Volkswagen says it was hit by a major IT outage on Wednesday, halting production at the company's namesake brand in Germany. Reuters reports: Volkswagen said that the whole group, which includes the Porsche AG and Audi brands, was affected. Volkswagen said there had been an unspecified "IT malfunction of network components" at the carmaker's site in Wolfsburg, its global headquarters.

"The fault has been present since 12:30 p.m. (CET) and is currently being analysed. There are implications for vehicle-producing plants," the group said. "According to current analyses, an external attack is unlikely to be the cause of the system malfunction," Volkswagen said, adding that efforts to fix the problem were of the highest priority and well under way.

The next-generation of Meta Quest hardware is here, and Meta announced a bunch of software news alongside the Quest 3 VR headset hardware reveal at its Connect conference. One such announcement was the debut of Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service on Meta Quest 3, which is actually a huge boon for fans of the Facebook owner's mixed reality gear. From a report: The Xbox Cloud Gaming implementation in Quest resembles a lot of how Apple showed its own vision for mixed reality with the Vision Pro headset: It's primarily a virtual screen that can float in either a virtual or mixed reality space, which appears to be reposition-able and resizable, but which basically works exactly as you'd expect an Xbox game to work with a large TV. This is a key acknowledgement on the part of Meta that while immersive, native gaming is undoubtedly a draw for users, so too is a more traditional gaming experience that basically just benefits from taking place in your own private face-mounted theater.

Meta introduced its latest lineup of head-worn devices, staking fresh claim to the virtual- and augmented-reality industry just ahead of Apple pushing into the market. From a report: The company officially unveiled the Quest 3 headset on Wednesday, raising the price by $200 to $500, at its annual Connect developers conference. It also introduced second-generation smart glasses that it developed with luxury sunglass maker Ray-Ban. The Quest 3, which was previewed by Meta earlier this year after Bloomberg published a hands-on review of the device, offers improved performance over the Quest 2 from 2020. It also marks a pivot from VR to mixed reality, which melds virtual and augmented reality.

It's a high-stakes moment for Meta's hardware business. Though the company has dominated VR goggles for years, Apple is poised to release its Vision Pro headset in the coming months, setting up a showdown. Like the Quest 3, the Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset -- though one with exclusive Apple technology and content. The Vision Pro will have Apple's marketing muscle behind it, but also a much higher price: $3,499. In addition to the competitive pressure, Meta also has struggled to sell consumers on the metaverse -- a collection of interlocking online worlds that make use of its headsets.

A Microsoft executive said the company has tried for years to displace Alphabet's Google as the default web browser on iPhones, but that Apple never seriously considered switching to Microsoft's Bing and was content to use it as a "bargaining chip" with the search giant. From a report: "Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does," Mikhail Parakhin, the head of Microsoft's advertising and web services, testified during the US government's antitrust trial against Google in Washington. "We are always trying to convince Apple to use our search engine." Parakhin, who joined Microsoft in 2019 from Russian search engine Yandex NV, said Microsoft met with Apple as recently as 2021 to discuss a potential switch to Bing, but didn't make any progress.

In response to Google's lawyers, Parakhin said it was "uneconomical for Microsoft to invest more" in technology for the mobile search market. "Unless Microsoft gets a more significant, or firmer guarantee of distribution, it makes it uneconomical to invest." Apple has used Google as the default search engine in its Safari browser since 2003 in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue earned through searches made on its devices.

Hollywood studios are expected to retain the right to train artificial-intelligence models based on writers' work under the terms of a tentative labor agreement between the two sides, WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the situation. From the report: The writers would also walk away with an important win, a guarantee that they will receive credit and compensation for work they do on scripts, even if studios partially rely on AI tools, one of the people said. That provision had been in an earlier offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group representing studios, streamers and networks. The Writers Guild of America said Sunday it had reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP to end a nearly five-month strike. Neither side has released the details of the agreement. The WGA said it plans to release the terms once its leadership votes on the deal, which could happen as soon as Tuesday.

