Things are about to get even more turbulent for the tech industry.
You can now skip ahead in Reels by holding down on either edge of the screen, which plays the video at double speed. Reels started out with a 15-second cap but can now run for up to three minutes, so playback controls make sense.
TikTok thought the same thing when it added a fast-forward feature, which you enable by... holding down on either edge of the screen. What a coincidence!
The company is getting rid of a feature it introduced less than a year ago that gave users the ability to leave semiprivate and disappearing comments on grid posts and Reels. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the feature wasn’t widely adopted, and that the platform has become “too complicated” over the years.
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old creator making videos about politics and the right wing, announced a run for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District today. The seat is held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois), who hasn’t faced a serious primary challenge since 1998.
Abughazaleh previously worked for Media Matters, the nonprofit that Elon Musk pounced on for its reporting about X. In 2024 the organization laid off more than a dozen staffers, including Abughazaleh, citing “a legal assault on multiple fronts.”
Last week, YouTube acknowledged an issue causing videos and shorts on iOS, desktop, and smart TVs to automatically stream in 144p or 360p even with a strong internet connection. Now YouTube says the problem has been fixed and “all streaming should be back to normal now.”
I’ve spent the past week typing on an early unit of the Norbauer Seneca, a mechanical keyboard that’s entirely custom, from its Topre-like electrocapacitive switches to its astonishingly smooth stabilizers. I also spoke at length with its creator about the process of making the board and why it’s so damn expensive. Stay tuned next week, feel free to ask about it in the comments, and meanwhile: just look at this keyboard.
