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Netflix co-founder and current chairman Reed Hastings is leaving the streaming companys board in June to focus on his philanthropy and other pursuits, according to a shareholder letter released alongside Netflix's Q1 earnings. Hastings has served as chairman of Netflix's board since 2023, a role he assumed after stepping down as co-CEO and promoting Greg Peters in his place. Netflix changed my life in so many ways, and my alltime favorite memory was January 2016, when we enabled nearly the entir

Perplexity has just released Personal Computer . The software, which is available starting today for Mac, builds on the multi-model orchestration capabilities the company debuted with Perplexity Computer at the end of February . Like Claude Cowork (and, as of today, OpenAI Codex too), it's a suite of computer use agents that can work with your files, apps, connectors and the web to complete complex and even continuous workflows. Perplexity suggests a few different use cases for Personal Computer

A Call of Duty movie is still happening, but don't hold your breath for it to hit screens any time soon. Today, the popular FPS' social media revealed that the movie's theatrical release date will be June 30, 2028. A film adaptation of the game franchise was first revealed last year, and shortly after, we learned that Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg would be serving as the producers. The duo, whose past credits include Friday Night Lights and Yellowstone , will also be co-writing the project unde

Blackmagic Camera is one of the more powerful third-party smartphone camera apps available and it's now even more useful for solo creators. Blackmagic Design just announced that the latest iOS version 3.3 now supports Apple Watch, letting you control the app and monitor video remotely from your wrist. It also includes ATEM camera control so you can use your iPhone as a live studio camera. With the new Camera Apple Watch companion app, you can remotely control and monitor your iPhone from anywher

Meta is starting to test a long-overdue facelift for Threads on web. The company's head of Threads Connor Hayes showed off a new look for the web version of Threads that finally adds direct messaging and makes it easier to navigate between multiple feeds. The new layout adds a bunch of new shortcuts to the site's left rail, including saved posts, insights, activity, and the ability to move between different feeds. Those features have all been accessible on web before, but many were hard to find.

The European Commission has proposed new measures for Google aimed at bringing the tech giant's search business into compliance with the Digital Markets Act. In order to allow third-party online search engines to be competitive with Google, the EC has recommended that Google permit those services to access its treasure trove of search engine data. As it stands, the proposal would require Google to let rivals see data points such as ranking, query, click and view data, on fair, reasonable and non

While I dabble in other Overwatch modes, I spend the vast majority of my time there in Mystery Heroes, a casual mode in which you load in as a random character and automatically switch to another one when you respawn. It's by far my favorite way to play Overwatch (which I do a lot!), since it helps me switch off and relax. Others play it as a warmup for competitive action. It requires a particular skillset, as players need a working knowledge of all 51 heroes to help them coordinate with teammat

Playdate is getting a third season of curated, surprise games, Panic announced today. We don't know much beyond the fact that Season Three is officially happening, but Panic's Head of Playdate Greg Maletic said in an announcement video that it will be here in time for the holidays this year. Considering we had to wait a whole three years for Season Two to come out following Season One's release with the console in 2022, that doesn't sound so bad. Panic hasn't yet said how many games Season Three

If the real world isnt grim enough for you, Ukranian developer 4A Games has your back: Metro 2039 has been announced and is scheduled to arrive this winter. And based on the developers first look at the title, Metro 2039 looks to be an even darker affair than previous titles in the series. A tall order, but the real-world turmoil that has enveloped 4A Games since Russias invasion of Ukraine sounds like it has turned into a painful inspiration for the developer. The lengthy cinematic reveal, whic

Love 'em or hate 'em, no modern browser is complete without robust tab support, and so too would it seem Google's AI Mode . Starting today, the company is rolling out an update to users in the US that makes the tool better at interacting and understanding tabs. To start, the next time you use AI Mode on Chrome for desktop and click on a link, the chatbot will open a new side-by-side interface that allows you to both browse the new webpage and ask questions of AI Mode. The connection allows the c

