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Threads users still barely click links

Two years in, Threads is starting to look more and more like the most viable challenger to X. It passed 350 million monthly users earlier this year and Mark Zuckerberg has predicted it could be Meta's next billion-user app. But Threads still isn't sending much traffic to other websites, which could make the platform less appealing for creators, publishers and others whose businesses depend on non-Meta owned websites. According to Similarweb, a marketing intelligence firm, outbound referral traf

NotebookLM adds featured notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic and others

Google is transforming its popular AI-powered research and note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, into more of a destination. The company announced Monday it would add a series of featured notebooks from various authors, publications, researchers, and nonprofits that allow NotebookLM users to explore a wide array of topics from health and life advice to travel tips and financial analysis, and more. The initial collection, which includes notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic, as well as profess

Malicious VSCode extension in Cursor IDE led to $500K crypto theft

A fake extension for the Cursor AI IDE code editor infected devices with remote access tools and infostealers, which, in one case, led to the theft of $500,000 in cryptocurrency from a Russian crypto developer. Cursor AI IDE is an AI-powered development environment based on Microsoft's Visual Studio Code. It includes support for Open VSX, an alternative to the Visual Studio Marketplace, that allows you to install VSCode-compatible extensions to expand the software's functionality. Kaspersky re

Why random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

Campbell's Law (a variant of Goodhart's Law) states that the more a metric is used for social decision-making, the more it will be subject to corruption which distorts and corrupts not only the metric itself, but the very social processes it was meant to measure. Selection criteria for a position of authority are one example of such a metric. When selection criteria are opaque, it is difficult for them to become a target, preserving their utility as measures. For governance positions however, it

Japanese Grandparents Create Life-Size Totoro with Bus Stop for Grandkids (2020)

Totoro is a hallmark character created by Studio Ghibli, Japan's beloved animation studio. The plump bodied, wide smiling magical creature’s most iconic image is that of him waiting for an unusual bus in the rain. The magic of that scene (featured in the 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro) has been a spark of nostalgia, imagination, and inspiration for a variety of creatives. Such is the case for a pair of grandparents in Takaharu, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. The couple—who is in their 70s—decided to

Rainmaker partners with Atmo to squeeze more rain from clouds

Cloud seeding startup Rainmaker is partnering with Atmo, an AI-powered meteorology startup, the companies exclusively told TechCrunch. The two operate on complementary ends of the weather system: Atmo studies atmospheric patterns to forecast weather events, while Rainmaker digests such data in an attempt to squeeze more precipitation out of weather systems. Under the partnership, Atmo will use its deep learning models to help Rainmaker identify clouds that have potential for seeding. The forec

Lenovo Legion Go S: Windows 11 vs. SteamOS Performance, and General Availability

We have already covered it ahead of its launch: the Lenovo Legion Go S is a high-end handheld PC that comes in two flavors: a SteamOS variant and a Windows 11 version. Today, we are going to look at the performance across both versions, based on multiple benchmarks collected from different sources on the webs. The Lenovo Legion Go S: SteamOS for the Masses Both versions of the Legion Go S use a similar AMD processor (Z2 Go at 4c/8t) and a 55.5 Wh battery, but the SteamOS model is priced about

What happens when a brand built for sport loses some of its focus?

I’m Carter, I lead growth and operations at Handstand [a bit more on me here]. I grew up just outside of Portland, Oregon - naturally, Nike has been in my orbit and part of my life since day one (see below: “Dear Santa, please bring me a pair of Chicago 1s”). It’s an inspiring brand we discuss and think about often, so I decided to write about it. Excited to continue sharing more perspectives from different voices on the team. Visiting Santa at Meier & Frank - Portland, OR “When you see only p

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 N offers more sound, more shifts, more smiles

Hyundai provided flights from Albany to London and accommodation so Ars could attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Ioniq 6 N reveal. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. Hyundai's N division is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025. That's not long enough to earn the cachet of other performance sub-brands, like BMW's M or Mercedes-Benz's AMG, but N has certainly developed a reputation for fun, attainable, and powder-blue cars. With the Ioniq 5 N, Hyundai's skunkworks for spee

