Surprisingly many “iPad kids” — also known as the 7- to 9-year-old age group of Generation Alpha — are using X, according to new data from parental control software maker Qustodio. The company found that over 30% of this group of children have an X account. Qustodio suspects that X may be gaining the attention of these young people through integration with Google Search, which displays X posts directly in search results.
The family of the strong VC Marc Andreessenone of the investors behind the hoped-for utopian city of California Forever, is also planning to build a large planned city in the area, TechCrunch has learned.
Mike Lynch, the British investor and founder of IT company Autonomy, was identified as one of the bodies recovered from the Bayesian, the yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily after being hit by a tornado-like column of water. Lynch’s daughter Hannah was also identified.
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Our first impressions of ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode: Faster response times, unique answers, and the ability to answer complex questions set it apart from Siri and Alexa, but it still falls short of being an effective replacement for virtual assistants. Read more
Banks may regret helping Elon Musk buy Twitter: Elon Musk borrowed $13 billion from several major banks to finance his $44 billion takeover, which the WSJ says is now the worst merger financing deal for banks since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Read more
Waymo wants to chauffeur your children: Waymo is reportedly considering launching a subscription program called “Waymo Teen,” which would allow teenagers to summon one of its robotaxis and send pickup and drop-off notifications to their parents. Read more
Welcome back, Myspace: Instagram has just launched a new feature in collaboration with singer Sabrina Carpenter that allows you to add music to your profile, but the songs won’t play automatically. Read more
A new way to break your iPhone: A security researcher has found that typing “”:: into the Settings app search bar or the App Library search bar can cause iPhones and iPads to crash briefly. Enter at your own risk, but don’t say we didn’t warn you. Read more
Peloton wants more money for your used equipment: Peloton will introduce a new one-time $95 “used equipment fee” to generate additional revenue from second-hand sales amid concerns that cheaper, slightly used equipment could cannibalize sales. Read more
X leaves Brazil: X is ceasing operations in Brazil amid a legal dispute with Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who requested the suspension of some X accounts as part of an investigation into election misinformation. The service will remain available to users in the country. Read more
Look what you made me do: Donald Trump posted a collection of memes on Truth Social that make it seem as though Taylor Swift and her fans are supporting his candidacy. Is this illegal? That’s what legal experts say. Read more
Check out this robot doing push-ups: A new video from Boston Dynamics shows that its new humanoid robot Atlas can do push-ups. While the video isn’t indicative of real-world use, it’s a great demonstration of Atlas’ extremely robust and powerful actuators. Read more
Never give up: Lindy founder Flo Crivello had to teach his AI not to harass people via Rickroll after it sent the music video for Rick Astley’s 1987 dance-pop hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” to two different clients. Apparently some internet memes are so ubiquitous that even LLMs pick up on them. Read more
