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Take a breath, stop spiraling. You’re not crazy, you’re just stressed. And honestly, that’s okay. If you felt immediately triggered reading these words, you’re probably also sick of ChatGPT constantly talking to you as if you’re in some sort of crisis and need delicate handling. Now, things may be improving. OpenAI says its new model, GPT-5.3 Instant, will reduce the “cringe” and other “preachy disclaimers.” According to the model’s release notes, the GPT-5.3 update will focus on the user experience, including things like tone, relevance, and conversational flow — areas that may not show up in benchmarks, but can make…
As missiles crossed the Persian Gulf this weekend and explosions were reported across the region, millions of people did the same thing: They reached for their phones. Within minutes, social media feeds filled with videos, breaking news alerts, and speculation about what might happen next.The strikes followed the US-Israel attacks inside Iran earlier in the week, triggering a wave of retaliatory missile launches and air defense interceptions across several Gulf states.Moments like this are when social media can quickly turn into doomscrolling—the compulsive consumption of bad news delivered through endless updates, alerts, and algorithmically amplified crises. A quick check for…
The numbers13: Consecutive quarters in which Target has reported flat or declining sales. New CEO Michael Fiddelke promised a return to growth in every quarter of 2026.$30.5 billion: Net sales in the fourth quarter of 2025. That’s a 1.5% drop year over year, and a 2.5% drop when adjusted for inflation. 3.9%: The year-over-year drop in fourth-quarter comparable sales.$915 million: Target’s advertising revenue in 2025, primarily from ad arm Roundel. During the fourth quarter, Target reported $295 million in ad revenue, up 55.3% from $190 million in the year prior.The watercooler talkAt a financial community meeting in Minneapolis, Target executives…
Palmer Luckey’s defense-tech company is in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar funding round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The funding round would come less than a year after the company’s Series G, which closed in June with $2.5 billion against a $30 billion valuation. Lux Capital and Founders Fund are also expected to participate. A previous report from Bloomberg said the new round could bring as much as $8 billion of capital into the company, which closed its previous funding round last summer. The round comes at an…
Google notes that Apple patched vulnerabilities used by Coruna in the latest versions of its mobile operating system, iOS 26, so its exploitation techniques are only confirmed to work against iOS 13 through 17.2.1. It targets vulnerabilities in Apple’s Webkit framework for browsers, so Safari users on those older versions of iOS would be vulnerable, but there’s no confirmed techniques in the toolkit for targeting Chrome users. Google also notes that Coruna checks if an iOS devices has Apple’s most stringent security setting, known as Lockdown Mode, enabled, and doesn’t attempt to hack it if so.Despite those limitations, iVerify says…
X will temporarily bar creators from monetizing their content through its Creator Revenue Sharing program if they share AI-generated videos of an armed conflict without clearly disclosing that it was made with AI. The move comes three days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran, sparking a chain of violent reactions.X’s head of product Nikita Bier made the announcement in a post on X Tuesday morning, writing: “During times of war, it is critical that people have access to authentic information on the ground.” He added that AI platforms have lowered the bar to making “content that can…
Google on Tuesday announced a series of new features coming to the Android ecosystem, alongside its March software update for Pixel phones, called the Pixel Drop. Notably, Android users are getting a new way to find lost luggage. If users have added a Find Hub-compatible tracker tag to their luggage, they can now share a link with participating airlines to help identify the location of the luggage. In the Find Hub app, users can now select their lost item and tap “share item location” to generate a unique, secure URL. Then, users can copy the link and paste it into…
Looking for a new gaming headset that can keep up with your professional aspirations? You can grab the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro from Amazon for $230, a $20 discount from the usual $250 price. This upgraded gaming headset is great for serious FPS fans, aspiring esports competitors, and anyone else trying to climb the ladder in their favorite game.One area where the BlackShark V3 Pro particularly impressed me was the sound isolation and active noise-canceling. While those aren’t always standout features on gaming headsets, these are built for serious gaming, so tuning out any extra noise, whether that’s a cheering…
