Author: Editor

As companies make rounds of job cuts and double down on AI spend, Google’s parent company Alphabet is expanding its workforce.Alphabet reported blockbuster second-quarter earnings, with revenue climbing 24% year over year to $119.8 billion. The company revealed in its earnings report that it increased head count by 11,830 employees, from 187,103 to 198,933, between June 30, 2025 and June 30, 2026.The chart below shows how Alphabet’s workforce has grown from the end of the first quarter of 2025 through the end of the second quarter of 2026. The biggest jump in Alphabet’s head count of the last couple of…

Something has to change, right?Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have dominated the social media landscape for years. As AI infiltrates every platform — and many corners of our lives — new social media founders, apps, and internet behaviors are emerging.From vibe coding to cultural shifts shaping how people want to connect, it’s a perfect storm for founders to experiment with social media.AI has “essentially brought down the cost of making anything,” Amy Wu Martin, a partner at Menlo Ventures, told Business Insider.Menlo is an investor in Anthropic, whose product Claude Code has radically changed the product-building pipeline for startups.”If you want…

TikTok is racing to cash in on the micro-drama craze.The company has been quietly testing a paid short-drama app in the US called LimeShorts since March, Business Insider has learned.Micro dramas, also called “verticals,” are soap-opera style series split into dozens of clips of around one to five minutes each.Like other micro-drama apps, including market leaders ReelShort and DramaBox, LimeShorts operates on a “freemium” model, where users get the first few episodes of a show for free before hitting a paywall. Viewers can pay $20 a week or $200 a year for full access to titles, or unlock individual episodes…

My partner and I fell in love with our first home — a two-story 1980s residence in Edinburgh — before we’d even gone inside.Sitting in a network of courtyards, each with a shared, central garden, we stepped through the wrought-iron gates to see its huge, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a patch of trees and immediately thought, “Oh, we’ve found our house.”Even though it was just slightly over 950 square feet, it had everything on my wish list: a small private garden, an attic, a study, and even a conservatory I could fill with plants.Sure, it had its flaws, and it wasn’t…

There’s another AI advertising skirmish brewing.Meta debuted a new ad campaign on Thursday with a spot promising that the “future is for everyone,” complete with fairies and butterflies. “Meta has always believed in giving people the power to share, connect, and shape your world in the ways you want,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote.It’s hot on the heels of Anthropic’s “hard questions” ad two weeks ago that raised eye-brows with its bleak imagery. Some AI fans thought that it was overly pessimistic or “doomer,” opening with a house burning to the ground. Sam Altman wrote on X that he initially thought…

Wall Street worries that Netflix has an engagement problem. Netflix says it’s doing fine, actually.Wall Street worriers base their fears, in part, on the viewership data Netflix periodically releases — data Netflix says it’s going to give out less frequently now. But you can also look at that same data and find reasons to be more optimistic about Netflix’s prospects.So here’s a pro-Netflix story, expressed in chart form, courtesy of MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman: Robert Fishman/MoffettNathanson It also requires some explanation. What Fishman is pointing out is a basic-but-important idea to keep in mind about Netflix-created shows and movies: They…

2026 Honda Ridgeline pickup truck.Courtesy HondaHonda,Honda Motor on Thursday confirmed a next-generation model of its Ridgeline pickup truck will be produced in the U.S. following a temporary production stoppage later this year.The future of the midsize pickup truck has been in flux amid reports that there could be a production pause coming due to the vehicle not meeting California emissions regulations.The Japanese automaker on Thursday said there will be a temporary production stoppage for the pickup truck later this year at the Alabama plant that produces the vehicle, with assembly returning to the facility within two years, likely in 2028.…

Last year, when I packed up my life’s belongings into one big, blue suitcase, I didn’t know what to expect.I was moving to Fair Isle: one of the UK’s most remote inhabited islands, and a place I hadn’t even visited before. My partner was working at the island’s bird observatory, where I was also about to start a job as a housekeeper.A million thoughts, questions, and fears raced around my mind. I knew I’d be living in a rural place with under 60 residents, but I didn’t know what the weather would be like, what I would need on the…

Agamemnon and Odysseus in “The Odyssey.”Source: Universal PicturesChristopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is racking up box office dollars for Imax and fueling investor confidence that the company will reach record ticket sales in 2026.Shares of Imax jumped more than 8% on Thursday after the company reported it was still on track to deliver a record $1.4 billion in global box office this year. Wall Street had worried that when Netflix and Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” was pushed from its November release date to February 2027, that Imax would not be able to reach that guidance.Universal’s “The Odyssey” is easing…

At a time when education is under scrutiny because of concerns over AI, a perceived literacy crisis, and learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic, test scores can provide a snapshot of student performance.But that performance can vary widely across state lines.The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a federal program that the National Assessment Governing Board called “the gold standard assessment” for gauging students’ knowledge in the US. Known as The Nation’s Report Card, the assessments are given to representative samples of public school students in each state, and results are released every two years for grades four and…