Mike Cannon-Brookes, the CEO of enterprise software giant Atlassian, was one of the first users of the Arc browser. Over the last several years, he has been a prolific bug reporter and feature requester. Now he’ll own the thing: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company, the New York-based startup that makes both Arc and the […]
Perplexity has just offered to buy Google Chrome for $34.5 billion — a bid that’s far more than the AI search startup itself is valued at, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. The startup sent the unsolicited bid on Tuesday, just months after Perplexity said it would buy Chrome if the […]
Google is making it easier to see news from your favorite outlets. A new feature, called “preferred sources,” will let you choose the outlets you want to see featured the most in Search’s “top stories” section. Google’s top stories hub appears when you search for something related to a current event, and displays a bunch […]
A new website that lets you paint over a world map with other users in real-time has taken the digital illustration community by storm. Wplace is a collaborative pixel art platform that serves as a spiritual successor to Reddit’s r/Place April Fools’ Day experiments, placing time restrictions on drawing tools that motivate users to team […]
With the rise of AI writing tools, Wikipedia editors have had to deal with an onslaught of AI-generated content filled with false information and phony citations. Already, the community of Wikipedia volunteers has mobilized to fight back against AI slop, something Wikimedia Foundation product director Marshall Miller likens to a sort of “immune system” response. […]
The Browser Company — the makers of the Arc browser — just launched a $20 per month subscription to its new AI-powered web browser, Dia, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. The new Dia Pro subscription comes with unlimited access to the browser’s chat feature, which lets you ask questions about the content in your tabs. […]
Google says its AI search features aren’t tanking website traffic despite recent reports suggesting otherwise. In a blog post published on Wednesday, Google Search head Liz Reid says click volume from the search engine has remained “relatively stable” when compared to the same time last year — though some types of websites are getting more […]
The AI search startup Perplexity is allegedly skirting restrictions meant to stop its AI web crawlers from accessing certain websites, according to a report from Cloudflare. In the report, Cloudflare claims that when Perplexity encounters a block, the startup will conceal its crawling identity “in an attempt to circumvent the website’s preferences.” The report only […]
Google is largely reversing course on its plans to discontinue support for all shortened goo.gl URLs on August 25th. Goo.gl URLS that already show a message saying that they will be deactivated in August will still stop working — the company started showing the deactivation message nine months ago on URLs that “showed no activity […]
Microsoft has used a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults of Bing and Microsoft Edge in Windows over the years, including modifying Chrome download sites and using malware-like popups. Now, Opera is fed up of what it calls Microsoft’s “manipulative design tactics” and is filing a competition complaint in Brazil today, alleging that Microsoft […]