Technologies

Welcome to the Era of Online Age Verification. Are You Ready to Identify Yourself?

The introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act marks a shift in internet culture, the ripples of which are already being felt around the world.

Last Thursday morning I woke up to find I no longer had access to my messages on social network Bluesky. «You must complete age assurance in order to access this screen,» a pop-up notification told me.

It went on to say the local laws where I live mean that I need to verify I’m an adult to view mature content or send direct messages. I’m based in the UK, and the law Bluesky was referring to is the Online Safety Act, which came into force on Friday.

This piece of legislation requires web companies to ensure that people under the age of 18 don’t have access to harmful content, including porn and material relating to self-harm, suicide and eating disorders. If sites choose to allow this content, they must verify the ages of people using their platforms to confirm that they’re adults. Failure to do so could result in fines of £18 million or 10% of annual revenue, whichever is greater.

«Prioritising clicks and engagement over children’s online safety will no longer be tolerated in the UK,» Melanie Dawes, chief executive of regulator Ofcom, said in a statement. «Our message to tech firms is clear — comply with age-checks and other protection measures set out in our Codes, or face the consequences.»

Over the past few days, free VPNs shot to the top of the UK App Store charts as people have looked for ways to bypass the requirement to verify their ages. It should be noted that using free VPNs comes with it own set of risks, and isn’t recommended by online security experts.

The Online Safety Act might be a UK-specific law, but it affects companies based in the US and around the world, including Bluesky, Reddit, Discord, X, Porn Hub and Grindr — all of which have committed to «age-gating» features to protect young people from stumbling across harmful content.

It’s also emblematic of a bigger shift in internet culture, which is seeing age verification become a mainstream concern across the world. Increasingly, adults who want to keep accessing internet services, from mainstream social networks to porn sites, will have to prove their age. In other words, expect my Bluesky experience to be coming to the internet near you soon.

Earlier this month, the European Commission published an age verification app prototype that will help keep young people safe online in accordance with the EU’s Digital Services Act. We’re also starting to see the ripple effect in the US of the legislation the UK and EU have enacted, says Vaishnavi J, founder of online child safety consultancy Vys. Just last month, the US Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring porn sites to verify the age of all visitors.

«State laws, advocacy campaigns, and growing parental demand in the US are all converging around the need for age assurance,» said J, who previously worked in the policy teams at Meta and Twitter. «Combine that with rapid advances in the tech ecosystem, and it’s no longer a question of if the US adopts age verification, but how and when.»

Safety vs. privacy

The Wild West nature of the internet and the ability to be largely anonymous often blurs the lines between spaces occupied by children and adults in a way that doesn’t happen in the offline world. This means children are often exposed to content many would consider inappropriate or harmful. According to Ofcom’s own research, around 1 in 10 children in the UK between the ages of 8 and 14 have watched online pornography — an activity the new age verification rules are designed to prevent.

Making the internet safer for children might be necessary and admirable, but age verification policies have also come under fire from digital rights and privacy groups.

I’ve been covering the UK’s attempts to bring in age verification since 2016. The government at the time decided it was too difficult and ultimately decided not to push ahead with plans aimed at age-gating porn sites in 2019.

The main objection to the legislation was the same then as it is now. Asking people to share their government-issued identification with private companies poses a threat to their privacy.

«The British public is being forced to hand over sensitive personal data to unregulated age assurance providers if they want to have full access to platforms such as Reddit and Bluesky or to use dating apps such as Grindr,» said James Baker, head of programming at Open Rights Group, in a statement ahead of the Online Safety Act coming into force.

«The threats and harms of phishing and hacking are very real, and will cause people online harms,» he added.

Open Rights Group also criticized the fact that people aren’t being given the right to choose how they verify their age. A number of verification methods exist, including age estimation via video selfie (a method gaming platform Roblox announced it was introducing last week), banking or credit card checks, third-party digital ID services, mobile carrier checks or photo ID matching. It’s up to the individual service which method they want to adopt, which could leave people vulnerable to problematic privacy policies.