The two sides have battled over issues ranging from wage increases to whether writers' rooms should have minimum staffing requirements. The use of generative AI by studios became a major issue, as advanced versions of the technology -- such as OpenAI's ChatGPT -- were released for public use over the past year. AI bots, which provide sophisticated, humanlike responses to user questions, are "trained" on large amounts of data. Entertainment executives didn't want to relinquish the right to train their own AI tools based on TV and movie scripts, since their understanding is that AI tech platforms already are training their own models on such materials, people familiar with the matter said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra observed that Google Search had begun to index shared Bard conversational links into its search results pages, potentially exposing information users meant to be kept contained or confidential. This means that if a person used Bard to ask it a question -- possibly even a question related to the contents of their private emails -- then shared the link with a designated third-party, say, their spouse, friend or business partner, the conversation accessible at that link could in turn be scraped by Google's crawler and show up publicly, to the entire world, in its Search Results.

Google Brain research scientist Peter J. Liu replied to Ghotra on X by noting that the Google Search indexing only occurred for those conversations that users had elected to click the share link on, not all Bard conversations, to which Ghotra patiently explained: "Most users wouldn't be aware of the fact that shared conversation mean it would be indexed by Google and then show up in SERP, most people even I was thinking of it as a feature to share conversation with some friend or colleague & it being just visible to people who have conversation URL."

Ultimately, Google's Search Liaison account on X, which provides "insights on how Google Search works," wrote back to Ghotra to say "Bard allows people to share chats, if they choose. We also don't intend for these shared chats to be indexed by Google Search. We're working on blocking them from being indexed now."

The Philips Hue ecosystem of home automation devices is "collapsing into stupidity," writes Rachel Kroll, veteran sysadmin and former production engineer at Facebook. "Unfortunately, the idiot C-suite phenomenon has happened here too, and they have been slowly walking down the road to full-on enshittification." From her blog post: I figured something was up a few years ago when their iOS app would block entry until you pushed an upgrade to the hub box. That kind of behavior would never fly with any product team that gives a damn about their users -- want to control something, so you start up the app? Forget it, we are making you placate us first! How is that user-focused, you ask? It isn't.

Their latest round of stupidity pops up a new EULA and forces you to take it or, again, you can't access your stuff. But that's just more unenforceable garbage, so who cares, right? Well, it's getting worse.

It seems they are planning on dropping an update which will force you to log in. Yep, no longer will your stuff Just Work across the local network. Now it will have yet another garbage "cloud" "integration" involved, and they certainly will find a way to make things suck even worse for you. If you have just the lights and smart outlets, Kroll recommends deleting the units from the Hue Hub and adding them to an IKEA Dirigera hub. "It'll run them just fine, and will also export them to HomeKit so that much will keep working as well." That said, it's not a perfect solution. You will lose motion sensor data, the light level, the temperature of that room, and the ability to set custom behaviors with those buttons.

"Also, there's no guarantee that IKEA won't hop on the train to sketchville and start screwing over their users as well," adds Kroll.

What has your experience been with the Philips Hue ecosystem? Do you have any alternatives you recommend?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Burkey Belser, a graphic designer who created the ubiquitous nutrition facts label -- a stark rectangle listing calories, fat, sodium and other content information -- that adorns the packaging of nearly every digestible product in grocery stores, died Sept. 25 at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 76. The cause was bladder cancer, said his wife Donna Greenfield, with whom he founded the Washington, D.C., design firm Greenfield/Belser.

Mr. Belser's nutrition facts label -- rendered in bold and light Helvetica type -- was celebrated as a triumph of public health and graphic design when it debuted in 1994 following passage of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act. Although some products had previously included nutritional information, there was no set standard, and the information was of little public health value in helping consumers make better food choices. The new law, drafted as obesity and other diet-related illnesses were surging, required mandatory food labels with nutrients presented in the context of a healthy 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.

Writing in a journal published by the Professional Association for Design, Massimo Vignelli, the renowned Italian designer, called Mr. Belser's creation a "clean testimonial of civilization, a statement of social responsibility, and a masterpiece of graphic design." The Food and Drug Administration chose Mr. Belser to design the nutrition label following his success creating the black and yellow energy guide label for appliances. Once dubbed the "Steve Jobs of information design," Mr. Belser's fondness for exceedingly simple design perfectly suited him for a job that required stripping down nutritional facts to the bare essentials. The report proceeds to tell the tale of how Mr. Belser worked pro bono with his team to labor through three dozen iterations of the label, ultimately settling on "simplicity in itself."

