35 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Jacob Kastrenakes

Jacob Kastrenakes

Executive Editor

Executive Editor

    More From Jacob Kastrenakes

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    I’m gonna need one of these in every Five Guys before the end of summer.

    Heinz has taken inspiration from Coke and made a mix-and-match touchscreen dispenser for sauces. The touchscreen soda machines are already one of the greatest inventions of our time. Will this be next?

    A horrible render of a machine that will combine ranch and mango for you.
    A horrible render of a machine that will combine ranch and mango for you.
    Image: Heinz
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Twitter bought a job recruiting site.

    It’s the company’s first known purchase under Elon Musk, who is said to have spent “tens of millions” worth of cash and stock on the deal.

    The service, Laskie, was founded by Chris Bakke, who previously sold another recruiting startup to Indeed. There’s no word on what Twitter plans to do with Laskie (though seven employees have reportedly come on board), but there’s plenty of speculation around Musk’s desire to make Twitter into an “everything app.”

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Google says over 800 million people now have access to RCS.

    And exactly zero of them are my parents. But Google sure got some applause from this line: “We hope every mobile operating system gets the message and adopts RCS.” I agree! But I don’t have a ton of hope.

    Live blog: Google showcases Search, AI, and Pixel devices at I/O 2023

    This year, Google has a lot to prove — and at least one product to unfold.

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Google I/O kicks off in just 10 minutes.

    We’re expecting a barrage of news, from Pixel devices to AI announcements. If you want up to the second updates, you can follow along with our live blog. Our team is seated at the Shoreline Amphitheatre and reporting on... a duck with lips.

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Twitter plans to wipe out inactive accounts.

    According to Elon Musk, at least, who has a habit of declaring Twitter policies that he does not follow through on.

    This one could have big repercussions, though, and Musk didn’t provide clarity on what qualifies as being inactive. Does that mean no logins? No tweets? What happens to now-inactive icons like @Horse_Ebooks?

    It’s probably a good time to fire off a tweet on your burner, just in case.

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Elon is very worried about government access to Twitter…

    but not enough to aggressively fight back. Rest of World reports that government requests for Twitter to censor posts or provide data more than doubled under Musk, and Musk’s team has been doing little to combat them.

    In the year before Musk’s acquisition, the [requests that Twitter complies with in full] had hovered around 50 percent, in line with the compliance rate reported in the company’s final transparency report. After Musk’s takeover, the number jumps to 83 percent (808 requests out of a total of 971).

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Spotify’s CEO is “disappointed but not surprised” by the Apple–Epic ruling.

    On an earnings call today, Daniel EK called Epic’s single win — which will let app developers tell users about non-Apple payment options — “very important.” But mostly, he said the US still needs a law to be passed to open up mobile devices from the control of Apple and Google.

    Here’s Ek on why he sees this as a big issue:

    “When I started as a 14 year-old entrepreneur, the internet was this democratic place that anyone, anywhere in the world could have an impact, and right now we’re in a place where billions of consumers are using the internet primarily through smartphones and ... there’s literally two companies now that control all of that on the internet and they can unilaterally change the rules.”

    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Jacob Kastrenakes
    Is it still insider trading if you’re trading NFTs?

    The US government’s criminal case against the former product leader of OpenSea, Nate Chastain, kicks off this week. Chastain is accused of buying up NFTs that he knew would be featured on OpenSea’s homepage, then selling them shortly thereafter as their value spiked.

    The question isn’t so much whether Chastain did this, it’s whether doing this is illegal. As a former SEC enforcement lawyer told Reuters, “Is it insider trading of anything?”