NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon on Friday announced it has agreed to acquire the vacuum cleaner maker iRobot for approximately $1.7 billion, scooping up another company to add to its collection of smart home appliances amid broader concerns from anti-monopoly and privacy advocates about Amazon's market power and ability to gain deeper insights into consumers' lives.

iRobot sells its products worldwide and is most famous for the circular-shaped Roomba vacuum, which would join voice assistant Alexa, the Astro robot and Ring security cameras and others in the list of smart home features offered by the Seattle-based e-commerce and tech giant.

The move is part of Amazon's bid to own part of the home space through services and accelerate its growth beyond retail, said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail. A slew of home-cleaning robots adds to the company's tech arsenal, making it more involved in consumers' lives beyond static things like voice control. The latest line of Roombas use sensors to map -- and remember -- a home's floor plan, offering a trove of data that Amazon could potentially integrate with its other products.

Amazon's Astro robot, which helps with tasks like setting an alarm, was unveiled last year at an introductory price of $1,000. But its rollout has been limited and has received a lackluster response.

Amazon hasn't had much success with household robots, but the iRobot acquisition and the company's strong market reputation provide a "massive foothold in the consumer robot market" that could help Amazon replicate the success of its Echo line of smart speakers, said Lian Jye Su, a robotics industry analyst for ABI Research.

Su said it also illustrates the shortcomings of consumer robotics vendors like iRobot, which struggled to expand beyond a niche product and was in a "race-to-the-bottom" competition with Korean and Chinese manufacturers offering cheaper versions of a robotic vacuum.

On Friday, iRobot reported its quarterly results. Revenue plunged 30% primarily on order reductions and delays, and the company announced it was laying off 10% of its workforce.

Amazon said it will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction that will include iRobot's net debt. The company has total current debt of approximately $332.1 million as of July 2. The deal is subject to approval by shareholders and regulators. Upon completion, iRobot's CEO, Colin Angle, will remain in his position.

Noting that iRobot has been running its robotics platform on Amazon's cloud service unit AWS for many years, Su said the acquisition could lead to more integration of Amazon speech recognition and other capabilities into vacuums.

In afternoon trading, iRobot shares rose 19%. Amazon's were down 1.7%.

The deal comes as anti-monopoly advocates continue to raise concerns about Amazon's increasing dominance. The purchase of iRobot is Amazon's fourth-largest acquisition, led by its $13.7 billion deal to buy Whole Foods in 2017. Last month, the company said it would buy the primary care provider One Medical in a deal valued roughly at $3.9 billion, a move that expanded its reach further into health care.

On Friday, groups advocating for stricter antitrust regulations called on regulators to block the iRobot merger, arguing it gives Amazon more access into consumers' lives and furthers its dominance in the smart home market.

"The last thing American and the world needs is Amazon vacuuming up even more of our personal information," said Robert Weissman, president of the progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen.

"This is not just about Amazon selling another device in its marketplace," Weissman said. "It's about the company gaining still more intimate details of our lives to gain unfair market advantage and sell us more stuff."

Landmark antitrust legislation targeting Amazon and other Big Tech companies has languished for months in Congress as prospects for votes by the full Senate or House have dimmed.

Last month, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who heads the Senate Judiciary antitrust panel, urged the the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the One Medical acquisition, in the mold of other critics who've called on regulators to block the purchase over concerns about Amazon's past conduct and potential implications for consumers' health data. Regulators also have discretion to challenge Amazon's $8.5 billion buyout of Hollywood studio MGM, which was completed earlier this year.

Founded in 1990 by a trio of Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists, including Angle, iRobot's early ventures led to rovers that could perform military and disaster-relief tasks in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The profits from defense contracts allowed iRobot to experiment with a variety of other robots, producing some duds and one huge commercial success: the first Roomba, introduced in 2002, which pioneered the market for automated vacuum cleaners.

The company spun off its defense robotics division in 2016 to become almost exclusively a seller of vacuums and some other home robots, such as the Braava robotic mop. It planned to launch a robotic lawn mower in 2020 but backed off, citing problems tied to the pandemic.