How AI can make us better decision-makers, with Cassie Kozyrkov

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Jon Fortt, CNBC journalist, cohost of Closing Bell Overtime, and creator and host of the Fortt Knox podcast. As you just heard Nilay say, I’m stepping in to guest host a few episodes of Decoder this summer while he’s out on parental leave, and I’m very excited about what we’ve been working on. For my first episode of Decoder, a show about how people make decisions, I wanted to talk to an expert. So I sat down with Cassie Kozyrkov, the founder and CEO of AI

Texas governor says his emails with Elon Musk are too ‘intimate or embarrassing’ to release

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is refusing to release months’ worth of emails sent to Elon Musk and his companies under public records laws, according to a joint report from ProPublica, The Texas Newsroom, and The Texas Tribune. After initially agreeing to an information request, the governor’s office argued that the emails are covered by a law that pre

The votes are in: TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 Audience Choice winners revealed for roundtables and breakouts

You voted — they made it onto the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 agenda! After reviewing hundreds of standout Call for Content submissions and opening the vote to the TechCrunch audience, we’ve locked in the top five roundtables and top five breakout sessions. Without further ado, meet the exceptional tech voices — and the sessions they’ll lead — that will shape the conversation at Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Visit the agenda page for full session and spe

Lossless Float Image Compression

Back in 2021 I looked at OpenEXR lossless compression options (and I think my findings led a change of the default zip compression level, as well as change of the compression library from zlib to libdeflate. Yay blogging about things!). Then in 2023 I looked at losslessly compressing a bunch of floating point data, some of which might be image-shaped. Well, now a discussion somewhere else has nerd-sniped me to look into lossless compression of floating point images, and especially the ones that

Tomorrow: TechCrunch All Stage launches in Boston — and ticket prices rise

TechCrunch All Stage officially kicks off tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. ET at SoWa Power Station in Boston — and that’s when ticket prices jump to full rate. This isn’t just another founder event. It’s the summit built to help startups fundraise smarter, scale faster, and lead with impact. Whether you’re tightening your pitch, planning a raise, or navigating team growth, TC All Stage delivers the tactics and tools to take you further. Right now, until the doors open tomorrow, Founder Passes are just $

This might be the next must-buy Android gaming handheld, and it’s not a Retroid

TL;DR The ANBERNIC RG 477M is an upcoming handheld with a compact form-factor. If naming conventions hold true, it has a 4.7-inch panel and a Dimensity 8300 chipset. No release dates or pricing have been announced yet. One of the main reasons to buy an Android gaming handheld over a Linux-based one is increased power for PS2 emulation and above. Until recently, only Retroid and a few others offered devices powerful enough for reliable PS2 emulation, but the latest device announced by ANBERNIC

Bold Mission to Hunt for Aliens on Venus Is Happening

A UK-based mission is aiming to settle, once and for all, whether life exists on Venus. The mission plans to send a probe to the planet in search of microbial life, not on the surface, of course, but in the Venusian clouds. Over the past half-decade, scientists have detected the presence of phosphine and ammonia—two potential signs of biological activity—in Venus’s clouds. On Earth, both gases are produced only by biological activity and industrial processes, and scientists are unsure of their

Apple gearing up for day one production of iPhone 17 in India, despite Chinese disruption

Apple is gearing up for simultaneous production of the iPhone 17 in both China and India, despite apparent attempts by the Chinese government to disrupt this. Achieving day one assembly in India has long been a key objective for Apple’s work in reducing its dependence on China as a manufacturing hub, but has never before been achieved … Apple’s goal of simultaneous production The vast majority of iPhones are still assembled in China, but Apple has for many years been working on boosting the n

You should stop putting your phone face up on the table - here's why

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET A friend of mine recently told me, "I always keep my phone on silent mode… which doesn't matter because I compulsively look at it every three minutes anyway." He's not the only one. From becoming a text addict to having full-blown smartphone dependency, the urge to look at and interact with our "flat things" has been deeply ingrained into our collective behavior for some time now. Also: I ditched my phone for this E Ink handset for two weeks - here's my buying advice now