Last month, following reporting from The Wall Street Journal , OpenAI confirmed it was working on a desktop super app that would combine ChatGPT, its Codex coding agent and Atlas web browser into one cohesive experience. OpenAI is not releasing that application today. Instead, it's pushing out a major update to Codex that significantly expands what that software can do. However, the new release offers a glimpse of what OpenAI hopes to build with its latest effort. We're building the super app ou

Intel has unveiled its new Core Series 3 chips, the official title for its Wildcat Lake-codenamed series intended for mainstream and value-oriented laptops. Built using the same Intel 18A process as its Core Ultra Series 3 chips, theyre significantly more powerful than the previous generation and promise exceptional battery life and boosted AI-ready performance. Intel says the Core Series 3 offers up to 47 percent better single-thread performance and 41 percent better multi-thread performance, a

Your Google Photos library could soon influence the kind of images you can generate with Gemini. After letting users personalize the AI assistant's responses with data from Gmail, Search and YouTube, Google says it's bringing that same Personal Intelligence to Nano Banana 2 to make it easier for users to create personalized images with the AI model. The goal is to have the data affiliated with your Google account your YouTube history, emails, Google Photos, etc. provide context to Nano Banana

We finally have a real-deal trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter movie, after a short teaser dropped at The Game Awards last year. This is nearly three minutes of fighting, silly dialogue and, of course, Easter eggs from the games. To the latter point, there's a scene of Ken beating up a car like in the bonus stages from Street Fighter II and footage of Ryu powering up one of his famous Hadoken fireballs. There's even a cheeky reference to Chun-Li's notoriously-large and powerful thighs. This

The Oversight Board the policy body Meta created to weigh its most impactful moderation rulings has seen its role within Mark Zuckerberg's empire come into question due to shifting content policy priorities and dwindling investment. The Oversight Board has taken steps to formalize its long-contemplated desire to work with other companies, but Engadget has learned Meta has thus far declined to move forward with that process. Over the last year, board members have become increasingly interested

The RAM crisis has prompted another company to jack up hardware prices. Meta says it will be increasing the price of Quest headsets on April 19.The Meta Quest 3 will get a $100 hike to $599, while the Quest 3S will be $50 more expensive at $350 (for a version with 128GB of storage) and $450 (256GB). Meta is blaming the increases on the rising costs of RAM, which has skyrocketed in price due to a shortage of chips as AI companies gobble up as much memory as they can for their data centers. Sony r

The open-source library and search engine Annas Archive has been ordered to pay Spotify and the three of the worlds largest music labels $322 million in damages after it claimed to have scraped the entirety of the streaming platforms library of music. Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sued Annas Archive in January for a slightly comical $13 trillion. They alleged Anna's Archive had illegally scraped 86 million songs a significant chunk of all the m

Bluesky is once again having a wobble. The platform says some of its systems are down and that its investigating an incident with service in one of our reginos (thats Blueskys typo, not mine). The issue appears to have started at 1:42AM ET and was still persisting as of 11AM. According to Blueskys status page , three servers were down, including one based in the US East region. The outages appear to be due to connection timeout issues. It seems that only certain users are being affected. Bluesky

Spotify has a new look today for listeners on tablets. The streaming services updated tablet UI now provides adaptive orientation, switching between portrait and landscape layouts rather than simply resizing the interface when changing how the device is held. Spotify's tablet app now sports a collapsible sidebar so listeners can take advantage of their larger screen space when watching a music video or podcast. Parallel browsing lets you continue to scroll through the app while a video or lyrics

Adobe isn't the only company releasing a new AI assistant this week . Ahead of its Create event in Los Angeles today, Canva announced Canva AI 2.0. Building on its existing AI assistant , the company is billing the release as its most significant update since the platform first launched in 2013, and the culmination of years of investment to build its own foundational design models. As you might imagine, it all starts with a conversational interface that allows you to describe an idea or goal and