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AP technology writer Matt O'Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

Microsoft recently advised against longstanding, conventional cybersecurity logic on required password changes. It turns out forced switches made users select more predictable and easy-to-breach passwords.

"The pattern that humans use, particularly when they're not using a password manager, is they come up with, sort of, this rubric," said Pedro Canahuati, chief technology officer at 1Password. "If that's really very complex, it makes it difficult for people to gain access to it. But the reality is, humans are not good at randomness."

"The previous advice for people to rotate their passwords so frequently led to some really bad habits: people writing passwords down, only changing maybe the last digit," said Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

"Changing that one character at the end of your password is not enough when you're up against a bot who's just cycling away at different passwords and switching out letters and numbers."

Humans are notoriously bad at passwords. NordPass' research of commonly used passwords across 50 countries in 2021 found the most popular were strings of letters or numbers, like 123456 and qwerty or words like a password. Most could be cracked in less than one second.

Still, if you search online for advice on how often you should change passwords, you'll still find many results saying you should change them routinely.

Newsy spoke to four cybersecurity experts about best rotation practices. While all noted that there are times when passwords should be changed — like when your data is implicated in a breach — other, more important security features can be used to strengthen data protection.

"People just need to understand that passwords only go so far, and you need multifactor authentication," said Ed Skoudis, president of SANS Technology Institute. "Password management organizations also have an obligation to keep their users secure and safe."

"The simple solution at the end of the day is to use strong and unique passwords with a password manager because nobody can create them as strong as they can with the password manager," said Craig Lurey, chief technology officer at Keeper Security. "This is hundreds of engineers, solely focused on protecting passwords in an encrypted vault that's highly secure and protected from access, and all the years of implementation that went into that versus whatever you think you can do with your notepad."

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Amazon is facing a possible class action lawsuit in California after claimants allege that it illegally used the state's online sex offender database when conducting background checks on potential candidates for jobs with the company.

Law 360 reported that in one example, a registered sex offender filed documents in California federal court claiming Amazon used a background check provider, which illegally used information found on the state's sex offender database to deny him a job based on a past rape conviction.

The bias suit prevented the plaintiff and others from getting jobs with the company, including at its fulfillment centers, the lawsuit claims, as Reuters reported.

According to Bloomberg Law, the lawsuit, which targets both Amazon and the background check company it uses, could turn into a potential class action case against the two entities.

Miguel Lerma Jr. is named in the court filings as suing Amazon.com Services LLC, Amazon Logistics Inc, and Accurate Background Inc.

Lerma claims he worked at an Amazon fulfillment center in California as a seasonal employee. Still, his conditional offer for full-time employment was revoked when Accurate Background found out about his 2011 felony rape charge.

The SAT is going digital.

In January, the College Board announced it would move the standardized test to an online format in the U.S. in 2024, following a pilot program in 2021.

"The digital SAT will be easier to take, easier to give, and more relevant," a College Board spokesperson said in a written statement. "We're not simply putting the current SAT on a digital platform."

Robert Franek, the Editor-in-Chief of the Princeton Review, answered our questions about the changes in the test.

This transcript has been lightly edited for tone and clarity.

Q: Why now?

Robert Franek, Editor-in-Chief, Princeton Review: I think it is time to modernize the SAT and make it as relevant as possible to current students, their families, and their counselors.

There's a pretty big coup here for test-takers: The exam will now be two hours rather than three hours, which is a substantial time saving for the student. It also lessens fatigue that is so inherent to the SAT.

A couple of other things are going to be changing. Students can use calculators built into the platforms starting in 2024, so students can use calculators on all math questions. Right now, they're prohibited on some sections.

There are going to be more straightforward reading sections as well. It's going to be speedier for students, but also more accessible.

The other big difference is that now it will be an adaptive test. That accounts for some of the time savings. There's going to be fewer questions, but it's not going to be, 'You got these questions right and these questions wrong.' It will be based on the weighting of those questions based on their level of difficulty.

Q: Is this decision, in part, because of how many students take the SAT in school? (2021 data shows 62% of test-takers took their exam during a school day.)