Retail doesn’t stand still, and neither does Sam’s Club.In this episode of The Speed of Culture, recorded live at CES in Las Vegas, Matt Britton sits down with Diana Marshall, EVP and chief experience officer at Sam’s Club. Diana shares how Sam’s Club is building a human-led, tech-powered membership model, why experience is now the primary differentiator in retail, and how closed-loop data and AI-driven personalization are reshaping acquisition, loyalty, and retail media. The conversation explores the shift from frictionless to effortless retail, the power of associate experience, and what the future of buying looks like in an AI-enabled world.A 21-year Walmart…
Apple unveiled its latest slate of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops on Tuesday morning, and in the case of the MacBook Pro, the new hardware comes with the announcement of new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The specs on the new chips are impressive, featuring an 18-core CPU that Apple says is over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation. But consumers may be surprised to see the price of the new MacBook Pro devices. For the base MacBook Pro device, which has an M5 Pro chip, prices start at $2,199 and $2,699…
The invention that turned Apple into a world-beating, billion-selling, society-changing colossus was not a laptop or a music player; it was the iPhone. It seemed to appear in 2007, fully formed, beautifully conceived, self-assured, and conceptually obvious.But behind the scenes, the iPhone we know today was made possible by more than bold bets, fanatical attention to detail, brilliant design, and a vision for the future; there were also false starts, last-minute redesigns, and a few strokes of luck.For starters, the product Apple set out to build first was not a phone. It was a tablet.Interdisciplinary teams at Apple are always…
Why is my laundry taking two hours? Is this sunscreen water-resistant? Will my dishes be dry when the dishwasher finishes?In its first major marketing push in more than five years, the non-profit publisher Consumer Reports unveiled a $3 million, full-funnel brand marketing campaign on Tuesday rooted in addressing the everyday questions that pepper modern life.The initiative, part of a broader effort from the 90-year-old non-profit to emphasize its utility in a rapidly shifting information landscape, was developed with branding agency Red Antler and media agency Kepler, according to chief marketing officer Khalid El Khatib. It will be fully live by March…
Audible is rolling out a cheaper “Standard” subscription plan that costs $8.99 per month, the Amazon-owned company announced on Tuesday. The new plan is $6 cheaper than the platform’s existing “Premium” plan, which costs $14.95 per month. The Standard plan includes one audiobook per month from Audible’s catalog and unlimited listening from a curated library that includes a selection of Audible Originals. Under the new Standard plan, subscribers will lose access to the audiobooks they’ve consumed when they unsubscribe. The Premium plan lets users keep the audiobooks they’ve listened to even if they unsubscribe. The Standard plan also includes access…
The Apple Watch is not calibrated with a cuff. It takes 30 days of cardiac data from the existing optical PPG sensors, analyzes it, and gives you a probability that you might have hypertension. It’s also significant that this is the first year that the Apple Watch has had a true 24 hours of battery life, so you can wear it while you’re sleeping without taking it off to charge. I’ve turned this on with my Series 11 and have not yet gotten a notification (and hope I never will), but given that general awareness, screening, and detection of hypertension…
Bitter winter weather affected much of the country during the week of January 26, prompting many people to stay home and consume streaming content. This led to six titles surpassing a billion viewing minutes on Nielsen’s Top 10 Overall Streaming chart.The return of Netflix’s Bridgerton danced its way to the top of the chart with 3.032 billion viewing minutes for the recorded week. Season 4’s new episodes boosted the show’s total viewing, commanding 74% of the time, with Adult women (18+) representing 72% of the total.Bridgerton dethroned the popular Netflix series Stranger Things, which held the No. 2 position after…
Social network X is bringing its private messaging service, dubbed X Chat, to a standalone app. The company on Monday said the initial beta of the X Chat app was being made available to 1,000 users through Apple’s TestFlight testing platform. The beta program had reached full capacity two hours after the announcement. According to an X post by xAI product designer Michael Boswell, the company will expand the beta beyond the initial 1,000 users “soon,” though he didn’t offer an ETA. “For the past few months, we’ve been quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS,” Boswell wrote…