"There's a harmony about it, and the presentation has no extraneous components to it," Belser told The Washington Post. "The words are left and right justified, which gave it a kind of balance. There was no grammatical punctuation like commas or periods or parentheses that would slow the reader down."

He compared the finished product -- which he later adapted to over-the-counter drugs -- to the Apple iPod. "The detail is so important that you wouldn't even notice it and if you didn't notice it's a sign that it succeeded," he said. "I don't know if anybody's heart beats faster when they see nutrition facts, but they sense a pleasure that they get the information they need."

Kyle Orland writes via Ars Technica: The "first official Unity user group in the world" has announced that it is dissolving after 13 years because "the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded." The move comes as many developers are saying they will continue to stay away from the company's products even after last week's partial rollback of some of the most controversial parts of its fee structure plans.

Since its founding in 2010, the Boston Unity Group (BUG) has attracted thousands of members to regular gatherings, talks, and networking events, including many technical lectures archived on YouTube. But the group says it will be hosting its last meeting Wednesday evening via Zoom because the Unity of today is very different from the Dave Helgason-led company that BUG says "enthusiastically sanctioned and supported" the group at its founding.

"Over the past few years, Unity has unfortunately shifted its focus away from the games industry and away from supporting developer communities," the group leadership wrote in a departure note. "Following the IPO, the company has seemingly put profit over all else, with several acquisitions and layoffs of core personnel. Many key systems that developers need are still left in a confusing and often incomplete state, with the messaging that advertising and revenue matter more to Unity than the functionality game developers care about."

BUG says the install-fee terms Unity first announced earlier this month were "unthinkably hostile" to users and that even the "new concessions" in an updated pricing model offered late last week "disproportionately affect the success of indie studios in our community." But it's the fact that such "resounding, unequivocal condemnation from the games industry" was necessary to get those changes in the first place that has really shaken the community to its core. "We've seen how easily and flippantly an executive-led business decision can risk bankrupting the studios we've worked so hard to build, threaten our livelihoods as professionals, and challenge the longevity of our industry," BUG wrote. "The Unity of today isn't the same company that it was when the group was founded, and the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded."

Lawrence Abrams writes via BleepingComputer: After almost three years, Microsoft has finally added the 'Never combine taskbar button' back to Windows, and it still doesn't work correctly. The combine taskbar items feature in Windows 10 allows you to show an icon for every open application in Windows, even if they are multiple instances of the same application. For example, if you have ten instances of Notepad or a few browser windows open, the feature will allow you to see an icon on the taskbar for each open Windows rather than combining it into a single application icon.

For me and many others, removing this feature made it impossible to upgrade to Windows 11, as switching between the myriad open windows became a nightmare. This frustration is reflected in the Windows 11 Feedback Hub, where a suggestion to never combine app icons and show labels has received 17,527 upvotes, making it the 10th most requested feature. Today, those users who have been holding off on upgrading to Windows 11 because of this missing feature "may" finally be able to do so. This is because Microsoft finally released the "never combine" feature as part of its Windows 11 22H2 Moment 4 update released today.

However, even with this feature added, it is still subpar to Windows 10, as, unlike the previous version of Windows, it continues to show the windows titles next to the icon, taking up a lot of space. It's baffling that Microsoft can't get this feature right after three years with it being one of the most highly requested features. A simple toggle to disable the showing of Windows titles could have been added, or Microsoft could have replicated the Windows 10 feature many of us requested.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Air Force said on Monday that it had received its first electric passenger aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, a milestone for the companies that hope to one day sell thousands of such vehicles to serve as air taxis. Joby Aviation, an air taxi start-up, delivered the aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, where the first supersonic flight took place. Air taxis are typically powered by batteries and designed to lift off and land like helicopters, but include wings to fly like airplanes. Joby, which is based in Santa Cruz, Calif., said that its electric aircraft is substantially quieter than helicopters or planes. Each can carry one pilot and four passengers and travel as fast as 200 miles per hour and as far as 100 miles, according to the company.