As with many internet rules, there’s always some level of tradeoff involved when making the online world safe. In many ways, the idea of age verification is «common sense,» Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, tech policy adviser at NYU’s Stern Business School, wrote in a blog post this week. At the same time, she added, depending on regulations and methods chosen, age verification can introduce serious privacy, security and access risks.

«In some cases, the systems employed are so flawed that they fail to protect minors while also excluding adults who should have lawful access,» said Rosenblat. «Policymakers must understand and carefully weigh these tradeoffs before mandating age verification at scale.»

Many critics of age verification have also argued that verification will be ineffective due to the wide availability of VPNs and teens’ ability to circumvent any rules attempting to limit their internet use.

Whether age verification is truly effective at keeping kids safe online is a question that can only be answered as the Online Safety Act and similar legislation comes into force. In the meantime, I — and possibly you — will need to be prepared to prove our identities and our ages if we’re to continue using the internet in the way we’ve become accustomed to using it.

Technologies

How to Turn Off AI Features on Your Samsung Galaxy Smartphone

Too much AI on your Galaxy phone? Here’s how to disable it.

Samsung is known for throwing virtually every feature imaginable into its smartphones, whether or not you intend to use them. There are countless additional customizations and apps in Galaxy phones that make it a bit overwhelming to figure out what you actually need.

Every new generation of Galaxy phone seems to gain more and more AI features that you may not find useful. Luckily, you can remove nearly anything you don’t want on your Samsung phone.

Whether you just want to turn off some of the AI features on your Galaxy smartphone or you want to disable them completely, we’ll show you how to do that below.

How to turn off Galaxy AI services

Some of the features that smartphones can do using AI are undeniably cool. If you like some of them but don’t want AI everywhere, Samsung will allow you to pick and choose what to take advantage of.

To turn off AI for individual services:

Go to Settings.
Tap Galaxy AI.
Select the service to disable.
Tap the toggle to Off.

You’ll see a list of the services that form Galaxy AI. You can choose the apps for which you want to turn AI on or off from here.

If you’re more privacy-minded but still want to take advantage of Galaxy AI features, there’s a toggle at the bottom of this screen that will limit AI from sending anything to the cloud and keep data processing on your device only. Going for this option will disable some AI features altogether that require the internet to process, and the results may be less useful.

Goodbye, Bixby

Bixby, the Samsung digital assistant that you may not even realize is on your phone, is something that you’ll want to disable if you’re trying to tame the AI on your Galaxy device.

Luckily, Samsung has a way for you to replace Bixby with another voice assistant of your choosing. For all intents and purposes, Google Assistant will be your best bet, even if it will eventually be replaced by Google’s advanced AI assistant somewhere down the road.

It’s likely already installed on your phone, but you may need to redownload the Google app if you uninstalled it or never had it.

Go to Settings.
Tap Apps.
Tap Default apps.
Tap Digital assistant app.
Tap Google.

That’s it. Now, when you trigger your voice assistant, you’ll be greeted by Google Assistant instead of the AI-powered Bixby.

Technologies

How to Watch the February 2026 Pokemon Presents Livestream

Celebrate Pokemon Day with the latest and greatest announcements from the world of pocket monsters.

We are just a day away from the annual celebration of all things Pokemon. The Pokemon Day event starts tomorrow morning and should be chock full of free goodies and exciting game reveals for creature-collecting fans across the world. Considering the juggernaut franchise is celebrating its 30th anniversary, it’s safe to assume there will be juicy information included in the next Pokemon Presents stream.

There’s plenty of excitement leading up to the main event. Pokemon TCG Pocket just released the Paldean Wonders card set expansion, and The Pokemon Company revealed that FireRed and LeafGreen are getting Switch ports with Pokemon Home compatibility. Now the stage is set for The Pokemon Company to reveal new mainline Pokemon games for the Switch and Switch 2.

Here’s when The Pokemon Company goes live with its first Pokemon Presents stream of the year, setting audience expectations for what we can expect to see from the world of pocket monsters in 2026.

What time is the Pokemon Presents stream on Pokemon Day?

The first Pokemon Presents livestream of the year takes place tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 27. The show begins bright and early for American audiences, so you’ll have to avoid sleeping in if you want to keep up with the latest announcements.

