WhatsApp is testing a new subscription tier, similar to Instagram Plus and Snapchat+, that lets users pay for customized icons, themes, ringtones, and more. The paid plan’s features are largely cosmetic; users don’t get many additional functional features. WhatsApp Plus has been spotted by many users, including social media consultant Matt Navarra. The company confirmed…
The National Security Agency is said to be using Mythos Preview, Anthropic’s recently announced model that it withheld from public release, Axios reports. The news comes weeks after the NSA’s parent agency, the Department of Defense, labeled Anthropic a “supply-chain risk,” after the company refused to allow Pentagon officials unrestricted access to its model’s full…
Sometimes, things are not just one thing — they’re also another thing. This sentence construction (“It’s not just this — it’s that”) has become so common in AI-generated writing that now, it’s no longer just a clue that a piece of writing may be synthetic — it’s almost a guarantee. That’s why I was not…
After 15 years, Tim Cook will hand off the Apple CEO role to John Ternus, the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. Starting on September 1, Ternus will lead one of the world’s most valuable companies, but if you’re not a dedicated Apple enthusiast, you’ve probably never heard of this man, who has largely…
Anthropic announced on Monday that Amazon has agreed to invest a fresh $5 billion, bringing Amazon’s total investment in the company to $13 billion. Anthropic, for its part, has agreed to spend over $100 billion on AWS over the next 10 years, obtaining up to 5 GW of new computing capacity to train and run…
Google announced Monday that it’s making its Gemini in Chrome feature available in seven new markets, including Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam. The company is rolling this feature out to both desktop and iOS in all of these countries except Japan. The company has been integrating AI and Gemini in…
Apple announced on Monday that Tim Cook, who has served as Apple’s CEO since 2011, will step down. Cook was the direct successor as Apple CEO after Steve Jobs, who resigned due to health issues. Cook will remain in his role until September 1 of this year, when Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John…
Google Photos’ image editor is getting new touch-up tools to allow users to apply subtle edits and fixes, Google announced on Monday. You can use the new tools to remove blemishes, refine skin texture, brighten eyes, whiten teeth, and more. You can access the touch-up tools by selecting a face in a photo, then choosing…
Mastodon’s flagship server was hit by a distributed denial-of-service attack on Monday, the social networking software maker said, which rendered the instance unusable at times. Much of the site was inaccessible, throwing error messages or displaying a full-screen outage warning. The makers of the decentralized social networking software, which runs its official mastodon.social instance, said…
Over the weekend, hackers stole more than $290 million in cryptocurrency from Kelp DAO, a protocol that allows users to earn yields on idle crypto investments. By Monday, LayerZero, one of the projects affected by the hack, accused North Korea of carrying out the heist. The hack is now the largest crypto theft of the…