The delivery is the first under an Air Force contract that Joby said was valued at up to $131 million and gives the government the option to receive up to nine aircraft. The Air Force and Joby will operate the vehicle, but Joby will still own the aircraft and receive both fixed and variable payments for hours flown. NASA, which has a facility at the base, will also conduct research on the vehicle. The Air Force has signed similar contracts with other air taxi companies under a program called Agility Prime, part of a broader effort to promote innovation. Agility Prime's mission is to support development of air taxis and similar technology, giving the Air Force a head start in exploring how it might use such aircraft while also providing financial and testing support to the air taxi companies.

At Edwards Air Force Base, Joby's aircraft will be tested as a means to transport cargo and people. The vehicles could also be used to monitor the expansive base or tested to conduct medical evacuations, for example. All told, the Air Force has more than 100 performance measures it wants to evaluate, said Beau Griffith, the deputy lead of Agility Prime. "Bearing out the promise of these vehicles is the program's goal," he said. NASA will work closely with the military and Joby in testing the aircraft, with the aim of using its research to guide air taxi development and support the F.A.A. Starting next year, NASA pilots and researchers will explore how Joby's vehicle would operate in a typical city environment, examining flight procedures and how it could interact with air traffic control and local infrastructure. Joby's aircraft is expected to remain at the base for at least a year, and the company has plans to deliver another in 2024.

"As a result of the move to working from home, Meta has walked away from one of its offices in London at the cost of 149 million pounds," writes Slashdot reader Bruce66423. The London Evening Standard reports: Meta paid the FTSE 250 developer 149 million pounds on Monday in order to break the lease on the building, 1 Triton Square. The tech firm, which also owns Instagram, let the space from 2021 following a refurbishment but never moved into the space. Meta has three open London sites including a neighbouring building in Regent's Place, near Warren Street in central London.

Analysts at BNP Paribas Exane claimed Meta has another 18 years on its lease at the site. British Land said it will receive the one-off payment to end the lease but the agreement would also reduce its earnings per share by 0.6% over the six months to next March.

Google Podcasts is shutting down in 2024 after YouTube Music picks up full global availability of podcasts, which is expected before the end of 2023. As 9to5Google reports, YouTube Music "will be Google's one podcasting app and service going forward." From the report: The big advantage of Google Podcasts was its simplicity and wide availability on Android (through the Google Search app). A "simple migration tool" will move your existing subscriptions from Google Podcasts. Notably, there will be the ability in YouTube Music to add podcasts via RSS feeds, "including shows not currently hosted by YouTube." Google will also provide a non-YTM export option via "OPML file of their show subscriptions" that will work with other podcast players.

On the podcaster front, YouTube will allow for RSS uploads instead of requiring a video version. The next step over the coming weeks and months will see Google "gather feedback to make the migration process from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music as simple and easy as possible." "For now, nothing is changing and fans will continue to have access to YouTube, YouTube Music and Google Podcasts," says YouTube. "We're committed to being transparent in communicating future changes with our users and podcasters and will have more to share about this process in the coming months."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: GPUs from all six of the major suppliers are vulnerable to a newly discovered attack that allows malicious websites to read the usernames, passwords, and other sensitive visual data displayed by other websites, researchers have demonstrated in a paper (PDF) published Tuesday. The cross-origin attack allows a malicious website from one domain -- say, example.com -- to effectively read the pixels displayed by a website from example.org, or another different domain. Attackers can then reconstruct them in a way that allows them to view the words or images displayed by the latter site. This leakage violates a critical security principle that forms one of the most fundamental security boundaries safeguarding the Internet. Known as the same origin policy, it mandates that content hosted on one website domain be isolated from all other website domains. [...]

