Inside Meta's $18B teen crackdown

PLUS: Scientists make cookies out of plastic

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Meta agreed to radically reshape Facebook and Instagram for teens as part of an $18B settlement over claims its platforms harmed young users — and now it’s trying to make sure TikTok and YouTube get dragged into the same future.

Also today: Apple is finally ready to launch its first foldable iPhone, while scientists figure out how to turn plastic waste into edible cookies.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Here’s what to expect from Meta’s teen crackdown

  • Apple sets the date for its first foldable iPhone

  • NASA-backed scientists make cookies out of plastic

  • This startup wants to make old blood young

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

META

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: Meta’s $18B teen-safety settlement comes with a twist: $5.3B only lands if TikTok and YouTube accept the same restrictions and pay ~$6B each. Meta has now taken out full-page newspaper ads to make sure its rivals know exactly what it wants.

The details:

  • The settlement resolves claims from dozens of U.S. states that Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to keep children hooked while downplaying the risks.

  • Teen accounts will face a 2-hour daily limit, an overnight shutdown, muted school-hour notifications, stronger age checks, and break prompts.

  • Meta guaranteed about $12.7B of the settlement, while another ~$5.3B is tied to TikTok and YouTube adopting comparable teen-safety restrictions and payments.

  • Notably, Meta keeps its core business model intact: personalized recommendations and targeted ads remain.

Why it matters: Meta is already trying to turn its settlement into an industry standard, publishing an open letter urging TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same teen limits. With billions of dollars in its own payout tied to what rivals do next, Meta has a very large financial incentive to make sure it isn’t the only platform playing by stricter rules.

APPLE

Image source: Apple

The Rundown: Apple has set Sept. 9 for what could be its biggest iPhone launch in years, with the company expected to unveil its first foldable — a roughly $2,500 device that IDC thinks could ship more than 10M units in its first year.

The details:

  • The event will be the first under new CEO John Ternus, who takes over for Tim Cook on Sept. 1 after previously running Apple’s hardware division.

  • Apple’s long-rumored foldable is expected to open book-style into a tablet-sized screen, putting it head-to-head with foldables from Samsung and Android rivals.

  • Apple is also expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, while breaking with tradition by holding the regular iPhone 18 until 2027.

  • IDC expects the foldable to ship 10M+ units in year one and eventually give Apple around 40% of the global foldable market in 2027.

Why it matters: Apple is arriving years late to foldables, but its sheer scale could do what Samsung never quite managed: turn them into a meaningful smartphone category. For Ternus, the launch is an unusually high-stakes opening act, and a chance to show that the post-Cook Apple can still make people excited about new hardware.

SPACE TECH

Image source: Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale

The Rundown: Scientists are turning old plastic bottles and plant waste into cookie prototypes, using yeast to convert waste carbon into protein, nutrients, and flavorings for a food system originally designed for deep space.

The details:

  • U.S. researchers break PET plastic into simpler carbon-rich compounds, then feed them to strains of yeast that turn the material into biomass.

  • Other yeasts add the extras: engineered baker’s yeast makes vanillin from plant waste, while another strain turns PET-derived ethylene glycol into beta-carotene.

  • The mixture gets starch, fiber, and sweetener before being 3D-printed into bite-sized cookies and microwaved; so far, no one has been cleared to eat one.

  • The NASA-backed project was developed for long-duration space missions, though researchers say the tech could work in other resource-limited environments, from submarines to disaster zones.

Why it matters: Turning plastic into food sounds dystopian, but the bigger idea is a potentially useful closed-loop system: waste goes in, microbes turn its carbon into food, and less material may need to be brought in from outside. It’s still an early prototype, with questions around cost, scale, regulatory approval, and, importantly, taste.

LONGEVITY

Image source: UC Berkeley (Irina Conboy)

The Rundown: Longevity startup Generation Lab says it can make old blood act young again, via a weekly injection of two existing drugs it won’t name, already going into people, per MIT Technology Review.

The details:

  • The science comes from cofounder Irina Conboy, whose landmark UC Berkeley work showed that altering old blood can restore tissue regeneration in mice.

  • Conboy says she found the two-drug combo using a model that rapidly tests compounds against human tissue bathed in old blood serum.

  • A small group of doctors and company insiders is already taking the drugs, reporting positive results — but there’s no controlled human evidence yet.

  • Generation Lab plans a 100-plus-person study and says it’s keeping the drug names secret while it pursues a clinical trial and potential FDA approval.

Why it matters: Young-blood science has intrigued researchers for years, but Generation Lab is betting those effects can be turned into a simple human drug regimen. The science has serious pedigree; the injection still lacks serious evidence — putting it at the intersection of aging research and Silicon Valley biohacking.

QUICK HITS

Uber is rolling out live video streaming for teen rides across nine U.S. markets, letting parents watch through the driver’s selfie camera while both the teen and driver are notified.

Alphabet has agreed to pay £260M ($353M) to settle a UK class-action lawsuit accusing Google Play of overcharging app developers through excessive commissions.

Fitbit’s founders launched Luffu Link, a $250 screenless LTE health-and-safety band shipping in early 2027 that tracks health and location and can alert family in emergencies without a phone.

A startup led in part by Twitter’s former trademark counsel has launched Twitter.now, a $20 early-access social network that uses AI to score posts for trustworthiness.

Scientists used modern weather data to recreate D-Day from space, revealing the invasion went ahead during a narrow break between storms that could have derailed it.

Scientists reversed Alzheimer’s-like brain damage and restored memory in mice with just two injections of a nanogel that coaxed support cells into becoming new neurons.

Advent International and Stripe have reportedly dropped their $50B+ pursuit of PayPal, after the payments giant rejected their offer as too low.

Harvard engineered a common ocean bacterium to strip rust off olivine sand, speeding up the mineral weathering that pulls CO2 from the air by 2.6x in pilot bioreactors.

Apple has started rolling out ads in Apple Maps, letting businesses pay to appear at the top of search results and in “suggested places.”

Researchers have shown that ordinary WiFi signals can identify people with nearly 100% accuracy, even without cameras or a device on them.

Chinese scientists have developed injectable “self-exercising” muscle grafts that boosted muscle mass, bone density, endurance, and even cognitive health in mice.

That's it for today's tech rundown!

We'd love to hear your feedback on today's newsletter so we can continue to improve The Rundown experience for you.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

See you soon,

Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team

Reply

or to participate.