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Instagram adds real-time Spotify song sharing to Notes, teases grid reordering

Instagram is introducing a new way to share your music taste through Notes, the temporary status updates that appear above inboxes in DMs. Starting today, users can display the Spotify tracks they’re currently listening to in real time. Unlike the existing music sharing features, this update continuously reflects the current song, showing both the title and artist. It builds on Instagram’s integration with Spotify, which began last November with the introduction of an “add to Spotify” button.

Apple quietly fixed an iPhone zero-day flaw that was used against journalists

Today, Apple confirmed (via TechCrunch) that a zero-day flaw used to deploy mercenary spyware onto journalists’ iPhones was quietly patched earlier this year, with the iOS 18.3.1 update. The flaw, disclosed today in an updated security advisory, was exploited by Israeli surveillance firm Paragon, to hack into the phones of at least two European journalists. According to Citizen Lab, which investigated the attacks, Apple fixed the issue in iOS 18.3.1, released back in February, but didn’t menti

My favorite MagSafe wallet stand is the ideal iPhone companion, and it just got cheaper

ZDNET's key takeaways ESR's Aura Halo-Lock MagSafe wallet and stand combine style and function at a fair price point. The $40 MagSafe wallet stores up to five cards, doubles as a phone stand, includes an ID window, and comes in five colorways. If you're after smaller capacity wallets or more premium materials, you're better off with other MagSafe cardholders. $23.99 at Amazon The ESR Aura MagSafe wallet and stand is on sale in select colors for $19 at Amazon now. When I'm not doubled down co

Unpacking AI Agents

In the past six months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others have released web-browsing agents that are designed to complete tasks independently, with only minimal input from humans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even called AI agents “the next giant breakthrough.” On today’s episode, we'll dive into what makes these agents different from other forms of machine intelligence, and whether their capabilities can live up to the hype. You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Good

Instagram grid customization is coming next week

Instagram is making it easier for users to express themselves through music, reels, and says it’s “exploring” ways to support posts that can appear on your profile without being pushed to followers’ feeds. A feature rolling out today allows users to automatically share the name and artist of the Spotify song they’re currently listening to in their Instagram Notes — the temporary status updates that appear above profile pictures in Instagram DMs. Meta spokesperson Christine Pai confirmed that st

Apple fixes new iPhone zero-day bug used in Paragon spyware hacks

Researchers revealed on Thursday that two European journalists had their iPhones hacked with spyware made by Paragon. Apple now says it has fixed the bug that was used to hack their phones. Citizen Lab wrote in its report, shared with TechCrunch ahead of its publication, that Apple had told its researchers that the flaw exploited in the attacks had been “mitigated in iOS 18.3.1,” a software update for iPhones released on February 10. Until this week, the advisory of that security update only m

Here are Apple’s top AI announcements from WWDC 2025

Last year, Apple’s WWDC keynote highlighted the company’s ambitious strides in AI. This year, the company toned down its emphasis on Apple Intelligence and concentrated on updates to its operating systems, services, and software, introducing a new aesthetic it calls “Liquid Glass” along with a new naming convention. Nevertheless, Apple still attempted to appease the crowd with a few AI-related announcements, such as an image analysis tool, a workout coach, a live translation feature, and more.

Google Pixel 10 may fail to live up to our MagSafe dreams, after all

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Google is preparing a range of “Pixelsnap” accessories for the Pixel 10 that support wireless charging. Despite Qi2 support, the phone may require the use of a case to add the magnets needed for alignment. In addition to Google’s own accessories, look for a range of similar Made by Google solutions from third parties. What is so hard about giving Android users what they want? When it comes to wirelessly charging our phones, we’re not asking for that m

Instagram will soon let you re-arrange your grid

You don't have to make a huge effort planning Instagram posts anymore so that your profile takes on a certain aesthetic or so that your grid reads or looks a certain way. Instagram will soon (and finally) let you re-order the posts already on your grid. Alessandro Paluzzi, who reverse engineered apps and posted upcoming features online, found an "edit grid" option within Instagram way back in 2022. Instagram didn't say when exactly the feature will be available, but when you do get the edit grid

US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

ROME (AP) — Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks. The findings come amid a growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leade

macOS Tahoe brings a new disk image format

Disk images have been valuable tools marred by poor performance. In the wrong circumstances, an encrypted sparse image (UDSP) stored on the blazingly fast internal SSD of an Apple silicon Mac may write files no faster than 100 MB/s, typical for a cheap hard drive. One of the important new features introduced in macOS 26 Tahoe is a new disk image format that can achieve near-native speeds: ASIF, documented here. This has been detailed as a major improvement in lightweight virtualisation, where i