GPU.zip works only when the malicious attacker website is loaded into Chrome or Edge. The reason: For the attack to work, the browser must:

1. allow cross-origin iframes to be loaded with cookies
2. allow rendering SVG filters on iframes and
3. delegate rendering tasks to the GPU

For now, GPU.zip is more of a curiosity than a real threat, but that assumes that Web developers properly restrict sensitive pages from being embedded by cross-origin websites. End users who want to check if a page has such restrictions in place should look for the X-Frame-Options or Content-Security-Policy headers in the source. "This is impactful research on how hardware works," a Google representative said in a statement. "Widely adopted headers can prevent sites from being embedded, which prevents this attack, and sites using the default SameSite=Lax cookie behavior receive significant mitigation against personalized data being leaked. These protections, along with the difficulty and time required to exploit this behavior, significantly mitigate the threat to everyday users. We are in communication and are actively engaging with the reporting researchers. We are always looking to further improve protections for Chrome users."

An Intel representative, meanwhile, said that the chipmaker has "assessed the researcher findings that were provided and determined the root cause is not in our GPUs but in third-party software." A Qualcomm representative said "the issue isn't in our threat model as it more directly affects the browser and can be resolved by the browser application if warranted, so no changes are currently planned." Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and ARM didn't comment on the findings.

An informational write-up of the findings can be found here.

Walmart is expanding its offerings of prepaid phone plans with MobileX, a wireless service launched earlier this year by Boost cofounder Peter Adderton. Walmart will be MobileX's first and exclusive retail partner, the companies said in an announcement Tuesday. From a report: MobileX, which uses Verizon's network through a wholesale agreement, will be available on Walmart's website and in stores starting Tuesday, the companies said. It will offer unlimited pay-as-you go plans starting at $14.88 per month, and a lower-cost plan with customizable offerings starting at $4.08 a month. An artificial intelligence-powered guide that can anticipate a customer's data needs can customize plans tailored to their usage, the company said in a statement. [...] Walmart gives MobileX, which launched online in February, more visibility as a low-cost alternative to more expensive monthly plans from the big three wireless carriers. Still, cheap mobile services have had a difficult time dislodging people from more expensive plans. Many subscribers are locked into two and three-year phone payment plans and even those that could switch say the hassle is not worth the savings.

Microsoft is releasing one of its biggest updates to Windows 11 today. It includes access to the new Windows Copilot, AI-powered updates to Paint, Snipping Tool, and Photos, RGB lighting support, a modernized File Explorer, and much more. From a report: Windows Copilot is the big new feature for this Windows 11 update, bringing the same Bing Chat feature straight to the Windows 11 desktop. It appears as a sidebar in Windows 11, allowing you to control settings on a PC, launch apps, or simply answer queries. Microsoft is integrating Copilot into many parts of Windows, too. Copilot will essentially exist as an AI-powered digital assistant, much like Microsoft's vision for Cortana. While Microsoft shut down the Cortana app inside Windows 11 last month, Copilot looks like it's very much Microsoft's big push into AI.

Microsoft is also adding AI-powered features to Paint, Snipping Tool, and Windows 11's Photos app. Microsoft Paint is getting Photoshop-like features, with support for transparency and layers. [...] File Explorer is getting a more modern look with this Windows 11 update. The updated File Explorer UI includes a modern home interface with large file thumbnails and a carousel interface that can surface recent files and favorited ones. These changes make File Explorer blend in better with the overall Windows 11 design.

OpenAI is talking to investors about a possible share sale that would value the artificial-intelligence startup behind ChatGPT at between $80 billion to $90 billion, almost triple its level earlier this year, WSJ reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the discussions. From the report: The startup, which is 49% owned by Microsoft, has told investors that it expects to reach $1 billion in revenue this year and generate many billions more in 2024. OpenAI generates revenue mainly by charging individuals for access to a powerful version of ChatGPT and licensing the large language models behind that AI bot to businesses.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Eddy Cue, in a dark suit, peered down at the monitor in front of him. The screens in the Washington, DC, courtroom had briefly malfunctioned and left witnesses with only binders, but now the tech was up and running -- showing an image of three iPhones, each demonstrating a part of the phone's setup process. Cue squinted down at the screen. "The resolution on this is terrible," he said. "You should get a Mac." That got some laughs in an otherwise staid and quiet courtroom. Judge Amit Mehta, presiding over the case, leaned into his microphone and responded, "If Apple would like to make a donation..." That got even bigger laughs. Then everybody got back down to business.

