| Hi, everyone. While some students may find it difficult to put away their phones at school, one company is making it easy for teachers and administrators. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Intel is looking to sell part of its stake in Mobileye
• Support for a government-backed ban of TikTok is fading among Americans
• South Korea is building a Hollywood to woo K-Pop and K-Drama fans The new school year has started and educators and politicians across the country have promised to get mobile phones out of classrooms. Legislators in California just passed a law banning and limiting phones in schools, and New York City is promising its own ban, though the timing is a bit hazy. Florida and Indiana have passed similar laws and schools as far afield as France, Belgium and Hungary are experimenting with bans or strict limits, too. Some of the policies are local, a few are national and others are just school by school. But it feels like we’ve reached some sort of tipping point. So what will these phone-free schools look like? In some instances, students’ phones go into their lockers, or a special phone cabinet. In many of them, especially in the US, they’re going into Yondr pouches. Yondr makes sock-like neoprene cases for mobile phones. Unlike traditional cases, their sole purpose is to render your phone temporarily unusable. You put your phone in the pouch and it gets locked by a magnet. It’s a bit like how the anti-theft tags are attached to the clothes in the Gap. You can hold onto it for the duration of the time you are in the Yondr-enforced phone-free zone. When you leave, your Yondr gets unlocked and you can go back to being addicted to your phone. Since being founded 10 years ago, Yondr has become a leader in the phone-policing space. According to a company spokesperson, Yondr partners with schools in all 50 US states and in 27 countries, and will be used by more than 2 million students by the end of 2024, double what it was at the end of 2023. The cost is roughly $30 per student in the first year, after which the schools pay for replacement equipment as needed.
And it’s not just schools. Leading musicians and comedians are fans: Jack White, the Lumineers, Dave Chappelle and Ali Wong have made the audiences at their shows use Yondr pouches. Partly it’s a way to prevent people from taking bootleg videos of performances. But it also helps fans actually experience the show as it’s happening, instead of spending the whole time watching it through their phone as they record it. Yondr’s website has a quote from Kierkegaard to that effect: “The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.” Of course, the lived daily experience of grade school and high school is not always a peak experience to be savored a la Kierkegaard. It’s often pretty much the opposite. In school the point is to deliver students from temptation. It’s a technology of restraint, like the apps you can get to limit the amount of time you spend on other apps on your phone. All of us could probably use more of them, and Yondr realizes that. One of its latest offerings is the Yondr Home Tray, a lockbox where families can all stash their devices at home. According to the website, there are no returns allowed for the Home Tray, only replacements. You have to commit.—Drake Bennett Russia created a fake globe-trotting, the Brussels-born financier and philanthropist to dupe media sites and influencers as part of a scheme to spread misinformation and pro-Russian propaganda in the West, US prosecutors said. Oracle’s Larry Ellison will own about 78% of Paramount after his son’s studio, Skydance Media, acquires the Redstone family’s controlling interest in the film and TV company. Australia is proposing guardrails for AI development. Adobe’s top lawyer, who lead its AI policy, is leaving the company. Broadcom’s forecast was a disappointment despite strong AI-related sales. Salesforce said it will acquire data-protection startup Own for $1.9 billion. | 