Topics: asif disk gb image images

Instagram will finally let you rearrange your grid

Instagram announced on Thursday that it will finally allow users to rearrange their grid, and is testing a way for users to quietly post to their profile without having the content appear in users’ feeds. The social network is also launching the ability to stream songs from Spotify directly to your Instagram Notes, along with a new initiative to support emerging creators. Instagram says the ability to rearrange grids has been one of its most high-requested features. With this update, users will

Researchers confirm two journalists were hacked with Paragon spyware

Two European journalists were hacked using government spyware made by Israeli surveillance tech provider Paragon, new research has confirmed. On Thursday, digital rights group The Citizen Lab published a new report detailing the results of a new forensic investigation into the iPhones of Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino and an unnamed “prominent” European journalist. The researchers said both journalists were hacked by the same Paragon customer, based on evidence found on the two journalists’

Dragon Age: Veilguard development struggled after EA forced, then reversed live-service shift

In brief: Dragon Age: The Veilguard's legacy will likely be as the game that ended the once-beloved franchise. While it wasn't a disaster, Veilguard attracted around half the number of players EA expected, leading to mass layoffs and the company's share price falling. Now, a report has shed some light on what happened: Veilguard became a money-making live-service game during development before pivoting back to a single-player title. According to a report by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Veilguard

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree | hands-on preview

Bandai Namco showed up at the Summer Game Fest Play Days with a rogue-lite game from Brownie: Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. The 2D action-adventure title debuts on the consoles and PC in September. It’s a button-mashing rogue-lite set in a mystic realm where ancient forces are threatening Shinju, an idyllic village at the foot of a living sacred tree. You have to fight with a couple of warriors paired together and control both of them with a single game controller. You have to for

Apple is salvaging Image Playground with a boost from ChatGPT

When Apple unveiled Image Playground last year, the company touted it as a quick and easy way to generate personalized, original images with the help of Apple Intelligence. Upon launch, the app was met with skepticism, as some users were disappointed by its limitations and low-quality results. For example, one Reddit user was surprised to find that Image Playground kept generating an image of a hand with six fingers when prompted to create an “up close image of a hand.” In another instance, a u

The Download: AI agents’ autonomy, and sodium-based batteries

In recent months, a new class of agents has arrived on the scene: ones built using large language models. Any action that can be captured by text—from playing a video game using written commands to running a social media account—is potentially within the purview of this type of system. LLM agents don’t have much of a track record yet, but to hear CEOs tell it, they will transform the economy—and soon. Despite that, like chatbot LLMs, agents can be chaotic and unpredictable. Here’s what could

Solar Orbiter captures images of the sun's pole for the first time

The Solar Orbiter has been observing the sun since 2021, but it recently went on a side trip to Venus which significantly tilted its orbit and gave it a good view of the sun's polar region. That is how it was able to capture images that will historically be known as humankind's first-ever views of the sun's pole. All our galaxy's planets and the other spacecraft we've deployed orbit the sun around an imaginary ecliptic plane along the star's equator. But thanks to the Solar Orbiter's Venus flyby

Researchers confirm two journalists were hacked with Paragon spyware

Two European journalists were hacked using government spyware made by Israeli surveillance tech provider Paragon, new research has confirmed. On Thursday, digital rights group The Citizen Lab published a new report detailing the results of a new forensic investigation into the iPhones of Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino and an unnamed “prominent” European journalist. The researchers said both journalists were hacked by the same Paragon customer, based on evidence found on the two journalists’

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?

The flash crash is probably the most well-known example of the dangers raised by agents—automated systems that have the power to take actions in the real world, without human oversight. That power is the source of their value; the agents that supercharged the flash crash, for example, could trade far faster than any human. But it’s also why they can cause so much mischief. “The great paradox of agents is that the very thing that makes them useful—that they’re able to accomplish a range of tasks—

It’s been 84 years, but my dream of ‘MagSafe’ on a Pixel is almost here

Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority I am an Android and a Pixel fan who has been heralding MagSafe as the coolest and most useful smartphone accessory improvement since sliced bread — or USB-C to stay within the metaphor. So when Qi2 was announced with a hint of MagSafe backwards compatibility, I was in nerd heaven. Finally — finally! — I’d be able to dip into a large ecosystem of accessories and use them on my Pixel phones. But Qi2’s announcement came and went, and the weeks, months, and years