Franek: That has been a big part of the market share for the College Board: Giving those tests in-school directly. It is probably a pretty significant focus for the College Board that we're going to see more of those tests being done in schools. When 2024 rolls out, students are going to likely have a choice to do it in a testing center, alone, or an at-school SAT. What they will not be able to do, however, is take that test remote and at home, as they were able to in May of 2020 for the AP exam, which was also created by the College Board.

Q: How will this decision improve equity among test-takers?

Franek: It's really the platform itself that we're seeing the biggest value to students for access and equity purposes. Number one, students will be able to use a laptop that the testing center gives them, or that's supplied by the school. Students can use their own laptop or their own tablet, but they're not obliged to do that. That is going to improve access and equity.

Then there's the idea of the calculator. Students were having to have a graphing calculator of a particular model. Some of those were expensive. So that will level the field as well, with the built-in calculator.

Q: Are there any drawbacks to going digital?

Franek: There's not a lot of testing materials out there yet on how to prepare for that new exam. I do think that will change as soon as the College Board releases more information of what the structure and content of that new exam are going to be. That's what my team does at the Princeton Review. That's going to be a pretty big coup for students.

Right now, we might see some students going to the old version - the known version - of the SAT. Or they may flock to the ACT during that guinea pig year of 2024, the first year that it'll roll out for all U.S. students. But, again, to be seen.

Q: How does this move affect test prep for students?

Franek: It's going to be significant. Any time a new exam happens - and this could be the SAT, ACT, or any of the number of professional and graduate school exams - students need guidance. Their parents want that as well. Counselors want those things as well. A lot of students turn to test prep in order to make sure that students are getting the best of preparation for that new exam. And that's what we've done for now 40 years at the Princeton Review. We'll certainly do it for this new iteration of the SAT.

Q: Should this change be cause for concern for parents of middle school students or students who are early in their high school careers?

Franek: I think there probably will be alarm. I gave a lecture last night, and I told the students there, just remind yourself that you are comfortable on an e-platform more than I ever will be. And that's what the new SAT is going to be. So feel the confidence and prowess that you already have coming out of the gate going into that new exam because you are primed to do well on it.

Q: Are there any other things worth noting about this decision?

Franek: Again, I'd remind students that they are primed to do very well in this new environment of the test. And this rollout over the next two years is a significant rollout. We're not going to see any surprises in the next iteration of the SAT in a couple of weeks. We know that it is going to be a metered approach, and for that, I give applause to the College Board.

When COVID-19 broke out in the United States, one of the first corners of life that was upended was grocery shopping: The aisles stood bare as the public stocked up, and then people turned to online shopping to stay safe in their homes.

But the transition online hasn't been seamless, according to a new study published Thursday.

Packaged foods are required by federal regulations to have nutritional facts and ingredients available for consumers to review when they are shopping in brick-and-mortar grocery stores. But information for some products in many online grocery retailers was not listed anywhere, the study published in Public Health Nutrition found.

"I think it's a misconception that people don't read the food labels," said study co-author Jennifer Pomeranz, an assistant professor of public health policy and management at New York University School of Global Public Health. "People who have been diagnosed with a disease or told that they are at risk for disease, the elderly, people with children ... people with allergies. ... People read food labels for different reasons, and it's incredibly important for safety purposes."

The study looked at 10 major national packaged products across nine online retailers at the start of 2021 and found that nutritional facts and ingredient lists were not included at all for almost 11% of products across retailers. In products that contained them, 63% did not disclose the presence of common food allergens, according to the study.

The United States Food and Drug Administration specifies what information needs to be available to consumers. That includes serving sizes, calories, added sugars, allergens, ingredients, and daily values of sodium, sugar, carbohydrates, fats and protein.

"I would argue that not disclosing the nutrition facts panel and the ingredients list, including allergens, is an unfair or deceptive act," Pomeranz said.

There is a limitation to the study in that the sample size is small, said Wendy White, industry manager for food and beverage at Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not affiliated with the study. White added that the small sample could limit the ability of the research to give an accurate look at the state of online nutritional information.

