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AI-powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own. Makers of these so-called “vibe-coding” tools are a hot commodity at the moment, with startups like Lovable and Cursor fending off buyers and investors keen to tap a hot trend. Google’s now become the latest to hop on this bandwagon: The company is testing a vibe-coding tool called Opal, available to users in the U.S. through Google Labs, which the company uses as a base to experiment with new tech. Opal lets you create…
In response to the European Union’s incoming regulation of political advertising, Meta said on Friday that it will stop selling and showing political ads in the EU from October. Calling the legislation’s requirements “unworkable,” the tech giant wrote in a blog post that the law, dubbed Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA), introduces “significant, additional obligations to our processes and systems that create an untenable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU.” Adopted by the European Commission in 2024, the TTPA mandates companies selling ads to clearly label political advertisements and provide…
Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action. CNN — A flock of roseate spoonbills flies overhead as a shark hunts mullet below. The water of Florida’s Everglades wetlands is turquoise and calm. But the serene image tells a bigger story, of the bright pink spoonbills that are becoming increasingly rare due in part to sea level rise and the loss of…
AI referrals to websites still have a way to go to catch up to the traffic that Google Search provides, but they’re growing quickly. According to new data from market intelligence provider Similarweb, AI platforms in June generated over 1.13 billion referrals to the top 1,000 websites globally, a figure that’s up 357% since June 2024. However, Google Search still accounts for the majority of traffic to these sites, accounting for 191 billion referrals during the same period of June 2025. One particular category of interest these days is news and media. Online publishers are seeing traffic declines and are…
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Grid took over Comic-Con on Friday, bringing the stars of the new “Tron: Ares” films to unveil footage and reveal the story behind the franchise’s third movie.The film stars Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges, Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith as the story brings the virtual environment of the Grid, complete with light cylces, into the real world.Disney showed off several minutes of footage, including a light cycle chase scene in the real world and another in the red-hued Grid. Propelling the onscreen action is a propulsive Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.“It’s fun to see it on the…
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao will lead research efforts at the company’s new AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Zhao contributed to several of OpenAI’s largest breakthroughs, including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and the company’s first AI reasoning model, o1. “I’m excited to share that Shengjia Zhao will be the Chief Scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs,” Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads Friday. “Shengjia co-founded the new lab and has been our lead scientist from day one. Now that our recruiting is going well and our team is coming together, we have decided to…
Early-stage founders just can’t get away from TAM — the concept of having a total addressable market for their startup to disrupt and conquer. But Index Ventures partner Jahanvi Sardana has a reminder for all those founders worried about finding TAM for their product or service: Many startups have emerged from markets that, at the time, were essentially nonexistent. “What was the market for search before Google?” Sardana asked the audience at TechCrunch’s 2025 All Stage event in Boston, held earlier this month. “What was the market for operating systems before Microsoft, or the market for cloud before Amazon?” Sardana…
WASHINGTON (AP) — A district court judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction Friday night stopping the mass cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities grants to members of the Authors Guild on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were violated.Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York stayed the mass cancellations of grants previously awarded to guild members and ordered that any funds associated with the grants not be reobligated until a trial on the merits of the case is held.In reaching her decision, the judge said the “defendants terminated…
If you’re just joining us, you may remember that the US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday recalled US negotiators from Gaza ceasefire talks, saying Hamas was being “selfish” and that it did not appear to be “acting in good faith.” Israel had pulled its negotiators from talks earlier in the day. If you want to get a quick rundown of developments in talks throughout this week, read here. Here’s what has happened since the negotiators were recalled: Hamas response: A senior official of the Hamas political bureau, Basem Naim, said it was not an accurate representation. Naim said that…
“Who they came to see?” Beyoncé asks as she performs her 2023 single “My House” during the Cowboy Carter tour. For many, the answer has been Blue Ivy.Blue Ivy Carter, the Grammy-winning artist’s 13-year-old daughter, is more present than ever on stage, and fans are impressed by the growth from her first performance years ago to now.Isabella Kerr, 15, has admired Beyoncé for years, but said she attended the Cowboy Carter tour specifically to experience Blue Ivy’s moves in person.“People are saying, “Oh, she’s a mini Beyoncé,” but no, I think she’s the first Blue. Everything about her when she’s…