• After four years, we finally get a second Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer
• Disney characters were few and far between, but two worlds were teased
• We also didn’t get a release date

It’s tough being a Kingdom Hearts fan. The series is an all-time great, but if its platform-hopping origins weren’t frustrating enough — with entries exclusive to different consoles and even different regions for a while — we must now face the fact that Square Enix loves taking its time between entries, and between a new game’s announcement and release.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was first showcased around five and a half years before its release, and it seemed Kingdom Hearts 4 might take just as long between merely its first and second trailers. That is, until we got a brand new look at the game at Nintendo Direct, saving this year’s Summer Game Fest event for me just as I had conceded the Disney meets Final Fantasy crossover would be absent yet again.

Frequent flyers and road warriors often rely on over-ear headphones to carve out personal space amid engine noise, terminal chatter, and crowded gates. Apple’s second-generation AirPods Max 2, priced at $499 (was $549), deliver a focused set of refinements that address several everyday frustrations from the first model, particularly for people who spend serious time in motion. The updates center on stronger noise blocking, modern connectivity, and software features that respond to real travel moments without demanding extra effort.

Anyone who has been stuck on a long journey knows how a low-frequency motor hum can wear down even the best intentions to sleep or focus. The new H2 chip considerably increases active noise cancellation, cutting through the seemingly never-ending drone more efficiently. User’s real-world tests show that it can handle airline engines, street noise, and general chat-din slightly better, allowing you to relax and listen to a podcast or your favorite music without being bothered by the background noise. That’s where Adaptive Audio comes in, as it works with the new chip to provide a little more awareness where it counts, eliminating the need to constantly switch between modes as the environment changes.

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Even with noise cancellation set on, the battery life lasts up to 20 hours, which is adequate for most cross-country flights or days spent bouncing between gates. On the other hand, if you are without power outlets for an extended period of time, a simple 5 minute charge will provide you with an additional 1 and a half hours of battery life, as well as the extra convenience of the Smart Case. When you put the headphones in a bag for storage, this device automatically changes them to an ultra-low-power mode, ensuring that they are ready to use even after days in a travel bag.

Using USB-C has a huge impact on the road. There’s no need to look for the right adapters; simply plug in a power bank, a laptop, or an airplane port and you’re set. When you plug it in, it unlocks lossless music at 24-bit / 48 kHz and ultra-low latency, making it ideal for wired listening to a laptop or a compatible entertainment system without the audio being affected by Bluetooth compression.

The new microphones and H2-powered tools also serve to improve the less glamorous parts of travel. Calls are clearer even in extremely busy airports or during boarding, and the new Conversation Awareness feature automatically reduces the level when it detects someone speaking close by. That function supplements the Live Translation feature, which provides instant language assistance when you’re abroad. The Digital Crown remains the best way to control the volume, skip songs, and access Siri without depending on those awful touch gestures that go haywire in transit.

The sound tuning has been slightly enhanced. The sound profile remains warm and has good bass response, but it does not fatigue after long periods of listening. The new Personalised Spatial Audio feature, which features dynamic head tracking, creates an immersive bubble that can help you pass the time on a long ride. Consistent frequencies and a reliable presentation allow you to easily zone out and listen without worrying about things breaking down after a few hours.

from the that’s-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

California lawmakers are again considering A.B. 412, a bill that would require AI developers to identify and disclose copyrighted works used to train generative AI systems.

The problem this year is the same as last year: it’s practically impossible to comply with this law. The bill demands information that often does not exist, and cannot realistically be obtained. 

EFF submitted an opposition letter to the California Senate Privacy Committee explaining why we continue to believe A.B. 412 is simply unworkable. To the extent developers do follow this law, it will have the effect of locking in the power of the largest companies in AI. 

A Burden That Can’t Be Met

A.B. 412 sounds simple: just have AI developers create and keep a list of all the registered copyrighted works they use in AI training. 

That may seem straightforward. In practice, it’s anything but. 

There is no machine-readable “list” of copyrighted works at the U.S. Copyright Office. And many copyright holders can get a copyright without even depositing a publicly viewable sample of the work—for example, software companies may register copyright on proprietary code without revealing it to the public. 

And on the open internet, copyright information is often incomplete, unavailable, or impossible to verify. One image may be registered with the copyright office, while the next is licensed under a free Creative Commons license (like the images that EFF creates), and the next is public domain. A message forum user might post an original story, photograph, or poem without any indication of ownership or registration status. 

