporary discounts on selected players that return them to their former prices. Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers may also have remaining inventory available at the previous prices.

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TikTok might have failed to meet EU standards for child safety online.

Allowing content posted by minors to be pushed on TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed could be a violation of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Commission has said.

On TikTok, minors can choose to have a public-facing profile. According to EU preliminary findings, this setting enables content published by 16- and 17-year-olds to be algorithmically recommended worldwide.

Exposure like this could result in unwanted contact from bad actors or increase the risk of cyberbullying, the EU said.

The Commission launched formal proceedings into TikTok’s compliance with the DSA in early 2024, which also probed the platform’s potential addictive design and access to data, and resulted in negative preliminary results.

A different line of investigation into the company’s advertising transparency was closed through binding commitments last December.

Today’s (24 July) results are based on an analysis of TikTok’s interface, internal data and documents, as well as interviews with law enforcement officers and child protection experts, according to the Commission.

Content uploaded to the internet is rarely ever removed completely, and the EU said that minors risk lifelong consequences if their content is widely circulated online.

It further said that minors can be easily found through the ‘following’ and ‘followers’ lists of other users even when their accounts are set to ‘private’. Their profile photos also remain accessible to anyone on the internet, including users without a TikTok account.

Under the DSA, platforms accessible to minors must ensure a high level of privacy and safety. TikTok might be failing to meet these standards, the EU said.

The company is up for massive fines of up to 6pc of its global annual turnover if it is ultimately found to be in breach of the law.

The EU wants TikTok to adjust the default settings of minors’ ‘public’ accounts, so that their content is, by default, only visible to those who follow the minor user.

Older minors can have the option of a public-facing account, but their content should never be accessible to a global audience, the Commission warned, arguing that TikTok should not recommend minors’ content to other TikTok users through the For You feed.

“Minors deserve a safe experience from the moment they go online,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy. “A high level of protection should not be an opt-in – it should be the default.”

The investigation, now ongoing for more than two years, also covers the ‘rabbit-hole effect’ of TikTok’s recommender systems and the negative consequences of age-inappropriate experiences on the platform. These probes are still underway.

“Under-18 accounts are private by default and we are one of the only platforms where younger teens cannot use direct messaging or have their content eligible to appear in the For You feed,” a TikTok spokesperson told SiliconRepublic.com.

The ByteDance-owned company said it would continue to engage constructively with the Commission.

TikTok accounts of users under 18 are automatically set to private, the company said, noting that users must be at least 16 to use direct messaging or have their content eligible to appear in the For You feed.

The company also said that it does not recommend accounts belonging to teens to users over 18. It said that users can only find private accounts of minors using ‘followers’ lists if the minor has chosen to make the list public instead of private.

Governments worldwide are cracking down on social media platforms to protect children from online harms, with Australia becoming the first country to blanket-ban major platforms for children under 16.

The EU, has, for years, targeted social media giants for their addictive designs, recommender system feeds and child safety measures with its landmark DSA that carries a hefty penalty for offenders.

The bloc is now considering age-gating sites as a means to address the wider concerns surrounding social media usage by children. France, earlier this week, became the first EU country to ban social media for under-15s.

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Qobuz has never had much trouble convincing audiophiles that it sounds good. Convincing them that its app was equally polished has occasionally required a more generous interpretation of the word “polished.”

The latest Qobuz mobile update addresses that problem with a redesigned player for iOS and Android, adding synchronized lyrics, lyric translations, improved queue management and more direct access to recommendations, credits, artist biographies and album descriptions. Version 10.0 reached Apple devices this week, followed by version 10.0.1, while the same feature set is now listed through Google Play. 

What Is New?

The redesigned player adds:

• Time synchronized lyrics
• Lyric translations where available
• Recommendations directly from the playback screen
• Faster access to song credits
• Artist biographies and album descriptions
• Autoplay controls
• Swipe gestures
• Simplified queue management

The new interface keeps more of Qobuz’s editorial and metadata features close to the music rather than sending listeners through several menus to discover who played bass, produced the album or wrote the review. 

