Why am I internet-stalking the pope?
The moment the white smoke appeared above the Sistine Chapel, I immediately turned on my television, because I wanted to see who the new pope would be, and then hopped on social media, because I knew that the internet could tell me more about the new pope faster than television could. That, and the memes would be good. The memes came first, naturally, flying in harder and faster than they ever did with Pope Francis, because the new pope was American. Not just that – Robert Francis Prev...
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Instagram CEO testifies about competing with TikTok: ‘You’re either growing, or you’re slowly dying’
When Adam Mosseri took over Meta-owned Instagram as CEO in 2018, the app was experiencing what he’d later call “concerning” drops and plateaus in user engagement, thanks partly to fierce competition from a new app: TikTok. Instagram estimated in 2019 that 23 percent of the decline in time spent on Instagram in the US was due to TikTok. Bytedance’s video app kept expanding through the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. “We can’t explain it all, but what’s...
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Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky sentenced to 12 years in prison
Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency lending firm Celsius, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud that led to “billions in losses,” the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. Celsius, which held $25 billion in assets at its peak, abruptly halted withdrawals and transfers during a broader crypto crash in 2022, locking up billions in customer funds. The firm filed for bankruptcy just weeks later. The DOJ charged Mashinsky with securiti...
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Razer’s Clio is a $230 surround sound head cushion
The Razer Clio speaker is potentially a more comfortable alternative to wearing wireless headphones. | Image: Razer Razer has announced three new products today, including an alternative to wireless headphones called the Clio that’s designed to attach to your gaming chair and double as a head cushion. Powered by a 5,400mAh battery that Razer says is good for up to 14 hours of use, the Clio uses adjustable straps to attach to “most high-back gaming and office chairs” so that it’...
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Congress votes to pull funding for free Wi-Fi hotspots at schools and libraries
The Senate has voted to end a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that used federal funding to cover Wi-Fi hotspots that could be used outside of school and libraries. The program, first implemented by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, applied funds from the $2.6 billion federal E-Rate program to a program that enabled schools and libraries to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots to children and others with poor or no internet access at home. As Policyband notes prior to a succes...
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Apple is planning smart glasses with and without AR
Apple has “made progress” on a chip for potential smart glasses that would be competitors to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, according to Bloomberg. The chip is apparently based on the chips Apple uses for the Apple Watch, though the company has removed parts and is being designed in such a way that it can handle the “multiple cameras” that the smart glasses might have, Bloomberg reports. Apple wants mass production of the chip to start by the end of 2026 or sometime in 2027, so the g...
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Judge dismisses most charges against FTX’s celebrity boosters
A federal judge in Florida dismissed most claims against athletes, actors, YouTubers, and other celebrities who endorsed Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, ruling that there isn’t sufficient proof that they knew about FTX or Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent acts. The high-profile defendants, sued by a group of FTX investors, include Tom Brady and his ex-wife, the model Gisele Bündchen; Shark Tank judge Kevin O’Leary; Larry David; Shohei Ohtani; Udonis Haslem; David Ortiz;...
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FTC v. Meta live: Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri takes the stand
Meta antitrust trial The long-awaited antitrust trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission kicked off on April 14th. Over about two months, DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing arguments about whether then-Facebook illegally monopolized the market for “personal social networking services” through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC first brought the case in late 2020. While it was initially thrown out by the judge, he let an amended version move ...
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