Flashes, a new app powered by Bluesky, is surprisingly polished for a Testflight release. The app takes your Bluesky feed and gives it the appearance of classic Instagram - a reverse-chronological feed of images from people you follow. There are profile pages, search, notifications and even trending topics. If you
DeepSeek is apparently not being very ethical when it comes to AI! Not only has the company created its own model by allegedly using closed-source OpenAI outputs to create an open-source alternative, but it is also copying IP from the company. The horror! Both OpenAI and President Donald Trump'
"A small team and I are working on a new Pebble-like smartwatch that runs open source PebbleOS, has the same beloved features (plus some fun new stuff), and stays true to the core Pebble vision"
We used to care about space programs.
Deepseek R1 is AI's Sputnik moment.
— Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 (@pmarca) January 26, 2025
Now the real fight in the broligarchy, of course, is around a bad chat bot that can write really long emails and lie confidently. The true technology of our time.
Hmm I haven't tried ChatGPT in a while — time to give it a spin and see why it's worth $157 billion
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T21:32:27.978Z
Every single one of these is made up
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-01-27T21:39:17.245Z
Nintendo Switch 2 is real.
Nintendo Switch 2 apparently being announced this week - for real this time.
Andy Robinson
in case it wasn't obvious from my tease in Notepad last week, I've heard it should be the Switch 2 reveal this week 👍
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren.co.uk) Jan 14, 2025 at 2:34
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Meta's new policy chief is a former senior adviser to George W. Bush.
From The New York Times:
Meta on Thursday appointed Joel Kaplan, a longtime executive who was a former senior adviser to George W. Bush and is known for his Republican ties, to be its new head of global policy, as the social media giant seeks to strengthen its links to the incoming Trump administration.
Mr. Kaplan, 55, replaces Nick Clegg, a former deputy prime minister of Britain who had handled policy and regulatory issues globally for Meta since 2018. In a post to his personal Facebook page, Mr. Clegg, 57, said Mr. Kaplan was “quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time, ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve.”
From Deadline:
In 2020, The Washington Post reported that Kaplan argued against some content moderation measures, arguing that they would disproportionately harm conservative voices.
Welcome to 2025.
We're going to have to ease back in to posting, but what an insane way to start the year.
Chelsea Bailey, Brynn Gingras
Ads for a Y-Combinator AI startup have been plastered around San Francisco, promising that yet another dumb, useless AI chat bot "Won't Complain About Work-Life Balance". The billboards and ads, spread around the general dystopia of San Francisco's already unconscionable wealth divide, promise that
Australia was behind a lot of 2024 games - SIFTER has the full list.
It’s so awesome to see Australia’s video game industry coming back to life, especially over the past few years.
SIFTER has put together a great list of Australian-made games, plus has a few lists from years past of Australian-made gems:
Gianni Di Giovanni
Wordpress ordered to revert WP Engine attack, including update and plugin directory block.
Via TechCrunch:
A California district court judge has granted a preliminary injunction to WP Engine. The order asks WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.com owner Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org, a WordPress theme and plug-in repository site owned by Mullenweg.
This ban also resulted in WP Engine not being able to access and update its popular Advanced custom field (ACF) plug-in. Automattic took control of the plug-in, forked it, and named it Secure Custom Fields (SCF). The court has also ordered Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access and control of ACF on WordPress.org.
Ivan Mehta
In a world of AI DJs and generated music slop, Apple Music is doubling down on "live" radio - with some of it pre-recorded but still hosted by humans. Apple Music 1 host and Apple Music’s global creative director even commented on Apple Music Radio's