Apps

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok

President Donald Trump told reporters that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, Bloomberg reports. Although Trump didn’t elaborate, he stated that “there’s great interest in TikTok” and that there will be “a lot of people bidding on it.” Microsoft and Oracle were in the running to acquire the ByteDance-owned app back in […]

Trump says Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok Read More »

Microsoft tests ‘scareware blocker’ for Edge that uses computer vision to detect scams

Microsoft is rolling out a new tool dubbed “scareware blocker,” which uses machine learning and computer vision to identify a very pervasive type of online scam. “Scareware” has blighted the web almost since its inception, often in the form of fake antivirus software that claims to have detected a non-existent threat on a user’s machine.

Microsoft tests ‘scareware blocker’ for Edge that uses computer vision to detect scams Read More »

Google Maps will soon rename Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’

Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Denali mountain in Google Maps once a federal mapping database reflects changes ordered by the Trump Administration, the company announced Monday. Google is complying with an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump that changed the names of several American landmarks. The executive order

Google Maps will soon rename Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ Read More »

Alibaba’s Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek might be getting the bulk of the tech industry’s attention this week. But one of its top domestic rivals, Alibaba, isn’t sitting idly by. Alibaba’s Qwen team on Monday released a new family of AI models, Qwen2.5-VL, that can perform a number of text and image analysis tasks. The models can

Alibaba’s Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones Read More »

Meta AI can now use your Facebook and Instagram data to personalize its responses

Meta says that it is rolling out improvements to Meta AI, its cross-platform chatbot, including the ability have the bot “remember” details from conversations. In a post on Meta’s official blog, the company said that, in chats with Meta AI on Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp for iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada, users can

Meta AI can now use your Facebook and Instagram data to personalize its responses Read More »

In motion to dismiss, chatbot platform Character AI claims it is protected by the First Amendment

Character AI, a platform that lets users engage in roleplay with AI chatbots, has filed a motion to dismiss a case brought against it by the parent of a teen who committed suicide, allegedly after becoming hooked on the company’s technology. In October, Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against Character AI in the U.S. District

In motion to dismiss, chatbot platform Character AI claims it is protected by the First Amendment Read More »

Ditching Meta? Open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp fundraise on Kickstarter

The developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, and Sup, open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, respectively, is now raising funds on Kickstarter to fuel the apps’ further development. The trio is part of the growing open social web, also known as the fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by X alternative Mastodon. The

Ditching Meta? Open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp fundraise on Kickstarter Read More »