Thomas Ricker

Reddit has discussed shutting off Google’s access to data used to train its Gemini AI models. Or maybe it’s just a renegotiation bluff now that its $60 million-a-year deal is coming to an end. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Spotify has launched its first chart dedicated entirely to music videos. The global top 50 videos are ranked daily by stream count, and are available at the Charts hub and Music Video Playlists hub.

We’re just hours away from Samsung Unpacked and the leaks keep coming. The Z Fold 8 Ultra retains the Z Fold 7’s slim and tall design, but is said to come with an upgraded 5,000mAh battery promising up to 27 hours of video playback.

In what is thought to be the largest copyright recovery case in history, a federal US judge granted final approval of Anthropic’s landmark $1.5 billion class-action settlement. In 2024, authors sued Anthropic over the training of its Claude AI chatbot using copyrighted works. Authors will be paid “as promptly as possible,” just as soon as lawyers take their $101 million cut.

A state court has granted a preliminary injunction against Kalshi, ruling its sports-related “event contracts” likely violate state online gambling bans. The judge rejected Kalshi’s defense that federal CFTC regulation shields it from state enforcement. Kalshi will likely have to geoblock Washington residents, marking yet another legal setback for prediction markets.

Right now, the iPhone maxes out with a 6.9-inch display. That could climb to a full 7 inches if reliable leaker Digital Chat Station is correct. We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.

According to sensor tower, apps added to the App Store almost doubled to about 560K in the first half of 2026, compared to about 600K added in all of 2025. The surge comes as AI makes it increasingly trivial to develop apps. That’s good if it means useful apps finding an audience, bad if Apple’s reviewers can’t keep up and more junk and malware slips through.

Nilay called it back in 2024, and now the Gray Lady is on board with recognizing the demise of the open web. It takes a look at how Google went from being a gateway to the internet to becoming the internet for many users who never leave the cozy confines of its AI summaries.

Amazon is today delivering on the April promise of Adaptive Display, according to Engadget. The feature increases the size of things like text and menus while scaling the artwork proportionally. Users can choose from large or larger.

The reputable Design Docs YouTube channel has a new documentary about Apple’s first graphic designer. Kare is responsible for the smiling Mac icon, that weird looped-square Command symbol still found on Apple keyboards, and many other “pictures that taught a generation of nervous, non-technical people that a computer could be approached without fear.”