DJIs Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal-camera was a category-defining camera. Two years since its launch , everyone from vloggers to pro film makers continue to upload how-to guides and gushing reviews to YouTube. When the Osmo Pocket 4 landed at the FCC at the end of 2025 (followed by a credible leak ), creator forums and Reddit threads started to chatter with excitement. Over the following months the Pocket 4 leaked again and again , to the point where theres very little that someone with a passing interes

Anthropic has started rolling out identity verification on Claude for a few use cases. The company didnt list out those use cases in its announcement, but weve asked it for details and will update this post when we hear back. Anthropic says you might see a verification prompt upon accessing certain capabilities, asking you to verify your identity. You would have to show a valid and physical government-issued photo ID. Youd also have take a selfie with your phone or computer camera that the syste

Fresh off the box office success of Project Hail Mary , Amazon MGM Studios has announced its theatrical release lineup for the next year. Most of the titles aren't likely to hit the highs of the Ryan Gosling starrer which has grossed $515 million in theaters. However, there are a number of promising releases like Spaceballs: The New One and Highlander starring Henry Cavill, both sequels to '80s films. Another is The Sheep Detectives with Hugh Jackman, the trailer for which has been a hit on YouT

You now have the power to remove short-form videos from your YouTube feed if you dont want to see them. YouTube has rolled out the capability to set your Shorts feed limit to zero minutes, which could help you stop doomscrolling, at least on mobile. The video-sharing platform originally launched a Shorts feed limit back in October last year, but the lowest option you could choose was 15 minutes. Once 15 minutes are up, youll get a pop-up reminding you to take a break. Earlier this year, it integ

Opera is offering a new choice for looping in an AI assistant during browsing. Today, the company introduced Browser Connector, which allows Opera One and Opera GX users to integrate either ChatGPT or Claude into the platform. The chatbots will be able to access page content while a person is browsing and will draw context for queries from the information in your open tabs. The free new feature can be enabled through the AI Services section of the Settings menu. Opera is one of the many browser

Earlier this year it was revealed that Apple and Google were offering nudify apps on their stores despite having clear policies barring such content. Nearly three months later, such apps are not only still available, but being actively promoted on the iOS App Store and Google Play, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). Many of those were labeled E for Everyone, meaning they can be downloaded by children. Searching for nudify, undress and other terms in those stores

Apple's MacBook Neo is a $600 (or $500 for students) shot across the bow at affordable Windows laptops, and it seems like Microsoft has ready its first response. The newly announced Microsoft College Offer is a bundle of Microsoft 365 Premium, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, custom Xbox controller and discounted laptop that the company thinks could woo students away from Apple's new deal. With the purchase of a discounted machine directly from Microsoft, retailers like Amazon and Best Buy or PC makers

Live Nation, which operates the Ticketmaster platform, has been determined to be a monopoly . A federal jury handed down its decision today that the company violated federal and state antitrust rules. This finding won't surprise anyone who has used Ticketmaster and been sticker-shocked by their final bill. However, it's unclear what the jurys decision will mean in practice. For starters, the judge overseeing the case hasn't determined what remedies will be applied. The actions could go as far as

For PlayStation Plus subscribers, April is going to be a little bit spooky, a tad sporty and extra squirrelly. PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium players will get access to The Crew Motorfest , Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered , Football Manager 26 Console , Warriors: Abyss , Squirrel with a Gun , The Casting of Frank Stone and Monster Train . Additionally, Wild Arms 4 will be exclusive to Premium libraries. Expect the full lineup to go live on April 21. The Crew Motorfest , Horizon Zero Dawn Remast

A group of researchers from across the US and the UK have conducted a study on what AI does to our brains and the results are, in a word, grim. These results were published in a paper called AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance which kind of tells you everything you need to know. We find that AI assistance improves immediate performance, but it comes at a heavy cognitive cost, the study declares. Researchers went on to state that just ten minutes of using AI made p

