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Today’s Storystream

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Threads has landscape video now.

Saw this news on 9to5Mac. I honestly didn’t know landscape video wasn’t previously possible.


A screenshot of posts confirming that Threads has videos and photos in landscape mode now.
You can see these posts in context here.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
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A hotfix for a hot mess.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has had a pretty rough launch, and now Microsoft has put out a hotfix aimed at addressing some of the performance and stability issues. “We will continue to investigate any issues and keep the community informed,” says game lead Jorg Neumann.


The government’s plan to break up Google

On The Vergecast: what will come of Chrome and Search, AI woes for Amazon, and the Threads / Bluesky battle rages.

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A ‘banking as a service’ provider collapsed, but where did the money go?

Thousands of people say they’ve collectively been locked out of more than $30 million due to the bankruptcy of fintech middle-man Synapse.

CNBC reports federal agencies like the FDIC don’t cover nonbanks like Synapse, and “the estate of Andreessen Horowitz-backed Synapse doesn’t have the money to hire an outside firm to perform a full reconciliation of its ledgers.”


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Tech companies are laying low at the UN climate summit.

“We don’t have anything there this year,” Meta told the Financial Times.

The annual UN summit is arguably the biggest climate event of the year, and typically an opportunity for tech companies to grandstand. But Big Tech’s obsession with AI has led to growing greenhouse gas emissions, pushing companies further away from climate goals.


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Texas to advertisers: give Elon Musk your money, or else.

Not spending ad dollars on a website because its owner keeps spouting weird conspiracy theories is a very serious antitrust problem, and as usual, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is on it. Surely the best use of law enforcement’s time and money.


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They’re reaching, your honor.

A federal judge denied OpenAI’s bid to force The New York Times to reveal how its reporters use AI tools, ruling that the discovery request was overly broad. The ruling’s final metaphor gives you a hint of how silly the judge found the whole thing:

“If a copyright holder sued a video game manufacturer for copyright infringement ... the video game manufacturer would not be entitled to wide-ranging discovery concerning the copyright holder’s employees’ gaming history.”


Would you sacrifice a USB-C port for this volume control you can swipe?

The $15 SoundSlide solves a problem that few would consider an actual problem. It replaces a computer’s volume buttons with a customizable touch-sensitive slider that can be operated using finger swipes. For those who miss volume wheels, it might be worth the upgrade. For everyone else, sacrificing a USB-C port for the SoundSlide might be too big an of an ask.


The SoundSlider attached to the USB-C port on the side of a laptop.
Tired of pressing buttons? The SoundSlider lets you adjust your computer’s volume with a finger swipe.
Image: Drake Labs

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a glorious and beautiful pain in the ass

GSC Game World’s long-awaited survival epic delivers the ultimate stalker fantasy — if you can look beyond the plethora of glitches.

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President Cybertruck.

A Tesla Cybertruck was spotted joining President-elect Donald Trump’s motorcade in Texas while traveling to the SpaceX Starship launch.

The Secret Service wouldn’t answer Road & Track’s questions about who was driving the Cybertruck, but come on, we all know who it was. A better question is whether the Cybertruck will officially join once Trump takes office. I mean, he’s already got one, gifted by streamer Adin Ross. And it is bulletproof — sort of.


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Extreme boy home makeover.

The TikTok show Boy Room tours the disgusting bedrooms of men, cigarette butts, dirty clothes, and all. It’s gross, funny, and weirdly revealing — and now much more sanitized via an Amazon partnership.

In an HGTV-esque reboot, the show will now give home makeovers featuring Amazon furniture and decor. It serves as a front end to Amazon: Boy Room is also promoting the products via affiliate marketing.


Inside Elon Musk’s messy breakup with OpenAI

Emails in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI expose the startup’s rocky origins.

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VW-backed battery manufacturer goes bust.

Sweden’s Northvolt filed for Chapter 11 this week after racking up $5.8 billion in debt and burning through $30 million in cash. The company had investments from Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs and orders from Audi, Porsche, and BMW.

It was working with Volvo on new batteries due in 2025 with higher energy density to be integrated as a structural element of the vehicle, It’s unclear whether Northvolt will make that deadline, although it plans to “operate as usual” during the restructuring.


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Monkey business.

Fresh off the reveal of the Donkey Kong-themed section of its amusement parks, Nintendo has released the Game Boy classic Donkey Kong Land for Switch Online subscribers. While it’s a toned down version of DKC on the SNES, Land does a surprisingly excellent job of translating the experience to a smaller, greener screen.


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Google TV’s 2024 recap.

Shōgun was the most watched show on Google TV devices in 2024 while Road House was the most watched movie. And starting today you’ll find a curated “best of 2024” collection under the “For You” tab on the Google TV Streamer (4K), Google TV built-in devices, and the Google TV apps.