Author: GT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A snappy tune by a blogger that mockingly laments his poor internet connection in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don has gotten over a half-million views on Instagram in two weeks.“How to say you’re from Rostov without saying a word? Show one bar of cellphone service,” Pavel Osipyan raps while walking around the city, smartphone in hand. “We have internet until 12 o’clock, and recently there’s been no connection at all. No need to be angry, just get used to it already.”The complaints by Osipyan — unable to pay electronically for groceries, or having to use…

Apple is introducing a new reason to upgrade to its subscription news offering, Apple News+: more games. On Thursday, the company announced the addition of the Emoji Game, an original title that will join its other games, including its Crossword puzzle, Crossword Mini, Sudoku, and word game Quartiles, in both the U.S. and Canada in English. Bundling games with other services has proven a successful strategy to attract users and keep them engaged, as The New York Times and even LinkedIn have discovered. Apple won’t share its user numbers around Games, but it says that many people subscribe to News+…

Twitter co-founder and Block CEO Jack Dorsey isn’t just vibe coding new social apps, like Bitchat and Sun Day; he has also invested $10 million in an effort to fund experimental open source projects and other tools that could ultimately transform the social media landscape. These efforts are funneled through an online collective called “andOtherStuff,” formed in May, whose team includes Dorsey; Twitter’s first employee, Evan Henshaw-Plath; “Calle,” creator of the e-cash platform Cashu; Alex Gleason, former engineering head at Truth Social; and Jeff Gardner, the fourth employee at Intercom. Image Credits:and Other Stuff The group originally met through collaborating…

TikTok is adding new features to its app to let songwriters highlight their works. These features, rolling out in beta, include a “Songwriter” label and a new tab where they can show off their music. The company said a limited number of publishing partners and songwriters have access to the new label and the music highlight section. Those who want to be part of the program will have to join a waitlist. TikTok said that it surveyed over 870 songwriters and interviewed several to understand their needs in relation to profile building and creating monetization opportunities. The company also pointed…

Roblox announced Thursday that it’s launching new safeguards for people who are between the ages of 13 and 18. The company is introducing “Trusted Connections” to allow these users to connect more freely with people they know, alongside age estimation technology, more privacy tools, and insights for parents of teens. Roblox has come under fire in recent years for how it handles child safety. In April, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a subpoena to Roblox in response to reports that children were exposed to harmful material on the platform and that predatory adults were able to message minors on the app.…

As the race to bake AI features into productivity apps intensifies, Slack is bolstering search on its app with AI features, adding transcription and summaries for huddles, and a way to see recaps of channels and threads. Using AI, Slack now lets you search across channels as well as connected apps (like Google Drive, Salesforce, and Teams) to surface relevant files and conversations. This feature will be available on Slack’s Business and Enterprise plans. Image Credits:Slack The company is also using AI to bolster Huddles, the company’s voice and video chat feature, with call transcriptions and summaries, and the app…

Doug Burgum, U.S. Secretary of the Interior speaks during the Pennsylvania Energy And Innovation Summit 2025 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on July 15, 2025David A. Grogan | CNBC Solar and wind projects that need federal permitting will face even closer scrutiny by the Trump administration, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum now making the final decision on whether they proceed on U.S.-owned lands.Burgum will now have “final review” of leases, rights-of-way, construction plans and every other aspect of the Interior Department’s federal permitting process for wind and solar projects, according to an internal memo published by the department on…

Fast-growing Swedish AI vibe coding startup Lovable has become Europe’s latest unicorn. Only eight months since its launch, the startup has raised a $200 million Series A round led by Accel at a $1.8 billion valuation. Like Cursor and other platforms that help developers write code and build apps by harnessing the coding and reasoning abilities of large language models, Stockholm-based Lovable helps people use natural language to create websites and apps. The startup’s trajectory so far has charted straight toward the sky, with the company claiming it now has more than 2.3 million active users. Those users are using…

Connie Francis was a giant of 1950s and ‘60s sugary-sweet pop, notching more than a dozen hits. In the months leading up to her death, announced Thursday, she experienced one more in “Pretty Little Baby,” which has become a viral hit on TikTok six decades after its release.As of Thursday, more than 22.5 million TikTok videos have been created using the sound, often partnering videos of baby animals, toddlers, makeup tutorials and retro fashions. According to TikTok, those videos have amassed more than 45.5 billion views, globally. Celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian and North West have used it, too,…

Uber is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into EV maker Lucid and autonomous vehicle technology startup Nuro in a bid to launch its own premium robotaxi service. Under the deal announced Thursday, Uber will invest $300 million in Lucid and separately buy “at least” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Those EVs will be equipped with Nuro’s autonomous vehicle system, and the vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners. Uber plans to launch a robotaxi service in a major U.S. city next year. Production of these…