Not content with stuffing Gemini into all of its own apps and services, Google wants you to adopt its AI assistant on desktops and laptops too. The company released a Gemini Windows app on Tuesday and it's following that up a day later with one for Macs. Google says the macOS Gemini app is a native desktop experience that you can access with a keyboard shortcut. By default, pressing option and space will open a mini chat, while a combo of option, shift and space will open the full Gemini chat ex

Occasionally, you really can have it both ways. For the most part, pellet grills are great for smoking and mid-temperature cooking, but youll typically need other grills for high-heat searing and 1,000-degree temperatures(with a few exceptions ). Sure, some pellet grills allow you to move the heat deflector for direct access to the fire pot for searing, but thats still not a cooking experience that will be familiar to gas grill users. With the X-Fire Pro 825 ( $1,550 ), Recteq is putting its pel

Snap is laying off around 1,000 staff, amounting to 16 percent of its workforce, which it will seemingly replace with AI. The cuts were announced in a company-wide memo from CEO Evan Spiegel, who added that more than 300 open roles are also being closed. Spiegel said the incredibly difficult decision would likely save Snap more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, in turn helping it to establish a clearer path to net-income profitability. Impacted staff were notified by email and the co

The shoe company Allbirds, famous for its wool trainers, is pivoting to AI . You read that right. The San Francisco company has plans o pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. It's also changing its name to NewBird AI. This is subject to shareholder approval, with a vote scheduled for May 18. Once approved, the company will raise $50 million from an unnamed investor to assist w

Traeger gave backyard pit masters something more affordable last year with the Woodridge , but now the company is back with an even more budget-friendly option. With the Westwood series , the company offers very basic pellet grill functionality with a simplified controller and a no-frills design. Youll still get Wi-Fi connectivity that works with the companys app, and the Westwood grills are compatible with Traegers rail-based accessories. As you might expect at the $700 and $800 prices, there a

Chinese phonemaker Vivo has been pushing the limits of smartphone photography in the last few years. However, the availability of its phones like last years X200 Ultra , with its beefy add-on telephoto has been intermittent in the West. The company says the X300 Ultra its first global flagship launch, although theres still no word on a US launch or pricing at the time of writing. Like the latest phones from Xiaomi and Oppo, Vivo is also obsessing over larger camera sensors, peripherals and a d

A collaboration between Spotify and Bookshop.org that allows readers to purchase physical books in the Spotify app is now live in the US and UK. Rather than positioning audiobooks as the hard copy-killer, Spotify is encouraging you to see them as complimentary to one another. First announced back in February, the new partnership with Bookshop.org appears to be an acknowledgement from Spotify that physical still reigns supreme in the book world. Bookshop is a digital marketplace that enables indi

Most teens in the United States say that Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat aren't harming their mental health, though a slightly higher proportion report negative effects on their sleep and productivity, according to a new report from Pew Research. The report offers fresh insights into how teens perceive the effects of social media at a time when there are increasing calls to ban younger teens from social platforms altogether. The report is based on a survey of 1,458 teens between the ages of 13 an

Few creative software companies have embraced AI like Adobe , with the company embedding image , video, audio and vector generation tools into nearly all its apps. Now, Adobe is taking on AI apps like Gemini's Nano Banana with its new prompt-based Firefly AI Assistant. You simply describe the outcome you want and it will execute complex multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Illustrator and other apps to achieve that result, Adobe says. The complexity of apps like Photoshop

When Amazon introduced the Ember Artline TVs in January , it didnt have a specific date of availability to share. Now, the company is ready to supply the details: Pre-orders open today, and units ship on April 22 in the US and Canada, with the UK and Germany to follow. The company also announced a new version of its Fire TV Stick HD this morning, as well as some new features for its Fire TV software. For those who dont remember offhand, the Ember Artline is basically Amazons answer to Samsungs F