Keeping up with COVID-19

In a world where people are growing more conscientious about what is in their food, Pomeranz speculates that leaving out nutritional information is a strategy to sell packaged foods.

But White thinks the issue is more logistical than strategic.

"The pandemic changed everything for everyone," White said. "It really expedited the growth of (online) sales in a way no one could have anticipated, and so all of a sudden this became a forefront issue."

She added, "This is an excuse like any other, but I really do think with the pandemic a lot of retailers were caught unaware, and they really had to put together their online e-commerce platforms very, very quickly."

For a company looking to get a lot of products to many people quickly, it's a lot easier to put a picture of the packaging online than it is to make sure all the information is easily accessible, White explained.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is responsible for regulating labeling practices, and though White said the agency has taken steps to address the online information gap, it may take time.

"I think, the FDA, they are definitely taking steps to correct this gap that we currently have in some types of online food sales, but unfortunately the speed at which the FDA can create and then enforce regulations is notably slow," she said.

In the past, the FDA has recommended that online nutritional information be similar to its in-store counterpart, but "we acknowledge that most of our labeling requirements pre-date online sales practices," said FDA spokesperson Courtney Rhodes. The agency has been learning more about online labeling to inform recommendations and discussed the issue at an E-Commerce Summit in October.

"The FDA anticipates engaging further with stakeholders on the issue to inform next steps," Rhodes said.

People need to know

Whether for an allergy, diabetes, hypertension or even just being mindful of health, White said many people are cautious about what they eat.

"Understanding what is in a product, especially a formulated product, is vital to a lot of consumers out there," White said.

The U.S. has rules and regulations about how companies disclose nutritional information, which shows both what ingredients are in the food and how much of potentially harmful elements like sodium and sugar are in a serving.

"The American consumer has become very used to being able to access this information very easily. They're used to going to the supermarket, picking up that can, looking at the label and understanding exactly what is in that product," White said.

While policy on a national level might be slow going, the public can promote transparency from online grocery retailers with where they choose to spend their money, Pomeranz said.

"Online retailers have the ability to track our purchases and what we search for online, so it's important for people to know that they're not shopping on a blank slate," she said. "With that knowledge, it's worth looking around for retailers who do provide the information."

Pomeranz added, "It's becoming even more of a hot topic for younger consumers, and so obviously they may have a lot of spending power. So, it would be worth it for retailers to compete on that transparency aspect."

Facebook and Google are both forcing some users to switch to two-factor authentication in 2022.

The technology requires people to log in using a password and a secure code sent to their phone or email address. Critics say the decision poses too much of a burden for the average user. Cybersecurity experts insist it’s the least we can do.

“Passwords are breakable. Passwords can be stolen. Passwords can be guessed,” said Dr. Vahid Behzadan, a professor of computer science at the University of New Haven. “By adding two-factor authentication, we are making a successful compromise a little more difficult for the attacker.”

Dr. Behzadan said one of the biggest hurdles in cyber security is apathy from the general public.

“Many do not take security seriously,” he said. “Sharing passwords, writing passwords on a Post-it note and putting it on your desk, or choosing predictable, easy-to-guess passwords.”

Nearly 2 in 5 Americans shared one of their passwords with someone in 2021, according to a survey published in October. A different survey found that half of Americans believed their passwords are secure.

In a May post on the Google blog, the company’s director of product management, identity, and user security called passwords “the single biggest threat to your online security.” He said the company hopes to eliminate passwords altogether in the future.

“The internet is still suffering from that lack of foresight,” said Dr. Behzadan. “Internet protocols that were designed in the 80s are still in use, and they're still a major cause for concern in terms of cybersecurity.”

In the meantime, Google recommends using a password generator to create strong, unique passwords for every account. The company offers a password manager in its Chrome app so users don’t have to memorize everything. Similar products are available through Apple and Microsoft.

SEATTLE, Wash. -- At Standard Goods, you’ll find Pacific Northwest gear and pop culture items. Owner Jeff Gardner started the local business six years ago.