Agentic Coding Recommendations

Agentic Coding Recommendations There is currently an explosion of people sharing their experiences with agentic coding. After my last two posts on the topic, I received quite a few questions about my own practices. So, here goes nothing. Preface For all intents and purposes, here's what I do: I predominently use Claude Code with the cheaper Max subscription for $100 a month . That works well for several reasons: I exclusively use the cheaper Sonnet model. It's perfectly adequate for my needs,

Amazon Is Running a Clearance Sale on Seagate SSDs, Now the Final Models Are at Record-Low Prices

Seagate is a brand name that first comes to mind when considering trusted external storage. Its hard disks are trustworthy, easy to use and sturdy which is the reason why they are everyone’s go-to option when they want their data to be stored securely and readily available. As storage demands are always increasing, having a reliable external hard drive is more crucial than ever before. Today, the Seagate 4TB external hard drive is priced at an amazing price on Amazon, just $99, down from its us

I Review AI Image Generators. This Is How I Write My Prompts to Get the Best Results

In the messy world of AI image generators, there are a lot of things that can go wrong when you're trying to get the image you see in your head to appear on your screen. I've spent the past year testing and reviewing different AI image generators, and I've generated hundreds of images across services like Midjourney and Dall-E. But they haven't all been winners. A bunch of them have been downright horrifying. But it taught me that the best way to avoid creating a wonky AI image is using a good p

Topics: ai image like prompt want

Inside the AI Party at the End of the World

In a $30 million mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI researchers, philosophers, and technologists gathered to discuss the end of humanity. The Sunday afternoon symposium, called “Worthy Successor,” revolved around a provocative idea from entrepreneur Daniel Faggella: The “moral aim” of advanced AI should be to create a form of intelligence so powerful and wise that “you would gladly prefer that it (not humanity) determine the future path of life itself.”

Moto Tag finally gets precise UWB location tracking

is a deputy editor and Verge co-founder with a passion for human-centric cities, e-bikes, and life as a digital nomad. He’s been a tech journalist for 20 years. Promised way back in June 2024, the Moto Tag location tracker is finally rolling out UWB support via a firmware update. That makes it the first tracker on Google’s Find Hub network to support ultra-wideband tracking, which is superior to Bluetooth since it uses distance and directional arrows to guide owners with compatible phones to th

First Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3 leak has bad news for 2027’s flagship phones

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR The first major Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 3 leak suggests Qualcomm could offer two versions of the chip, akin to Apple. The leaker also asserts that 2027’s flagship phones could be more expensive due to the cost of the chipset. It also sounds like standard flagship phones could use a less capable flagship Snapdragon processor. The Snapdragon 8 Elite powers plenty of great Android phones today, but we’ve already seen some Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 leaks. N

Disney and Universal Sue AI Company Midjourney for Copyright Infringement

Disney and Universal have filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, alleging that the San Francisco–based AI image generation startup is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism” that generates “endless unauthorized copies” of the studios’ work. There are already dozens of copyright lawsuits against AI companies winding through the US court system—including a class action lawsuit visual artists brought against Midjourney in 2023—but this is the first time major Hollywood studios have jumped into the fray. The

Google DeepMind CEO Says AI Will Let Us "Colonize the Galaxy" Starting in Five Years

In the age of artificial intelligence, CEOs have ranked among the tech's biggest cheerleaders. Drawing on sci-fi tropes and ill-defined industry terms, the pitch usually involves a confident prediction, like that humans and AI will learn to live in "peaceful coexistence" — just imagine the alternative! — and an arbitrary timetable, like that AI will result in a doomsday scenario by 2027 (unless, that is, lawmakers give these massive tech firms carte blanche to do whatever they want.) And unlik

People Pretty Much Lost Their Minds When ChatGPT Went Down

Like all websites, ChatGPT is fallible — and when it went down this week, people lost their godforsaken minds. According to OpenAI's status page, the company has experienced major issues this week, leading to breathless coverage from sites like TechRadar and The Independent — and, unsurprisingly, some massive freakouts on social media. "F*ck I can't code without ChatGPT," someone on the r/ChatGPT subreddit raged. "Ok I can but I am too dependent on ChatGPT to do the grunt work lol." In that s