Snapchat on Wednesday announced the launch of a new Snapchat+ tier called “Lens+.” The new tier costs $8.99 per month and, as its name suggests, is centered around giving users access to exclusive Lenses and AR experiences.In addition to giving users access to the perks unlocked with the standard $3.99 per month Snapchat+ tier, Lens+ gives users the ability to use hundreds of Lenses that let you “play, create, and share Snaps” with others, the company says. “We’re starting with Lenses built by Snapchat an ...

In Brief Disney and Universal have sued generative AI platform Midjourney for allegedly training its art-generating and -editing models on their content with permission. Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming that Midjourney ignored their earlier requests to cease violating their intellectual property rights, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, includes dozens of examples of images generated by Midjourney t ...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company will start offering public rides in driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas on June 22, which would mark the beginning of his long-promised robotaxi service. That date could shift because Musk claimed Tesla is “being super paranoid about safety.” Tesla Model Y SUVs have been spotted in recent days and weeks being tested around Austin with no drivers in the seat. Bloomberg News previously reported that Tesla was eyeing a June 12 launch of the service. Musk has spent years ...

Meta’s head of public policy in India, Shivnath Thukral, is leaving the social networking company, nearly three and a half years after joining, and just months after his counterpart at Google stepped down.Thukral spent over seven and a half years at Meta and took over as public policy lead for the South Asian market — the company’s largest user base — in November 2022, after his predecessor Rajiv Aggarwal left. “Having helped build some of the systems and processes, I do feel it is a good time to let the e ...

YouTube released a report on Tuesday that shows just how influential the creator economy has become.YouTube says that its creative ecosystem contributed over $55 billion to the US GDP and supported more than 490,000 full-time jobs, according to research by Oxford Economics. When YouTube talks about its creative ecosystem, it’s not just talking about creators. This includes anyone who works with YouTube creators (video editors, assistants, publicists), as well as people who work for creator-oriented compani ...

At the end of the WWDC 2025 keynote address on Monday, the company literally sang its praises to app developers, as singer-songwriter Allen Stone humorously turned customers’ positive App Store reviews into song lyrics for a tune titled “6 out of 5 stars.”“Best app I’ve ever set my sorry eyes upon,” he crooned. “This is not an app. It’s a piece of art.” Image Credits:Apple (screenshot)What Apple didn’t mention, however, was anything related to the tumultuous past few years for its developer community, or mo ...

In Brief Meta plans to unveil a new AI research lab dedicated to “superintelligence” as the company works to compete in the AI race, according to several reports.Meta has tapped Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang to join the new lab, The New York Times reports. Meta has been in talks to invest billions into Scale AI as part of a deal that would bring Scale AI employees to Meta. Meta has also been poaching lead researchers from OpenAI and Google, per the Times.  The new lab comes as Meta CEO Mark Zucker ...

Apple said it’s bringing Visual Intelligence, its AI-powered image analysis tech, to the iPhone screen in iOS 26. Visual Intelligence will now make it easier and faster to do more with the content on your iPhone, Apple says, and it works automatically with any app. For example, if you open a social media app and see a gray jacket, you can use Visual Intelligence — which can be accessed by pressing the same button you use to take a screenshot — to do an image search for the jacket in Google Search and other ...

At WWDC on Monday, Apple unveiled a new dedicated gaming app that is designed to centralize gaming experiences on Apple devices. The app will serve as a launcher for games and allow users to track achievements and view leaderboards. The Games app will also include social features, including a “Play Together” tab that lets you see what your friends are playing, compare scores, and invite them to play with you. There’s also “Challenges,” which is a new way to compete with friends in score-based showdowns. Fo ...

Apple is introducing Live Translation, powered by Apple Intelligence, for Messages, FaceTime, and Phone calls. “Live translation can translate conversation on the fly,” Leslie Ikemoto, Apple’s director of input experience, said Monday during the WWDC event. The translation feature is “enabled by Apple Built models that run entirely on your device so your personal conversations stay personal.” In Messages, Live Translation will automatically translate text for you as you type and deliver it in your preferre ...