Author: News Room
After announcing tests of premium subscriptions for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp earlier this year, TechCrunch and Bloomberg report that Meta is launching a global rollout over the next few weeks and is also starting to test subscriptions for Meta AI. With the new offerings, Meta joins many other tech companies in changing up its subscription plans to bring in new revenues following substantial AI investments — Google, for example, recently lowered the price of its most expensive subscription and threw in YouTube Premium.Instagram Plus and Facebook Plus will cost $3.99 per month, while WhatsApp Plus will cost $2.99 per month. Instagram…
Federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud after he allegedly made $1.2 million on Polymarket bets related to Search-related trends in 2025, as reported earlier by ABC News. In their now-unsealed complaint, prosecutors allege that Michele Spagnuolo “knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data.” Spagnuolo was arrested in New York on Wednesday but released on a $2.25 million bond, ABC News reports. He is charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.Spagnuolo made bets on Polymarket under the username AlphaRacoon, with his successful search-related…
If you want an iPad that’s more powerful than the entry-level model but less expensive than the iPad Pro, the latest iPad Air is the one to buy, and it’s down to one its best prices to date. The 11-inch Air with 128GB of storage and Wi-Fi connectivity is available at Amazon starting at $519.99 ($79 off). If you want a larger screen, the base 13-inch Air has dropped to a new low price of $699 ($100 off), also at Amazon.No matter which size you choose, the new iPad Air is noticeably faster than the base iPad thanks to its…
After first being announced in December 2024, Lux Optics has finally released the latest version of its Halide camera app for the iPhone and iPad. The Halide Mark III app’s most compelling feature is a new film simulation engine and a collection of five new Looks that can be applied to photos as they’re taken. Co-developed with Cullen Kelly, a “renowned Hollywood colorist,” the different looks are tailored for landscape photography, portraits, and cityscapes, plus a black-and-white option with extra film grain.Halide Mark III is available now through the App Store for a one-time purchase price of $59.99, or as…
Nubia has announced the international launch of the Redmagic 11S Pro, its new flagship Android gaming phone. It’s not a significant change from the 11 Pro, which launched internationally last November, but has been upgraded to the overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Leading Version.Otherwise things look similar. There’s a large 7,500mAh battery, fast 80W charging, and a 144Hz screen with an under-display camera. The company’s AquaCore cooling returns, combining a 24,000 RPM fan with a true liquid cooling system — not the simple vapor chamber found on other phones. The big downside to the 11S Pro is that the…
xTool has announced a new multi-purpose crafting machine that could potentially be one of the most affordable ways to start an Etsy shop. Its modular design facilitates a CMYK print head that works on multiple materials including paper, wood, and felt. It can later be swapped with laser-based cutting and engraving tools. You can use the M2 to both print and cut stickers, for example, but it’s versatile enough to also be used to etch designs onto metal water bottles. The machine’s upgradeable functionality justifies its footprint, which is much larger than your typical desktop printer.The xTool M2 Color Craft…
Even without E3, the transition from spring to summer is a busy time for the gaming industry. Summer Game Fest is right around the corner, and Sony is kicking things off with a State of Play on June 2nd with an extended look at Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game. To mark the occasion, Sony is also hosting another Days of Play sale, giving you a chance to save on headsets, games, DualSense controllers, earbuds, and other first-party hardware / licensed products through June 10th.Needless to say, there’s a lot on offer, with Sony’s first-party exclusives being some of the most notable.…
The first wave of RGB LED TVs are fighting for their spot in the TV hierarchy. They need to outperform OLED TVs in brightness and color (because they’ll never match OLED’s contrast), and they need to outperform regular LED TVs in everything (because their price is so much higher). It’s now time for Sony to take a swing with the Bravia 7 II, which is out alongside the flagship Bravia 9 II. Both pair RGB LED backlighting with Sony’s always top-notch processing.RGB TVs like the Bravia 7 II use red, green, and blue LEDs instead of a field of all-blue…
Motorola says that recently discovered behavior, which saw some of its phones sending users to an affiliate tracking website before opening the Amazon app, was “unintended” and has been “promptly corrected.” The company didn’t explain how the error was introduced in the first place.“Recently, Motorola acted quickly to resolve an issue that was identified, which caused some users in the US launching the Amazon Shopping app to be routed through a web tracking link before opening the app. This behavior was unintended and resulted in an inconsistent user experience,” Allison Yi, Motorola’s executive director of product management, told The Verge in a…
After a flood of complaints about the Google Health app that just replaced Fitbit, Google has responded with a list of changes that will roll out starting this week.Google is addressing some of the biggest complaints users had, like the Today dashboard that can only show users’ chosen health metrics in the top half of the screen. Soon, Google says it will “make it easier to customize your Today and Health dashboards so you can more easily re-arrange metrics within them or add or remove metrics.”Google Health is also adding some missing features and quality-of-life improvements, like custom food viewing,…
Since moving to South Carolina’s Lowcountry, I’ve been spellbound by the myriad of beautiful birds that share the coast with us — ospreys raising their babies in towering nests beside the road to my daughter’s school, roseate spoonbills wading in the marsh on my morning walks, eagles circling over my son’s tennis matches, and a constant parade of songbirds through my backyard. The challenge, as every birder knows, lies in catching these moments. And for that, a smart bird feeder is a fabulous tool.These use a small, motion-activated camera embedded in a feeder to capture photos and video of birds…
In the wake of Google expanding its AI verification efforts at I/O, YouTube is now finally going to start taking AI labeling seriously. YouTube has announced that it’s relocating AI disclosures on Shorts and long-form videos to make them easier to spot and will start automatically identifying and labeling AI-generated content on the platform.For regular YouTube videos, the label — which says “AI” next to a recognizable information symbol — will now appear directly below the video player, above the description. Currently, this information is hidden on the videos themselves and can only be viewed by expanding the video description…