For many businesses their website is a vital shopfront, so losing 140 million visits in a single year would be a big problem. That's what happened to HubSpot, and the cause was AI. For companies like HubSpot there are several causes for the drop in traffic. Search engines rejigged their algorithms to fight AI slop, which made it more important for a website to be seen as credible on a core topic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70n2rjgxeyo
Sphere-style entertainment spaces are becoming more popular. Rival Cosm, for example, is opening dome-like facilities in multiple US cities, where audiences can watch live sports events or films including The Matrix with additional visual effects that envelop the portion of the screen showing the movie. Proponents say this is the future of entertainment – supposedly more immersive, more experiential.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6q66n86qyo
Discord stressed it would meet any specific legal obligations it has for age verification of users, and that age verification will be part of the platform in the future. However, the platform said it was now developing "more verification options" for users that would not require facial or ID scans. One such option in development is credit card verification.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv0yg4n9lo
On first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking Moltbook is just a knock-off of the hugely popular social network Reddit. But this new social network has one big difference – Moltbook is meant for AI, not humans. We mere homo sapiens are "welcome to observe" Moltbook's goings on, the company says, but we can't post anything.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62n410w5yno
Valve, the company behind PC gaming platform Steam, has revealed a new console to rival Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation. In an unusual move, Valve has also announced further hardware – its Steam Frame virtual reality (VR) headset. The device is entirely wireless – and it described it as a "streaming-first" device – but it is also itself a PC running SteamOS.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd679n9lnx5o
Analyst Kester Mann, from CCS Insight, told BBC News that Apple's announcement "marks the beginning of the end of the physical Sim card".
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gz30grggqo
Google will not have to sell its Chrome web browser but must share information with competitors, a US federal judge has ordered. The remedies decided by District Judge Amit Mehta have emerged after a years-long court battle over Google's dominance in online search. The case centred around Google's position as the default search engine on a range of its own products such as Android and Chrome as well as others made by the likes of Apple. The US Department of Justice had demanded that Google sell Chrome – Tuesday's decision means the tech giant can keep it but it will be barred from having exclusive contracts and must share search data with rivals.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8zdrenm1zo