After unveiling a 4K version of its Fire TV Stick Select at its hardware event last September , Amazon is launching the latest version of its HD dongle today. The Fire TV Stick HD costs $35, comes with Alexa+ built in and offers the redesigned experience that the company previewed at CES in January . It might be confusing, considering Amazon makes at least five different configurations of its streaming stick , but the model announced today comes in at the entry-level and brings some meaningful u

Japanese entertainment company Toho has released a teaser video for Godzilla Minus Zero , the upcoming sequel to the award-winning film Godzilla Minus One . The teaser shows the famous monster next to the Statue of Liberty as it rampages across New York. Godzilla Minus Zero is set in 1949, two years after the events of the first film, and will be a direct sequel. Youll see familiar faces from Minus One in the short trailer, as well, namely Koichi Shikishima and Noriko Oishi, two of the first mov

Sony is removing some features from its TV guide and program guide displays for channels received by an over the air TV antenna on select models of Bravia televisions from 2023-2025. Cord Cutters News reported on the changes, which will take effect in late May. Channel logos and thumbnail images in program descriptions are going away from the built-in TV Guide for antenna TV channels. Only programs from recently watched channels will be shown in the guide, and depending on the channel, program i

The Federal Communications Commission has announced that Netgear has been given conditional approval that effectively exempts it from a previous ban on foreign-made networking routers . The conditional approval gives the company a de facto though potentially temporary monopoly on the selling and servicing of new consumer routers in the US. We're pleased to share that Netgear is the first retail consumer router company to receive conditional approval from the Federal Communications Commission (

Google has introduced a new app for Windows desktops and, unsurprisingly, it puts AI front at center. If you aren't a big fan of Google's Gemini chatbot, then skip on past this download. For those of you who are heavy Gemini users, though, this could mean a simpler and more integrated experience on Windows machines. Once installed, you can pull up the app's search bar with the Alt + Space shortcut. Queries typed into this open-ended search box can hunt down information from the web like typical

The NAACP is suing xAI and a subsidiary called MZX Tech for allegedly operating unpermitted methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center in South Memphis. The association is asking the federal district court of the Northern District of Mississippi to declare that the company has violated the Clean Air Act, force it to stop using its unpermitted turbines and assess financial penalties against xAI for violating federal law, among other requests. The lawsuit claims that xAI the Elon Mu

We're sliding into developer conference season and one of the biggest events on the upcoming calendar is Google I/O. This year's edition is taking place on May 19 and 20 . As usual, the in-person element will happen in Mountain View, California, though many of the keynotes and sessions will be livestreamed. Google will surely make its biggest announcements during the opening keynote, which will start at 1PM ET on May 19. A developer keynote will take place later the same day. As ever, the rumor

Riot Games released a pile of updates for its long-running MOBA League of Legends . One of the more noteworthy changes coming to the game is the official launch of WASD controls. This alternate option, allowing players to traverse the rift by keyboard rather than by mouse, is rolling out to ranked matches in patch 26.9. Riot first announced that it was pursuing support for WASD controls last August. The studio said it wanted to ensure that the alternate control scheme wasn't more powerful than p

The RAMpocalypse continues. Microsoft just revealed significant price increases across the entire Surface line of products, according to reporting by Windows Central . The updated pricing has already hit the official Microsoft Store, with other retailers expected to follow suit in the near future. These are fairly significant upticks. For instance, the base model 15-inch Surface Laptop 7 now starts at $1,600. It cost $1,300 when the laptop was first released back in 2024. It did receive a price

Gemini in Chrome is about to get a small but handy upgrade. Starting today, Google is rolling out a feature it calls Skills to Chrome on desktop. Skills allow you to save your favorite Gemini in Chrome prompts for quick access, thereby making it easier and faster to repeat certain tasks. For instance, Google suggests you could use one saved prompt to get Gemini to calculate how much protein there could be in a new recipe you found online. Another Skill can make it easier to do a side-by-side spe