internet – Tech News

OG Conversational Search Engine Ask.com Has Answered Its Last Question

Ask.com, one of the earliest attempts at conversational search engines, has shut down 30 years after its debut. “Every great search must come to an end,” reads the headline on the now-defunct website. “As IAC [parent company] continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/og-conversational-search-engine-askcom-jeeves-has-answered-its-last-question

‘Slop’ is the word of the year. Here’s how to avoid it

The internet has spent the year arguing about whether AI is genius, theft, or destiny. Merriam-Webster’s editors cut through it with a simpler verdict: slop. The dictionary crowned “slop” its 2025 “word of the year,” joining in on the anti-AI backlash and recognizing that the internet’s new factory setting looks a lot like synthetic filler — low-quality AI content, made in bulk, and poured straight into feeds until the human parts get buried. If your For You page has started to resemble a trough of glossy, almost-real nonsense, congrats, you’re experiencing a cultural moment — with a dictionary entry.
https://qz.com/ai-slop-word-of-the-year-miriam-webster-avoid-it

A massive Cloudflare outage brought down X, ChatGPT, and even Downdetector

The disruption, which started at around 6:20AM ET, is linked to a “configuration file that is automatically generated to manage threat traffic,” Cloudflare spokesperson Jackie Dutton tells The Verge. “The file grew beyond an expected size of entries and triggered a crash in the software system that handles traffic for a number of Cloudflare’s services.” Dutton added that “there is no evidence” of an attack or other malicious activity.
https://www.theverge.com/news/822869/cloudflare-is-down-outage-x-twitter-downdetector

Amazon outage breaks much of the internet

An outage affecting web hosting giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) has taken out vast swathes of the web, including websites, banks and some government services. The internet giant blamed the outage, which began around 3 a.m. on the U.S. east coast, on DNS, a system that converts web addresses into IP addresses so that customer apps and websites can load.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/amazon-dns-outage-breaks-much-of-the-internet/

AOL is finally shutting down dial-up

“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,” reads the statement by the Yahoo-owned company. “This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/757194/aol-dial-up-is-dead

The old internet is dying. What’s next?

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

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders

"It’s my theory explaining how the Internet was colonized by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it," Doctorow explained in a follow-up article. "We’re all living through a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. It’s even terrifying."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/as-internet-enshittification-marches-on-here-are-some-of-the-worst-offenders/