The Web

Good news for people who regret the Gmail address they came up with when they registered for an account: Google is now letting users change it.... Read more

Instagram is testing a pay tier that offers features including letting subscribers discreetly view "Story" posts that normally vanish after 24 hours, Meta told AFP on Monday, confirming a report by news website TechCrunch.... Read more

Australians are among the most anxious in the world about artificial intelligence (AI).... Read more

Internet trailblazer Yahoo is exploring technology's next frontier with Scout, an answer engine powered by artificial intelligence. Scout seems insightful, based on its response to a question posed by The Associated Press about why one of Silicon Valley's brightest stars faded away a decade ago.... Read more

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology used machine learning tools and social network theory—the study of how people connect with each other—to better understand how people interact online. Using data from X, formerly Twitter, researchers probed the complex patterns of relationships and shared interests that link people together across the... Read more

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a landmark copyright case that internet service providers (ISPs) are not liable for online pirating of music by their users.... Read more

For many job seekers, it might seem like there's never been a harder time to find a job. Hiring for white-collar jobs has been especially weak, part of what economists call a "low-hire, low-fire" job market in which businesses are largely holding onto their workers while hiring remains sluggish, making... Read more

Researchers have discovered a major security leak hiding in plain sight on the internet that could expose the personal data and financial records of millions of people. In a paper published on the arXiv preprint server, Nurullah Demir of Stanford University and colleagues analyzed 10 million websites to see how... Read more

Viewers would rather watch video at slightly lower speeds than endure rebuffering, according to new research from Lancaster University. The study investigated how dynamically slowing down or speeding up playback is perceived by viewers, and how playback speed changes compare to other ways of overcoming viewer internet slowdowns—such as reducing... Read more

In a survey study of U.S. teens, more than half (55.3%) reported that they had created at least one image using nudification tools, which use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to show what an individual may look like without clothing. Chad Steel of George Mason University, Virginia, U.S., presents these findings... Read more

Google Maps will depend more heavily on artificial intelligence to help people figure out where they want to go and the best way to get there as part of a major redesign unveiled on Thursday.... Read more

Researchers at the University at Albany and Rutgers University have developed an early-warning framework that can predict harmful social media interactions before they erupt, paving the way for interventions that can minimize harm and make platforms safer for users. Using publicly available datasets from Reddit and Instagram, two social media... Read more

TikTok is built for people to create and share their own content, so dance music and indie artists fill the platform's Top 100. On Spotify, love songs and music from major record labels dominate its top charts. On both platforms, people's preferences only partly explain what songs become hits.... Read more

Why do you see the results you do when you search for information online? It's a complex mix of what the source is, its relationships to other sources online, and your own past browsing history and device settings.... Read more

Online chat service Discord has announced it will begin testing age verification for some users, joining a growing list of platforms trying to work out who is actually behind the screen.... Read more

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify Wednesday at a groundbreaking social media addiction trial, summoned by lawyers representing a plaintiff who alleges Instagram and other platforms were deliberately designed to make young users addicted.... Read more

YouTube said late Tuesday it had fixed a widespread outage that hit hundreds of thousands of users around the world.... Read more

Romance scams are among the most emotionally damaging forms of cyber crime because they combine carefully manufactured intimacy with financial theft—the scammers go after your heart, and then your wallet.... Read more

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri is to be called to testify Wednesday in a Los Angeles courtroom by lawyers out to prove social media is dangerously addictive by design to young, vulnerable minds.... Read more

YouTube's legal team insisted Tuesday that the Google-owned video platform was not intentionally addictive or even technically social media, on the second day of a landmark U.S. trial targeting tech giants.... Read more

OpenAI has begun placing ads in the basic versions of its ChatGPT chatbot, a bet that users will not mind the interruptions as the company seeks revenue as its costs soar.... Read more

Meta and Google-owned YouTube were accused Monday of pushing highly addictive apps on children as a landmark social media trial began in earnest in a California court.... Read more

