6 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Substack opens livestreaming to all publishers.

The platform announced the wider rollout today, months after opening livestreaming to its most-subscribed publishers in September.

Substack recommends a few uses for the feature, like collaborating with others on the platform or sharing “AI-generated clips” encouraging viewers to subscribe to their substack.

Why CEO Matt Garman is willing to bet AWS on AI

AWS chief Matt Garman says Amazon is already seeing the benefits of its massive AI investments.

Nilay Patel
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
You can still get the AOL experience in 2025.

The version of AOL that still exists after two decades of media mergers offers a Chromium-based $6.99-per-month browser called AOL Desktop Gold.

In a video posted today, YouTuber Michael MJD tours the app, which is full of ads, subscription offers, turn-of-the-century AOL-style icons, and dated email templates. It even has the old “You’ve got mail!” sound clip!

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Here’s a web-based slideshow generator for your Game Boy.

From Sebastian Staacks of the There Oughta Be YouTube channel, Game Boy Slideshow Generator converts images into grayscale and color slideshows for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, or anything else that can play a Game Boy ROM.

Your web browser handles the conversion locally, Staacks says. When it’s done, you can run the resulting ROM using one of the ways he lists here.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Matt Mullenweg lashes out at some WordPress contributors.

Mullenweg wrote in a blog post today that he had deactivated the WordPress.org accounts of several contributors, including two — Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi — who have plans for a new WordPress fork, reports TechCrunch.

Both indicated a willingness to spearhead the next WordPress update yesterday, following Mullenweg’s announcement that Automattic is drastically scaling back its involvement in the open-source project.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
A more cultured, sophisticated Doomguy.

Here’s a version of Doom, downloadable for Windows or playable in a web browser, where you run around an art gallery, sipping and collecting wine, cash, and hors d’oeuvres. Is it still hell? I don’t know, but the music is nice.

Developer bobatealee says they made it with a friend as a student project. I spotted it when Retro Tech Dreams posted it.

David Pierce
David Pierce
Brainrot Internet, the game.

I consistently love Neal Agarwal’s web games, but he’s outdone himself this time. In Stimulation Clicker, you just click the button — and the more you click the button, the more stimulants you unlock. You’ll see every attention-grabby trope here, from Subway Surfers to ... true crime podcasts?

This game is like a PhD thesis. I love it so much. And I’ve been playing it for too long.

Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Chrome’s “link to highlight” feature could work for PDFs soon.

A recent Chromium build suggests Chrome could get support for linking directly to highlighted text in PDFs just like you can on a normal webpage, writes code sleuth Leopeva64 in a post that Bleeping Computer spotted.

As a person who has tried too many times to copy links to highlighted text in PDFs only to be disappointed, I’m thrilled.

Social networks in 2024: bless this mess

We didn’t all flock to a new platform or build on a thrilling new protocol. We went everywhere, and did everything, all at once.

David Pierce
The quickly disappearing web

The internet is forever. Well, it was supposed to be. What happens when websites start to vanish at random?

s.e. smith
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Substack partners with Bari Weiss to launch an ‘enterprise offering’ website builder.

This expansion is described as capable of supporting a “fully-fledged media business, encompassing rich design, advanced websites, deep analytics, automated marketing features,” plus newsletters, podcasts, videos, etc.

Substack’s “ideal partner for this initiative” is Weiss’ The Free Press, which, surprisingly, has been described as “a publication that has spread misinformation on transgender youth and amplified harmful anti-trans rhetoric.”

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
WordPress.org’s login screen now forces you to confirm “Pineapple is delicious on pizza.”

Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg was ordered to remove the checkbox that asked users to verify that they’re not affiliated with WP Engine when logging in — and he seems to have replaced it with this:

Screenshot: The Verge
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Matt Mullenweg says it’s “hard to imagine” wanting to work on WordPress after WP Engine ruling.

The WordPress co-founder posted the message in a Slack community and changed his username to “gone 💀” after a judge granted WP Engine’s preliminary injunction, 404 Media reports:

I’m sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor to an organization as parasitic and exploitive as WP Engine. I hope you all get what you and WP Engine wanted.

Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
“I was mad at myself for doing this exercise at all.”

Jason Koebler on the ritual of analyzing a killer’s online life:

“People—including me—want to know who Mangione is and what made him allegedly do this. It’s just that it’s not clear what we are actually learning from years-old social media accounts.”

The Vergecast Vergecast, part twoThe Vergecast Vergecast, part two
David Pierce
Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says conversational AI is the next web browser

The company’s new AI chief on working for Microsoft, the OpenAI relationship, and when superintelligence might actually arrive.

Nilay Patel
The Installer gift guide, part twoThe Installer gift guide, part two
David Pierce
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Mozilla’s rebrand is starting to roll out.

You can already see parts of the rebrand live on Mozilla’s website, including its new flag logo that doubles as a dino.

GIF: Mozilla
2024 in review: AI2024 in review: AI
Kara Verlaney
Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
Well, they are better than one.

My new favorite fan-binding project: Second Head, a collage of fanfic sentences that employ a vivid yet frequently repeated turn of phrase.

There’s an impulse, I think, to in-group even when performing a creative act. A feeling that there are certain ways one Should go about the act, by virtue of seeing it performed that way ... we make what we see and we make what we think we should make. At least, at first.

Consider my emerald orbs transfixed.

A picture of a fan-bound book with a yellow cover and text including the phrase “second head.”
I’m looking at this book like it grew a second head.
Kelli Nelson
GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani on the enduring power of the website

Despite everything, websites are still a pretty neat idea — but what if AI builds them?

Nilay Patel
Wes Davis
Wes Davis
Threads.com shows something now.

Meta seemed to have bought the domain earlier this year, sometime after it bought the company that owned it prior to the debut of threads.net, where Meta’s Twitter competitor lives.

Previously, visiting the threads.com URL didn’t show anything, but today, it shows... well, an error message. With a “Meta © 2024” and a Facebook logo.

A screenshot showing a message reading, “Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can,” with a Facebook logo above it and text attributing copyright to Meta.
What’s new?
Screenshot: Threads.com