Here’s when Friday’s Pokemon Day livestream begins in your time zone:

ET: 9 a.m.

CT: 8 a.m.

MT: 7 a.m.

PT: 6 a.m.

How to watch the February Pokemon Presents livestream

The Pokemon Company is responsible for the Pokemon Presents livestreams, which means you can view the announcement through any of its social media channels.

While I recommend watching the stream on The Pokemon Company’s YouTube or Twitch channels, you can also keep up with the announcements on TikTok. Regular updates will also be posted to the company’s Instagram account throughout the event.

What will be announced on Pokemon Day 2026?

It’s safe to assume that the February Pokemon Presents livestream will feature some long-anticipated reveals, since 2026 is a big year for the Pokemon brand.

The livestream marks the 30th anniversary of Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green (the original Pokemon games for the Game Boy) releasing in Japan. We know the stream will be roughly 25 minutes long, making one of the longest Pokemon Presents showcases ever.

I suspect the livestream will serve as a victory lap celebrating Pokemon’s cultural impact before pivoting to the future and showing fans what’s coming next.

And what treats are in store for tomorrow’s event? I expect to see updates and freebies for Pokemon mobile games first, since these are some of the big moneymakers. If this Pokemon Day presentation mirrors the one from last year, we’ll be treated to some goodies in Pokemon Go, Pokemon Masters EX, Pokemon Cafe ReMix and Pokemon TCG Pocket. We might also see an announcement for a special Pokemon Scarlet and Violet raid event and Pokemon Legends: Z-A Mega stone distributions.

After celebrating the currently released games, it’s likely that the presentation will pivot to what’s coming next. We’ll almost certainly get a reminder that Nintendo Switch ports of Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen are available starting on Pokemon Day. I expect the biggest news will be a concrete release date for Pokemon’s big new competitive game, Pokemon Champions, which is slated to come out in time for the Pokemon World Championships 2026.

If we’re really lucky, we might even hear about the 10th generation of mainline Pokemon games. While Game Freak has unmoored itself from a consistent release schedule, we’re certainly due to see the rumored Pokemon Wind and Wave. While the infamous Teraleak hints toward what the development studio might show off next, it’s high time we get a glimpse of what the next big Pokemon games are really all about.

Technologies

Only Hours Remain to Grab the Skullcandy Push 720 Open Earbuds for 40% Off

That drops these earbuds to under $100, a hard-to-beat bargain.

Until the end of the day, you can pick up a pair of the Skullcandy Push 720 open-earbuds for a nice $60 discount. That’s just $10 more than the previous record low, and this deal is available at both Best Buy and Amazon. Best Buy has labeled this deal as ending tonight and we except Amazon to follow suit. Grab yours now before the deal expires.

The Skullcandy Push 720 Open earbuds are designed to keep you connected to your audio and the world at the same time. The open-ear clip-on design delivers directional sound. But since they’re open, you’ll still be able to hear the outside world, making them great for commuting, workouts and more. The buds are lightweight and comfortable in your ear as they are built for all-day wear. They have an an IP67 rating for sweat- and water-resistance, so you can confidently take them on outdoor runs, gym sessions and through rainy weather.

The buds use precision directional speakers so your audio stays personal without disturbing people nearby. The over-the-ear fit is one-size-fits-all, and it’s made to stay secure through any kind of activity. They have a decent 30-hour battery life. But with rapid charging you’ll be back up and running in no time, and the carrying pouch has a built-in charger for on the go convenience.

HEADPHONE DEALS OF THE WEEK

Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones (Black):

$248 (save $152)
Beats Studio Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black):

$170 (save $181)
Sony WH-1000XM6 Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones:

$398 (save $62)
Bose QuietComfort Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Twilight Blue):

$179 (save $170)
Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless ANC Over-Ear Headphones (Black):

$200 (save $250)

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

Why this deal matters

These open-ear earbuds are great for anyone that’s active. Whether you’re running in the gym or playing sports, these headphones will comfortably clip onto your ears. Previously, we saw these buds come down to $80. Considering this is only $10 more, it’s not worth waiting to see if the price will drop back to $80. Best Buy says there’s only hours left for this deal. We think the Best Buy and Amazon deals will expire together, so act fast.