The bill effectively asks developers to continuously cross-reference massive batches of online data against a copyright system that simply wasn’t designed to do so. If California passes A.B. 412, its impact will go far beyond the large AI companies we read about in the headlines. 

Not Just Big Tech

Supporters often frame this bill as a way to help creative workers have some leverage against Big Tech, but the bill reaches much further than the big AI companies. 

Its definition of “developer” extends to anyone who makes a generative AI model available to Californians. That includes indie developers tinkering with an existing model, open-source initiatives, nonprofits, and other non-commercial efforts. Recent amendments added exemptions for universities and government entities, which is important, but that still leaves out a vast swathe of non-commercial tech work that’s done by people without full-time jobs in government or academia. 

Large companies will hire compliance teams and lawyers to navigate these requirements. Smaller organizations and independent developers usually can’t. The result will be fewer opportunities for startups and new entrants. Faced with this massive compliance burden, some won’t even try. 

Courts Are Already Deciding These Questions

The bill is premised on the idea that copyright owners currently don’t have good remedies if they’re mistreated by AI companies. That simply isn’t true. And the growing wave of federal court filings in this space proves it. Content companies that want to sue tech companies, large or small, have no problem doing so. Those courts are still working through important questions about fair use and transformative use. Some courts have already concluded that many AI training activities qualify as fair use. Others continue to evaluate the issue.

California lawmakers should not rush to impose new state regulation while those questions remain unresolved. This is why copyright is governed at the federal level: both creators and fair users benefit from a single set of nationwide rules. 

At this point, the bill remains a solution in search of a problem. Rights holders already have powerful tools to protect their interests under existing federal law. What this bill adds isn’t clarity or transparency, but a costly and essentially impossible compliance burden that will discourage small developers and researchers. 

California has been able to support both artistic creativity and tech innovation for decades now.  But A.B. 412 does not strike the right balance. 

If you are a California resident and interested in speaking out about this bill, you can find and contact your representatives through this website. 

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: ab 412, ai, ai training, california, copyright

Don’t get me wrong — I’m pretty darn excited for a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake. But boy, I would have been so much more excited for a sequel instead.

If you’ve somehow missed it, at the most recent Nintendo Direct, we saw a brief teaser for a Switch 2 version of Ocarina of Time. Admittedly, the brief trailer is light on details — merely showcasing a cinematic intro for the iconic adventure with some voice acting and vastly improved graphics over the Nintendo 64 original — but the promise to return to Hyrule later this year has left many (myself included) ecstatic with the hope this is Zelda’s Resident Evil 2 Remake equivalent.

• Nvidia’s market cap tanked a mammoth 6% following weaker-than-expected guidance from rival chipmaker Broadcom
• The stock erased $330 billion in Nvidia market cap, effectively losing its $5 trillion market cap crown briefly before regaining it in the same session
• The behavior is in line with how high beta, or more volatile, chip and AI-linked stocks, respond to earnings

Nvidia remains the largest stock in the market with a $5 trillion market cap, but recent movements in the market, linked to another stock market darling, Broadcom, may have shaken the belief of some of its key proponents in a market increasingly wary about AI’s lofty valuations in 2026.

Broadcom’s recent earnings report underscored strong performance with in-line forecasts that reaffirmed its positioning as one of the most important chipmakers in a market that continues to pivot resources towards AI.

Jon Prosser’s failure to respond to Apple’s initial lawsuit led to a default ruling against him, but Apple lawyers are willing to give him another shot if the judge approves.

Apple filed a lawsuit against Jon Prosser and Michael Ramacciotti alleging that they conspired to steal information about a pre-release version of iOS. An Apple employee, Ethan Lipnik, was fired after the event where the alleged conspirators accessed his test device.

For whatever reason, Prosser didn’t respond to Apple’s July 2025 lawsuit, leading to a default judgment being placed against him in October 2025. In the time since, Prosser has slowly begun to respond to court orders and has agreed to participate in discovery and deposition.

Since Prosser retained counsel in April and agreed to finally join in on the lawsuit against him, Apple has agreed that the default judgment should be set aside. According to the filing shared by 9to5Mac, Judge Donato has to approve setting the default aside.

If approved, the court will convene on June 16 for Prosser’s deposition. There is no telling what the results of this case will be, but Apple may seek barring Prosser from covering Apple leaks in the future.

Even as this lawsuit has gone on, Prosser has continued to share “leaks” pertaining to Apple, though they seem to be based on existing rumors or speculation. If he had sources before, they don’t appear to be active now.