Latest from Amanda Silberling
In the most anticlimactic way possible, Nintendo on Tuesday confirmed years of rumors: The Nintendo Switch 2 console is on the way. “We will make an announcement about the successor…
Whether you love or hate celebrity culture, the Met Gala is an event. Those less jaded among us get to see all of the biggest stars take their boldest fashion…
Featured Article
The Kendrick-Drake feud shows how technology is changing rap battles
It seems we’re all in agreement: Kendrick Lamar defeated Drake in one of the most engrossing rap battles of the decade. To add insult to injury, Drake also threw himself into legal hot water when he deepfaked the late rapper Tupac. The tension between Lamar and Drake goes back decades,…
3:50 pm PDT • May 6, 2024
Apple finally updated its App Store guidelines to allow global developers to host retro game emulators on iOS. Now, you don’t need to jailbreak your iPhone or download any sketchy…
Featured Article
10 years in the making, retro game emulator Delta is now No. 1 on the iOS charts
Video game emulator Delta’s decade-long struggle against the iOS App Store began with a school-issued TI-84 calculator. When Riley Testut was a sophomore in high school, he showed his friends how to load illicit software onto their bulky graphing calculators. Such behavior was generally discouraged at school, but he wasn’t…
10:34 am PDT • May 3, 2024
Government & Policy
Bill to strengthen national tipline for missing and exploited children heads to Biden’s desk
9:25 am PDT • April 30, 2024
A bipartisan bill designed to protect children from online sexual exploitation is headed to President Biden’s desk. Proposed by Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-SC), the bill aims…
Social
Social media companies have too much political power, 78% of Americans say in Pew survey
3:27 pm PDT • April 29, 2024
Finally, something that both sides of the aisle can agree on: social media companies are too powerful. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 78% of American adults…
Featured Article
Will a TikTok ban impact creator economy startups? Not really, founders say
President Joe Biden signed a bill on Wednesday that could ban TikTok — for real this time. After so many false starts and stops, some creator economy founders and their clients are rolling their eyes. They’ve been through this before. “I think two years ago, this would have been devastating,”…
1:15 pm PDT • April 27, 2024
Featured Article
Gen Z is losing its political voice on social media
President Joe Biden signed the bill this week that could ban TikTok from the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell the platform. According to young political content creators, the ban could decimate Gen Z’s access to political news and information. “An unfortunately large amount of 18- to 24-year-olds…
11:27 am PDT • April 25, 2024
Social
Post News, the a16z-funded Twitter alternative, is shutting down
12:13 pm PDT • April 19, 2024
Post was backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Scott Galloway, an NYU professor and tech commentator, but the platform never disclosed how much it raised.
Featured Article
Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker
Humane AI raised more than $230 million before it even shipped a product. And when it finally released its Ai Pin — which costs $699 plus a $24 monthly subscription — pretty much every tech reviewer came to the same disappointing realization: This much-hyped product, which promises to disrupt the…
1:00 pm PDT • April 17, 2024
Social
AirChat, the buzzy new social app, could be great — or, it could succumb to the same fate as Clubhouse
12:43 pm PDT • April 17, 2024
Over the weekend, another social media platform exploded into the fray: AirChat. The app is like a combination of Twitter and Clubhouse. Instead of typing a post, you speak it.…
Social
Reddit CPO talks new features — better translations, moderation and dev tools
10:00 am PDT • April 17, 2024
It’s a big year for Reddit. After its IPO, the platform is planning a slew of product features for the year ahead, and — spoiler alert — most of them…
Featured Article
Silicon Valley artist Danielle Baskin launches Moonlight, an online tarot platform
You might know Bay Area artist Danielle Baskin for her viral, immersive art installations and jokes. Her newest project, Moonlight, is certainly not a joke, but she still finds her characteristic whimsy when describing her new venture: “It’s SaaS for witches.” She’s not kidding. Moonlight is a free online tarot…
8:34 am PDT • April 16, 2024
Gaming
A Dungeons & Dragons actual play show is going to sell out Madison Square Garden
10:30 am PDT • April 12, 2024
What does Taylor Swift have in common with a group of improv comedians pretending to be wizards? They can both sell out Madison Square Garden (… and also, their fans…
Social
Taylor Swift’s music is back on TikTok, despite platform’s ongoing UMG dispute
10:41 am PDT • April 11, 2024
After 10 weeks of being absent from the platform, Taylor Swift’s music has returned to TikTok — or at least her more recent songs and “Taylor’s Version” cuts, since she…
Gaming
Apple News is testing a game that kind of looks like NYT Connections
1:45 pm PDT • April 10, 2024
Apple News is testing a new game for iOS 17.5 called Quartiles, which requires players to organize a grid of 20 syllables into 5 four-syllable words. Spotted by Gadget Hacks,…
Social
Hundreds of creators sign letter slamming Meta’s limit on political content
1:11 pm PDT • April 10, 2024
If you haven’t been seeing much political content on Instagram lately, there’s a reason for that. Since March, Instagram and Threads have instituted a new default setting that limits political…
For just a brief moment, this was the internet at its best. I stared at a vase of dried out Trader Joe’s flowers, rumbling on my table for maybe 30…
Social
X is giving blue checks to influential users (which is what blue checks were supposed to be all along)
7:45 pm PDT • April 3, 2024
X is giving free blue checks to users who have more than 2,500 “verified” followers, which are people who subscribe to X Premium. Popular posters will get a blue check,…
AI
I have a group chat with three AI friends, thanks to Nomi AI — they’re getting too smart
2:54 pm PDT • April 3, 2024
After a few weeks of casual friendship, I had to break the news to my AI companions: I am actually a tech journalist writing an article about the company that…
AI
Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Katy Perry and other musicians sign letter against irresponsible AI
11:33 am PDT • April 2, 2024
A group of 200 musicians signed an open letter calling on tech companies and developers to not undermine human creativity with AI music generation tools. The list of undersigned artists…
Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” has been out for only a few days, yet it’s already obvious that we’ll be talking about it for years to come — it’s breaking records across…
Even though X seems to be working on this NSFW Communities feature, that doesn’t mean it’ll come to fruition.
It’s election season in the U.S., and Instagram has changed the way that it recommends political content. On both Instagram and the newer X competitor Threads, this change won’t impact…
AI
Calmara suggests it can detect STIs with photos of genitals — a dangerous idea
8:00 am PDT • March 22, 2024
You’ve gone home with a Tinder date, and things are escalating. You don’t really know or trust this guy, and you don’t want to contract an STI, so… what now?…
Featured Article
Why is AI so bad at spelling? Because image generators aren’t actually reading text
AIs are easily acing the SAT, defeating chess grandmasters and debugging code like it’s nothing. But put an AI up against some middle schoolers at the spelling bee, and it’ll get knocked out faster than you can say diffusion. For all the advancements we’ve seen in AI, it still can’t…
11:47 am PDT • March 21, 2024
Apps
Coalition including Epic, Spotify, Deezer, Match Group and others applaud DOJ’s Apple suit in statement
10:47 am PDT • March 21, 2024
The Coalition for App Fairness (CAF) released a statement on Thursday cheering on the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The group includes a number of key app makers,…
The Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general filed a massive lawsuit against Apple on Thursday morning, accusing the company of monopolistic smartphone practices. Meanwhile, Fortnite maker Epic Games…
Apps
What is Bluesky? Everything to know about the app trying to replace Twitter
6:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is most certainly bluer. It’s been more than a year since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now…
