Meta’s latest Instagram features let you repost your friends’ videos and track their real-time locations. Which is great — if you missed out on Snapchat in 2017 and TikTok in 2022.
https://qz.com/meta-instagram-reposts-features-mark-zuckerberg
The thousands of recently terminated Microsoft employees, navigating one of the company's largest layoffs in years amid a period of industry upheaval, already have a tool to cope with the emotional burden, according to one Xbox exec: Microsoft Copilot.
https://mashable.com/article/microsoft-xbox-recommend-ai-for-layoff-aftermath
Everyone knows traditional search is dying. No one quite knows what comes next. But the rise of AI search comes with a brutal cost for traditional websites. According to the same Pew research, searches with AI Overviews result in dramatically fewer clicks to other websites. When Google shows an AI summary, users click through to other sites just 8% of the time, compared to 15% for searches without AI answers, which represents a nearly 50% drop. Even worse, only 1% of AI Overviews generate clicks to the sources they cite. What's emerging from the chaos is a discipline marketers are calling GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) or AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization), essentially SEO for the AI era. But unlike traditional search optimization, which followed somewhat predictable patterns, AI optimization feels more like reading tea leaves.
https://qz.com/internet-future-google-search-ai
Apple added 13+, 16+, and 18+ ratings to the existing 4+ and 9+ ratings, while removing the 12+ and 17+ age ranges. These changes have been applied automatically, based on developers’ previous responses to Apple’s questionnaires. But you’ll have to wait until September for the public rollout, unless you're running one of the beta versions of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26, or watchOS 26. The tech giant has also introduced new questions to help identify sensitive content within apps before they are added to the App Store, including those covering the presence of medical or wellness topics, violence, and in-app controls. Apple has asked developers to complete the updated questionnaire via App Store Connect by Jan. 31, 2026. If they fail to comply, app updates will be blocked.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-makes-major-changes-to-app-stores-age-ratings
Google on Monday announced an update to its Chrome web browser that will introduce AI-generated store reviews to U.S. shoppers with the aim of helping to determine the best places to make a purchase. The feature, which will be available by clicking an icon just to the left of the web address in the browser, will display a pop-up that informs consumers about the store’s reputation for things like product quality, shopping, pricing, customer service, and returns.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/28/google-chrome-adds-ai-powered-store-summaries-to-help-u-s-shoppers/
In 2016, Pebble was acquired by Fitbit for $23 million, marking the end of the first Pebble era. Along the way, Fitbit was acquired by Google. That’s important because the tech giant agreed to open-source Pebble’s software, and Migicovsky announced earlier this year that Pebble was making a comeback. However, because Migicovsky didn’t have the trademark, the new Pebble watches were initially dubbed the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2. “Great news — we’ve been able to recover the trademark for Pebble! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this to work out so easily,” Core Devices CEO Eric Migicovsky writes in an update blog. “Core 2 Duo is now Pebble 2 Duo. Core Time 2 is now Pebble Time 2.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/713931/pebble-smartwatch-name-trademark-recovered
Meta, YouTube and TikTok are grasping for ways to protect users’ trust as their platforms fill with AI-generated photos and videos of events that never happened. But their patchwork of imperfect tools and voluntary policies sometimes inadvertently punishes “real” content and leaves plenty of AI work unlabeled.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/was-that-amazing-video-in-your-feed-real-or-ai-tech-platforms-are-struggling-to-let-you-know-fe7cceb6?mod=tech_lead_pos1