Messaging platform Discord announced Monday it will implement enhanced safety features for teenage users globally, including facial recognition, joining a wave of social media companies rolling out age verification systems.... Read more

As countries step up their use of internet shutdowns to muzzle dissent, some are also taking advantage of the blackouts to increase censorship firewalls, internet privacy company Proton warned in an interview with AFP.... Read more

As deepfake videos of John Mearsheimer multiplied across YouTube, the American academic rushed to have them taken down, embarking on a grueling fight that laid bare the challenges of combating AI-driven impersonation.... Read more

More than 35 years after the first website went online, the web has evolved from static pages to complex interactive systems, often with security added as an afterthought. To mitigate risks, developers use security headers that instruct browsers how to handle content securely. Early on, browser support was inconsistent.... Read more

Spain plans to ban social media access for children under 16, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Tuesday, in a move designed to shield young people from the harms of online content.... Read more

Snapchat has blocked 415,000 accounts under Australia's social media ban for under-16s, the company said Monday, but warned some youngsters may be bypassing age verification technology.... Read more

AI slop seems to be everywhere. Low-quality digital content made with artificial intelligence has flooded our feeds, screens and speakers. Is there anything we can do about it?... Read more

Google is empowering its Chrome browser with the ability to alter imagery and a virtual assistant to help with online tasks as part of its push to turbocharge its digital services with more artificial intelligence technology.... Read more

Sweden plans to ban mobile phones from primary and middle schools in order to ensure that children can focus on learning in the classroom, the government said on Wednesday.... Read more

Britain's competition watchdog said Wednesday that Google should give news sites and content creators the choice to opt out of having their online content scraped to feed its AI overviews.... Read more

As France moves one step closer to banning social media for children, the European Union is seriously considering whether it's time for the bloc to follow suit.... Read more

French lawmakers have passed a bill that would ban social media use by under-15s, a move championed by President Emmanuel Macron as a way to protect children from excessive screen time.... Read more

WhatsApp is set to face greater EU scrutiny after the European Commission on Monday added the platform to its list of digital firms big enough to face stricter content rules.... Read more

French President Emmanuel Macron says he wants his government to fast-track the legal process to ensure that a ban on social media for children under the age of 15 can enter into force in September at the start of the next school year.... Read more

Meta is halting teens' access to artificial intelligence characters, at least temporarily, the company said in a blog post Friday.... Read more

Google is leveraging its artificial intelligence technology to open a new peephole for its dominant search engine to tailor answers that draw upon people's interests, habits, travel itineraries and photo libraries.... Read more

The vision of a fully connected world is rapidly becoming a reality through the Internet of Things (IoT)—a growing network of physical devices that collect and share data over the Internet, including everything from small sensors to autonomous vehicles and industrial equipment.... Read more

Snapchat on Wednesday confirmed it made a deal to avoid a US civil trial accusing it, along with Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, of addicting young people to social media.... Read more

Imagine that the internet suddenly stops working. Payment systems in your local food store go down. Health care systems in the regional hospital flatline. Your work software tools—and all the information they contain—disappear.... Read more

YouTube announced plans on Wednesday to allow its users this year to create AI versions of themselves for video sharing, matching a feature from Sora, the video-creation app from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.... Read more

Cyberattacks can wreak havoc on the systems they target, yet their impact often spreads far beyond technical failures, potentially triggering crises that engulf entire communities, a new study argues.... Read more

Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia's lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media, but experts are still locked in a debate over the effectiveness of the move.... Read more

OpenAI says it will soon start showing advertisements to ChatGPT users who aren't paying for a premium version of the chatbot.... Read more

OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.... Read more

Social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said.... Read more

Elon Musk's Grok keeps getting into trouble, and this time, more of the world's governments are trying to intervene.... Read more

The self-described "Bush Legend" on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram is growing in popularity.... Read more

Melia & Co appears to be a small family-run business. The sweaters on its website feature a photo of a woman hand-knitting a Christmas design. The caption says that after decades of creating knitwear that tells "quiet stories of care and beauty," she is closing her little studio and the... Read more