This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI and the industry’s power dynamics and societal implications, follow Hayden Field. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. Since ChatGPT became a household name, people have…
The rebooted version of social site Digg aims to bring back the spirit of the old web at a time when AI-generated content is threatening to overwhelm traditional social media platforms, drowning out the voices of real people. This presents an opportunity to build a social site for the AI era, where the people who…
The first time I met Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft, was in 2019 when he was spearheading a new open approach to design at Microsoft to make its hardware and software look like it came from one company. That’s a largely successful work in progress, so these days Friedman…
The current state of crypto is akin to the internet’s “America Online” (AOL) era during the late 1990s, when the user experience was clunky, technical, featured limited use cases, and moved at dial-up speeds, according to Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Nailwal identified several key areas of development to improve user…
At this point, it’s pretty clear what Donald Trump wants from Mark Zuckerberg. But what does Zuckerberg, who has now gone to Mar-a-Lago twice since the November election, want from the President-elect? That’s the question I’ve been asking sources in and around Meta over the last several days. They all described Meta’s relationship with the…
I had no problem taking out the vaping couple on a beach towel. They’re in the background of one of my vacation photos, and they’re really mucking up the vibe. The Google Pixel’s Magic Editor feature takes them right out with a few taps, and you know what? I felt fine about that. It’s drawing…