Engadget News + Next

The feature accepts both image and text prompts, but is still in beta at the moment.
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-After warnings from lawmakers last year, WhatsApp has been blocked in Russia for as many as 100 million users, the Financial Times reported. Russian authorities removed the app from an online directory, effectively wiping it from Russia's internet.

-Anthropic is upgrading Claude's free tier, apparently to capitalize on OpenAI's planned integration of ads into ChatGPT.

-Meta is turning those "Dear algorithm" posts into an official feature that it says will allow Threads users to tune their recommendations in real time. With the change, users can write a post that begins with "dear algo" to adjust their preferences.
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The company plans to offer rides to the public in Nashville sometime this year.
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-In an xAI meeting with employees, Musk said the company needed to build an AI satellite factory on the moon with a gigantic catapult to launch them into space, according to audio heard by The New York Times.

-Discord will require all users to have a "teen-appropriate experience" by default by March.

-Numerous major social platforms including Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap say they will submit to a new external grading process that scores social platforms on how well they protect adolescent mental health.
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This is similar to Uber's toolset.
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