Cue was on the stand as a witness in US v. Google, the landmark antitrust trial over Google's search business. Cue is one of the highest-profile witnesses in the case so far, in part because the deal between Google and Apple -- which makes Google the default search engine on all Apple devices and pays Apple billions of dollars a year -- is central to the US Department of Justice's case against Google. Cue had two messages: Apple believes in protecting its users' privacy, and it also believes in Google. Whether those two statements can be simultaneously true became the question of the day.

Apple is in court because of something called the Information Services Agreement, or ISA: a deal that makes Google's search engine the default on Apple's products. The ISA has been in place since 2002, but Cue was responsible for negotiating its current iteration with Google CEO Sundar Pichai in 2016. In testimony today, the Justice Department grilled Cue about the specifics of the deal. When the two sides renegotiated, Cue said on the stand, Apple wanted a higher percentage of the revenue Google made from Apple users it directed toward the search engine. [...] Meagan Bellshaw, a Justice Department lawyer, asked Cue if he would have walked away from the deal if the two sides couldn't agree on a revenue-share figure. Cue said he'd never really considered that an option: "I always felt like it was in Google's best interest, and our best interest, to get a deal done." Cue also argued that the deal was about more than economics and that Apple never seriously considered switching to another provider or building its own search product. "Certainly there wasn't a valid alternative to Google at the time," Cue said. He said there still isn't one.

New submitter AsylumWraith shares a report: The US government aims to restore sweeping regulations for high-speed internet providers, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, reviving "net neutrality" rules for the broadband industry -- and an ongoing debate about the internet's future. The proposed rules from the Federal Communications Commission will designate internet service -- both the wired kind found in homes and businesses as well as mobile data on cellphones -- as "essential telecommunications" akin to traditional telephone services, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The rules would ban internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing down access to websites and online content, the people told CNN.

Agency chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel plans to unveil the proposal in a speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday, the people added, saying the FCC plans to vote Oct. 19 on whether to advance the draft rules by soliciting public feedback on them -- a step that would precede the creation of any final rules. In addition to the prohibitions on blocking and throttling internet traffic, the draft rules also seek to prevent ISPs from selectively speeding up service to favored websites or to those that agree to pay extra fees, the people added, a move designed to prevent the emergence of "fast lanes" on the web that could give some websites a paid advantage over others.

Delta Air Lines earlier this month revamped its SkyMiles program to prioritize dollars spent over miles flown for status. This shift positions SkyMiles more as a program for high spenders than frequent flyers, causing dissatisfaction among many, including industry insiders.

Historically, airline regulations, controlled by the government, ensured fair pricing until deregulation in 1978. This deregulation spurred airlines to introduce competitive strategies, transforming frequent-flyer programs into intricate points systems. These programs now, a piece in The Atlantic argues, closely resemble financial systems, with airlines minting and selling points for profit. From the report: Here's how the system works now: Airlines create points out of nothing and sell them for real money to banks with co-branded credit cards. The banks award points to cardholders for spending, and both the banks and credit-card companies make money off the swipe fees from the use of the card. Cardholders can redeem points for flights, as well as other goods and services sold through the airlines' proprietary e-commerce portals.

For the airlines, this is a great deal. They incur no costs from points until they are redeemed -- or ever, if the points are forgotten. This setup has made loyalty programs highly lucrative. Consumers now charge nearly 1 percent of U.S. GDP to Delta's American Express credit cards alone. A 2020 analysis by the Financial Times found that Wall Street lenders valued the major airlines' mileage programs more highly than the airlines themselves. United's MileagePlus program, for example, was valued at $22 billion, while the company's market cap at the time was only $10.6 billion.

Is this a good deal for the American consumer? That's a trickier question. Paying for a flight or a hotel room with points may feel like a free bonus, but because credit-card-swipe fees increase prices across the economy -- Visa or Mastercard takes a cut of every sale -- redeeming points is more like getting a little kickback. Certainly the system is bad for Americans who don't have points-earning cards. They pay higher prices on ordinary goods and services but don't get the points, effectively subsidizing the perks of card users, who tend to be wealthier already.