5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Laptop Mag is shutting downLaptop Mag is shutting down
Emma Roth
Why Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg went to war over WordPress

The head of the WordPress project on the WP Engine lawsuit, Automattic turning 20, and what’s next for the web.

Nilay Patel
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
“Be Yourself is not recommended for most people. Take a look at our other avatars before deciding.”

Thanks to Metafilter for introducing me to The Box. Wearable technology for women will never be the same.

An image of a woman wearing a gigantic box with an LCD screen over most of her body.
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
DuckDuckGo’s scam blocker now covers fake ecommerce sites and more.

The tool, which is built into DuckDuckGo’s browser, displays a warning message when you click on potentially dangerous sites. In addition to blocking phishing sites, malware, and common online scams, DuckDuckGo has expanded the tool to protect against fake online stores, phony crypto exchanges, and those obnoxious sites that falsely claim your device has a virus.

Image: DuckDuckGo
David Pierce
David Pierce
“It’s speech in the way Doritos are food.”

This whole Trevor Noah / Jon Stewart pod is a good listen. But there’s a big chunk — starting about 13 minutes in — that turns into a really great chat about how we experience the internet. And Stewart makes a comparison I truly love:

We think [social media] is free speech, but it’s not speech. It’s ultra-processed speech. It’s speech in the way that Doritos are food — it’s something that has been designed by people in lab coats to get past the parts of your brain that protect you.”

This is what it looks like to be colorblind

Apparently, the very idea of colorblindness is hard to visualize. Take a shot at looking through my eyes.

Andy Baio
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Wikipedia halts experiment with AI-generated article summaries.

Following a slew of complaints from editors, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson confirmed to 404 Media that it’s pausing the two-week test, which began on June 2nd.

The experiment put AI-generated summaries at the top of articles for users who opted in. One editor responded to the idea by saying, “Just because Google has rolled out its AI summaries doesn’t mean we need to one-up them.”

The Dia browser is a big bet on the web — and an even bigger bet on AI

First, The Browser Company tried to overhaul the web browser. Now it aims to change the way we think about computers.

David Pierce
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
Political cheapfakes aren’t dead yet.

The New York Times surveyed the ecosystem of disinformation around the LA anti-ICE protests, and the results are striking for looking... pretty much exactly like the pre-AI world: old recirculated photos, fabricated quotes, and a shot from an ‘80s action movie. The Washington Post did its own social media look-around and found mostly people supporting dueling narratives with real footage. There’s still time for generated fakes to cause problems, but at the moment, reality seems to be eye-catching enough.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Automattic has resumed contributions to the WordPress project.

The company, which runs WordPress.com, paused contributions to the WordPress open-source project in January, citing the “significant time and money” it spent due to its ongoing legal battle with WP Engine.

In a post on Thursday, Automattic announced it’s ready to “return fully” to the WordPress project, where it will provide contributions across WordPress Core, Gutenberg, WordPress.org, and other parts of the ecosystem.

Returning to Core

[automattic.com]

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
WordPress now has a team dedicated to AI.

Mary Hubbard, the executive director of WordPress.org, said the group will work on “accelerating and coordinating artificial intelligence projects across the WordPress ecosystem.” The team will also maintain a public roadmap of its AI plans and plugins, which it will share on its new page for “Core AI.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the future of search, AI agents, and selling Chrome
Play

The head of Google discusses the next AI platform shift and how it could change how we use the internet forever.

Nilay Patel
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
The Browser Company won’t open-source Arc (yet).

After announcing its second browser, Dia, last year, the company stopped developing new features for original breakout Arc. Now CEO Josh Miller explains why, and admits he considered either selling or open-sourcing the software. Neither is on the table right now (because it would require giving up their custom development kit, or “secret sauce”), but “that doesn’t mean it’ll never happen.”

Dia is still in alpha testing, but will open up to Arc members next.

Letter to Arc members 2025

[browsercompany.substack.com]

Mozilla is shutting down PocketMozilla is shutting down Pocket
Emma Roth
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
Seeking contributions for the time of monsters.

Do you mourn the old world dying? Will you celebrate the new world’s struggle to be born? Write (or, in a few months, read) about it.

Microsoft’s plan to fix the web: letting every website run AI search for cheap

NLWeb starts by offering ChatGPT-level search to any site or app, with just a few lines of code. It’s a new vision for the web.

David Pierce
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Firefox is finally adding tab groups.

That means you can now organize bundles of tabs into groups labeled by name or color. Firefox is also testing an AI-powered tool that will suggest tab groups and names based on the pages you have open in the browser.

Mozilla says it introduced the feature after a request for tab groups became the most-upvoted post on its Connect forum, with more than 4,500 people showing support for the suggestion.

Image: Mozilla
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
4chan explains why it went down for almost two weeks.

After posting to its blog for the first time in 8 years on Friday, 4chan published a new post explaining what took the site down on April 14th, as Engadget spotted. The social media site blames hackers uploading a “bogus PDF” that “exploited an out-of-date software package on one of 4chan’s servers.”

It’s back, but not all the way — as of this writing, images and the ability to post still haven’t returned.

Still standing

[blog.4chan.org]

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
You wouldn’t steal a font.

But the folks behind the mid-2000s anti-piracy campaign that once compared pirating software to stealing a car might have, reports Torrent Freak. A social media investigation suggests the campaign used a knockoff of a commercial font. Its creator, Just Van Rossum, told the outlet:

“I knew my font was used for the campaign and that a pirated clone named XBand-Rough existed. I did not know that the campaign used XBand-Rough and not FF Confidential, though. So this fact is new to me, and I find it hilarious,”