East Asian air cleanup likely contributed to acceleration in global warming

RAMIP simulations and recent emissions changes in East Asia We first document the emissions perturbation applied in the RAMIP baseline and East Asia simulations21 (see “Methods”), and compare them to the actual emissions reductions from the same region since around 2010. Briefly, RAMIP isolates the climate effects of aerosol emissions in one region by comparing two sets of transient emission simulations; one following a global, high emissions pathway (SSP3-7.0, which assumes weak air quality po

Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

TL;DR: Apple’s rules and technical restrictions are blocking other browser vendors from successfully offering their own engines to users in the EU. At the recent Digital Markets Act (DMA) workshop, Apple claimed it didn’t know why no browser vendor has ported their engine to iOS over the past 15 months. But the reality is Apple knows exactly what the barriers are, and has chosen not to remove them. Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual o

Can You Lose Weight and Gain Strength on a Vibration Plate? We Consulted Fitness Experts

Vibration plates are making a comeback. Similar to the mid-20th-century vibrating belt machines, vibration plates have been said to provide the body with various benefits and can even be a tool for weight loss. But is the hype actually backed by science and expert opinions, or is it all social media hearsay? To find out if you should add a vibration plate to your workout routine, we asked personal trainers and other fitness experts about the actual benefits, risks, how to use a vibration plate

Your iPhone Has a White Noise Function. Here's How to Turn It On

Listening to natural sounds can lower stress, relieve perceived pain and foster a more positive disposition, according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Other studies suggest that white noise could help parents get their babies to sleep, adults learn words and improve learning in environments full of distractions. And if you're looking to buy a white noise machine for yourself or your child, your iPhone can function as one, saving you money on a new device. R

Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?

It’s been 16 months since a DMA ruling allowed iOS developers like Google and Mozilla to use their own browser engines in the EU, so… where are they? According to the Open Web Advocacy (OWA) — a nonprofit group of software engineers that advocates for the open web — Apple continues to place technical and financial restrictions on WebKit-alternative iOS browser engines that effectively stifle competition. OWA says these barriers include insufficient testing tools outside of the US, hostile legal

Jack Dorsey’s latest app tracks sun exposure

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is on an app-building spree. After releasing a Bluetooth-based messaging app called Bitchat earlier this month, this weekend Dorsey revealed another app called Sun Day that ostensibly helps users track UV exposure and Vitamin D intake. The new app is available via TestFlight on iOS, and its code is on GitHub for anyone to clone. track your (vitamin) D a Sun Day app for Sunday.https://t.co/KKsq3LkLEj — jack (@jack) July 13, 2025 Like other developers, Dorsey i

Black hole merger challenges our understanding of black hole formation

Gravitational waves—ripples in space-time caused by violent cosmic events—travel at the speed of light in every direction, eventually fading out like ripples in water. But some events are so destructive and extreme that they create disturbances in spacetime more like powerful waves than small ripples, with enough energy to reach our own detectors here on Earth. Today, the LIGO Collaboration announced the detection of the most colossal black hole merger known to date, the final product of which

Astronomers Detect a Black Hole Merger That’s So Massive It Shouldn’t Exist

Gravitational waves—ripples in space-time caused by violent cosmic events—travel at the speed of light in every direction, eventually fading out like ripples in water. But some events are so destructive and extreme that they create disturbances in spacetime more like powerful waves than small ripples, with enough energy to reach our own detectors here on Earth. Today, the LIGO Collaboration announced the detection of the most colossal black hole merger known to date, the final product of which

Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 14, #294

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition might be tough, if timely. I guess I'm not up on the 2025 HR Derby, but maybe you are. Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's a sign that the game has earned e

Show HN: A Raycast-compatible launcher for Linux

Raycast for Linux An open-source, Raycast-inspired launcher for Linux. For more background on this project, I have a post here. Disclaimer: This is a hobby project and is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by, the official Raycast team. ✨ Features This launcher aims to recreate most of Raycast's core features on Linux: Extensible Command Palette : The core of the application. Search for and launch applications, run commands, execute quicklinks, and more. : The core of the application. Sear