That may sound like routine housekeeping, but Qobuz users have waited a long time for built-in lyrics. Until now, anyone determined to follow along had to use a third-party service or remember the words, which becomes increasingly unreliable somewhere after the second verse.

Lyrics Are Not Unique, but the Context Is

Apple Music and Spotify already offer synchronized lyrics and translations, so Qobuz is not inventing a new category.

What makes the update more interesting is how lyrics now sit beside the service’s existing editorial material, detailed credits, album reviews, biographies and high-resolution playback. Qobuz is trying to create a richer listening screen rather than merely enlarging the album cover and placing another AI button underneath it.

That approach fits the platform. Qobuz has consistently emphasized human curation and music journalism, with more than 500,000 pieces of editorial content alongside a catalog of more than 100 million lossless and high-resolution tracks. 

Spotify remains stronger at social discovery and algorithmic recommendations. Apple Music integrates more naturally across Apple hardware. Qobuz’s advantage is that it still behaves as though listeners may want to know something about the album beyond whether the algorithm believes it is suitable for Tuesday afternoon.

Why Should Qobuz Users Care?

The new player reduces friction.

Listeners can examine lyrics, translations, credits, biographies and recommendations without constantly leaving the playback screen. Better queue controls and visible autoplay settings should also make it easier to understand what the app intends to play next, which has not always been one of streaming software’s great acts of transparency.

The update becomes more useful when paired with Qobuz Connect. A phone or tablet can serve as the control interface while compatible streamers, amplifiers and powered speakers pull the lossless or high-resolution stream directly from Qobuz. The mobile app therefore matters even when the phone is not the device producing the sound. 

Qobuz Connect now supports more than 100 hardware and software partners, making the quality of the mobile control experience far more important than it was when listeners often had to use a manufacturer’s own app. 

What Is Still Missing?

The update improves playback and discovery, but it does not solve every Qobuz weakness.

The service still trails Spotify and Apple Music in social features, collaborative listening and some forms of personalized discovery. Lyric availability and translations will also depend on the underlying catalog data, so users should not expect every obscure jazz pressing or regional release to suddenly become karaoke-ready.

Qobuz has also described this as a mobile redesign. Desktop and connected television users should not assume they are receiving the same interface immediately.

The Bottom Line

Qobuz did not need another audio-quality logo. It needed a better player.

Synchronized lyrics and translations bring the service closer to feature parity with Apple Music and Spotify, while the improved queue controls, credits and editorial access play directly to Qobuz’s actual strengths.

The update is not revolutionary, but it makes the app easier to use and gives subscribers more information without turning every listening session into a conversation with an AI assistant.

For a service that charges $12.99 monthly or an effective $10.83 per month with an annual Studio Solo subscription, that is a more convincing improvement than simply raising the price and blaming licensing costs. 

Availability

The redesigned Qobuz player is available now through the latest Qobuz apps for iOS, iPadOS and Android. Try Qobuz for free.

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Meta has announced Facebook Verified, a free badge that will be visible on a user’s profile and is designed to confirm whether that user is a real person or an AI without actually checking that a user is who they say they are.

The new badge is separate from Meta’s existing Meta Verified program and is available to eligible Facebook users who are 18 or older. Users must also be in good standing with Facebook’s community standards before they can be verified.

Alongside profiles, Facebook users will also be able to see a person’s verified status in the Marketplace, Facebook Dating, and Facebook Groups initially. However, Meta has confirmed that it intends to bring the badges to the main feed in the future.

Free, basic verification

Importantly, unlike Meta Verified, Facebook Verified doesn’t require a subscription and is available absolutely free. Users only need to complete the verification process once.

The verification process itself requires Facebook users to record a short selfie video. Facebook then uses the video to check the person’s appearance against their existing profile photos to confirm a match. The process should take just a few minutes.

However, it’s important to know what Facebook Verified actually verifies. Meta says that it means a profile belongs to a real person, not an AI.

Facebook Verified does not necessarily mean that the person is who they say they are. That’s an important distinction to remember when using Facebook from here on out.

Meta says that Facebook Verified will roll out in phases, starting with “select markets.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t confirmed which markets those are.