“I saw a need for this and I’m like, ‘Ya know, let’s do it,'" Gardner said. "Nobody’s doing like a young kind of modern store, and a lot of people like to be outside and be around other people and come into brick-and-mortar stores, so that’s sort of why I did it.”

Like many local businesses, Gardner took a big hit during the pandemic. There was a time when he could only sell online.

“Running an online site is like running a whole other store," Gardner said. "It’s expensive, it’s hard, you have to hire other people to do it, shipping’s expensive.”

He says he values having a brick-and-mortar store and interacting with people, but when someone came to him with an opportunity to help online sales, he took it.

That help was Sook, a browser extension that lets online shoppers see the local products available in their own community.

“I realized that they’re competing for the same consumers in the same way as massive corporations like Amazon, Walmart,” said Jonathan Sandals, the founder of Sook.

With a background in marketing, Sandals knew local stores couldn’t compete. So, he came up with the browser extension Sook, which means ‘market’ in Arabic. When somebody is searching for an item online, Sook shows them all of the options within miles from their home. It’s as simple as downloading the extension on Chrome or Firefox browsers.

“What’s an easy, quick, one-click way for people to buy a better product that’s five miles from their house from their neighbor than it is to buy something that’s 5,000 miles away in a warehouse,” Sandals said.

All he needs from the store is an address and website so he can add them to the database. Right now, he’s not making a dime on his creation and he doesn’t plan to. He says he created it because local businesses are the reason he loves the culture in Seattle.

“They embody independent spirit, independent creations, and best of all community," Sandals said. "These aren’t just distant, faceless corporations with mass-produced products. These are unique creations created by your neighbor.”

Gardner says Sandals is the only person who has come to him not asking to make a profit.

“I sort of didn’t believe it at first because everybody’s trying to make money," Gardner said. "Everybody wants to build the next Uber and make a gazillion dollars, but he’s been true to his word."

Sandals says Sook has been a passion project and he says dozens of other individuals have reached out happy to help for free. Sook is now in the largest cities of every state and available to anyone within 100 miles of those places.

HINSDALE, IL — Remote learning has transformed how schools handle sex education.

During the pandemic, students spent more time online, further isolated from social, emotional, and mental health. But experts say the internet should not be the source of sexual education for kids, and the current health crisis has complicated the issue.

When it comes to sex education, like most parents, Laura Burns doesn’t want her 5^th grader clicking around on the internet.

“Unfortunately, when it comes to sex ed and things that they might be really curious about, there's way more misinformation than good and true information, in my opinion,” said Burns.

Her 11-year-old daughter, Katie, is now at an age when children start to become curious.

“If I feel uncomfortable, I might think about it, but I mostly still go to my mom,” said Katie Burns said.

“I also realize that she's getting to the point where it may become uncomfortable to ask me something,” said Laura Burns.

According to one study conducted at the outset of the COVID outbreak, half of 11 to 13-year-olds reported having seen pornography in some way. Nearly two-thirds of them said they had done so to learn about sex generally.

“The average age of first exposure to some sort of online pornography is 9,” said Katie Gallagher, director of education for Candor Health Education.

Originally a health museum for more than half a century, the nonprofit Candor Health Education has taught health, sex education, and drug prevention to students from 4^th to 8^th grade.

Gallagher points out with social isolation and increased time spent online, the pandemic has only compounded the issue.

“Kids are going to see this now. We have to make sure that we they know what to do when they do, and they have the right places to go and the right information,” said Gallagher.

Over the last few years, the nonprofit's outreach programming has had to shift, accelerated by remote schooling.

“We saw that it was not going to be a possibility this year, and we spent all of last summer really reworking our programs so that we could offer various virtual delivery models,” said Gallagher.

Katie Burns recently went through the new learning system with her mom at her side.

“I thought it was going to make it a bit uncomfortable and impersonal,” said Laura Burns. “And I actually found it to be the exact opposite.”

“They went deeper, and I understood things differently and more clearly,” said daughter Katie.

And while experts say sexual education should not come from the internet, the future of its delivery will likely end up becoming more virtual and online.