Instagram starts testing new feature for Stories; users can target multiple lists

YouTube Music has made a massive announcement revealing new features that the platform is either rolling out or will do soon. According to the company, YouTube Music has more than 2 billion monthly users who listen to over 100 million official songs, along with live performances, music videos, remixes, podcasts, and other YouTube exclusive music. These new features have been added keeping their feedback and overall experience in mind. One of the major highlights is a new generative AI feature, through which users can create artwork for their custom playlists.

Ankama Games has opened up a brand new season, Lance Dur, in Waven with Chapter 1: Cire Momore starting today. The update to the Early Access tactical MMO adds a new competitive PvE mode, rewards, an overhauled Battle Pass, and the spooky challenge  coincides with Halloween.

2023 seems to be the year of premium subscriptions in the social media space. Shortly after Elon Musk owned X (formerly Twitter) came out with paid verification through its X Premium subscription, Meta also introduced the Meta-verified program. But unlike X, these premium Meta users who shell out $11.99 on the web or $14.99 in iOS and Android apps, do not have many exclusive features to themselves. It appears that Meta is starting to change that and one of its efforts is the new feature Instagram is testing where it will offer a verified-only feed to give more visibility to businesses and creators.

If you love sending stickers on Instagram DMs and putting them in your reels, then there's great news for you. Instagram has been testing the feature that lets you create custom stickers from your photos! The Meta-owned platform has been testing a lot of features lately, with an option to create lists for stories, and giving users more control over their data and privacy. It has also recently added a feature that lets users add music to photo carousels, not just single photos. These features promise to enhance the user experience, and it could get more intuitive with the new custom stickers. Know all about it.

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Ever since Elon Musk took over X (formerly Twitter), it has undergone a myriad of changes. In a bid to make it a super app that can compete with China's WeChat, the microblogging platform has received several new features, alongside a complete rebranding that resulted in Larry the Bird being replaced by an X. However, not all users are happy with the multitude of changes being introduced on the platform, with several of them calling these moves draconian. Just recently, it was announced that X would bring a 3-tier subscription model to its X Premium.

By now, it is clear that Elon Musk is heavily pushing to expand the premium user base on X (formerly Twitter). In 2023 alone, the platform has introduced multiple exclusive features for its X Premium subscription. Some of these features have also proven to be controversial, and users have argued that they restrict the existing features from free users, calling them draconian. Adding to the list, a new report has revealed that X is now working on yet another premium feature called Enhanced Discovery. It can be used to check similar or related features.

Data privacy is important no matter who you are and whatever your reason to browse the internet is. Most of us would prefer to keep it private and not be seen by others. Oftentimes, a general day's browsing history can include searches around private medical conditions, silly queries, and sometimes looking up information around financial or personal data.

The X-rival (formerly Twitter) social media platform by Meta called Threads has been adding new features to the platform on a regular basis. Recently, the company added a web client and the functionality to search for posts using keywords to the platform. And just hours ago, it received two new big features. The Instagram-powered platform has now added the feature to edit posts and add audio posts which are being called Voice Threads. Interestingly, the edit feature is available for free, unlike X, which is offering it only to X Blue subscribers who pay a monthly fee of $7.99.

Still remember Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s competitor to Twitter? The app is finally getting an edit button for posts. But unlike Twitter/X, users won’t have to pay for it. 

Since its debut on July 6, Threads has taken the world by storm, becoming the fastest platform ever to reach 100 million users, a feat that it took just 5 days to achieve. It is Instagram's answer to Elon Musk-owned X, which has undergone a myriad of changes since the acquisition by him. Users have considered some of the moves as draconian and have looked at alternate platforms to switch to, of which Threads has taken full advantage. However, the latest comments by Instagram head Adam Mosseri might spell bad news for the platform in its attempts to compete against X in the race to become the top microblogging site in the world.

SiFive, a RISC-V processor design firm, unveiled two new chip designs aimed at bringing a high-performance computing solution to various industries.