Author: Anderson Sawyer
Manus, an “agentic” AI platform that launched in preview last week, is generating more hype than a Taylor Swift concert. The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most sophisticated computer using AI.” The official Discord server for Manus grew to over 138,000 members in just a few days, and invite codes for Manus are reportedly selling for thousands of dollars on Chinese reseller app Xianyu. But it’s not clear the hype is justified. excellent https://t.co/TfeV9QZ1d0 — jack (@jack) March 9, 2025…
The world is bad sometimes, but it feels even worse if you can’t stop staring into the all-consuming abyss that is the 6-inch screen of a smartphone, following you through space and time. It taunts you with its compact, light build that’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere — yet its siren call is so strong that for some reason, we cannot sleep without our phone on our nightstands. As we weather the horrors around us, it may occur to you that you would feel calmer and more attentive and balanced if you did not pick…
Twitter alternatives — new and old — have found audiences willing to try out a newer social networks since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022. Mastodon, Bluesky, Spill and T2 are some of the social media platforms people are among them. So is Meta’s Threads platform. What is Threads? How do you create an account? Threads is Meta’s text-based Twitter rival. It is tied to your Instagram account, so you can create an account by logging in using your Instagram credentials. How is it different from Twitter? Currently, there are no paid tiers and ads on the app.…
Meta’s Threads has begun testing a new feature that would allow people to add their interests to their profile on the social network. Instead of only advertising to profile visitors the sort of topics you might post about, the new interests feature will also direct users to active conversations about the topic. The company thinks this will help users more easily find discussions to join across its platform, a rival to X, even if they don’t know which people to follow across a given topic, like technology or sports. The feature could also make Threads more appealing to newcomers who…
Google is testing a new AI-powered Gemini side panel within Google Calendar that lets users quickly and conversationally check their schedule, create an event, and look up event details. The feature is available as part of the tech giant’s early access testing program, Google Workspace Labs. You can access Gemini by clicking the “Ask Gemini” icon at the top right of your Google Calendar window. You can then select a suggested prompt or write your own. For instance, Gemini may suggest that you “Add a lunch event” or “Find the next meeting” that you have with someone. If you want…
CollX, a company offering an online trading card marketplace, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Austin-based Brand Foundry Ventures and Philadelphia-based 114 Ventures, both of which were previous investors in the company. Other investors such as Next Coast Ventures, FJ Labs, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners also participated in the round. The startup also added a key partner, Kansas City Royals baseball player Bobby Witt Jr. — a card collector himself — who joined the round as an investor, advisor, and brand ambassador. To date, CollX has raised over $15 million across multiple…
Spotify has acknowledged an issue that’s causing some of its paid Premium subscribers to encounter ads when trying to play music. In an X post published on Thursday by Spotify’s customer service account, the company said it’s looking into the problem and linked to its Community website where the issue has been documented by users over the past four weeks. However, the company clarified to TechCrunch that the current issue has a different cause from the bug that had been previously reported by users. It said a small number of users were affected by the problem and its teams have…
Reddit announced on Thursday it’s introducing a set of new tools to make it easier for users to participate on its platform. The features are designed to help users find communities, ensure their posts don’t break any rules, and understand how to contribute across the social network. Combined, the features are meant to enhance the Redditor posting experience by making it easier to contribute posts, particularly for newer users who may not understand how Reddit works or where to post. For starters, the company says it will start helping users find the right community for their audience with “Community Suggestions.”…
As part of the iOS 18.4 software update, currently in public beta, Apple is introducing AI-powered summaries of App Store reviews. The new feature will leverage Apple Intelligence, the company’s built-in AI technology, to offer an overall summary based on the reviews others have left on the App Store. The review summaries will be generated by large language models (LLMs) and will highlight key information into a short paragraph, Apple’s website explains. The summaries will also be refreshed weekly for apps and games that have enough reviews to generate a summary — though Apple did not say what that threshold…
Google is launching a new “AI Mode” experimental feature in Search that looks to take on popular services like Perplexity AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search. The tech giant announced on Wednesday that the new mode is designed to allow users to ask complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Google Search. AI Mode is rolling out to Google One AI Premium subscribers starting this week and is accessible via Search Labs, Google’s experimental arm. The feature uses a custom version of Gemini 2.0 and is particularly helpful for questions that need further exploration and…