Author: TechBrunch

WhatsApp launched a new feature on Friday. Here, users can include simple music clips in status updates reminiscent of the MySpace era. The status is similar to Instagram stories, allowing users to share photos, videos and text that disappear after 24 hours. When creating a new status, users can tap the Music Note icon to select from millions of available songs. You can post music clips up to 15 seconds for photos and up to 60 seconds for videos. The release of the music clip follows parent company Meta, and introduces similar features to Instagram. Users can add songs to…

Mozilla fixed “Wild exploitation” of Firefox security bug for Windows browsers. In a quick update, Mozilla said it updated its browser to Firefox version 136.0.4 after identifying and fixing a new bug tracked as CVE-2025-2857. Anyone who exploits the bug can escape the Firefox sandbox and restricts data on other apps in your browser and users' computers. This bug also affects other browsers that have the same codebase as Firefox for Windows, such as the Tor browser that also received a patch that updates the Browser to 14.0.7. Boris Larin, a researcher at Kaspersky who first discovered Chrome Zero-Day, confirmed…

Google today announced that it will be offering user choice billing in the UK, offering the ability for Google Play developers to use other billing options rather than Google's own system. This change began on March 29th and is initially only available to non-game developers. If the developer chooses it, it cannot completely replace the Google Play billing. Instead, third-party routes are provided as an option. Developers who choose to use the alternative billing option will receive a 4% discount on the fees they pay to Google (considering the fees that third parties will also charge). Google typically receives up…

Meta-owned Instagram is copying yet another feature of Tiktok. This time, you can press the right or left side of the screen for a long time to play the reel at twice the speed. When Tiktok first launched, the video could only be 15 seconds longer. As years passed and Tiktok became popular, social networks deployed longer video support. This introduced the option for users to speed up their videos as they were trained to consume content more quickly. Image credit: Instagram The Instagram reel started by allowing users to post videos that are up to 15 seconds long. Today,…

Tiktok will expand the Tiktok shop's e-commerce platform to users in France, Germany and Italy on Monday, Reuters reports. The Tiktok Shop has been available in the UK since 2021 and is now ready to expand further into Europe. The Tiktok Shop is also available in the US and has seen strong sales over the holiday season, but Tiktok's fate in this country remains uncertain. Reuters said that as many sellers on the platform sell their products directly from China, Tiktok is aiming to join more European-based sellers in Tiktok shop. “In France, Germany and Italy, we have already worked…

The encrypted messaging app signal has attracted unexpected attention this week. Top Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Peter Hegses, informed the plans for an attack on the Yemeni Hoosis via potentially unauthorized group chats on the signal. However, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, was accidentally added to the group chat, allowing him access to these very sensitive discussions that he later published. The signaling app itself malfunctioned or did not work in an unintended way. Rather, incorrectly adding journalists to chat about US military plans is a user error. This should be…

Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a new Utah law that requires Apple and Google to verify the age of users in their app stores and be responsible for obtaining the consent of minors' parents. The tech giant is fighting to determine which parties should be responsible for the age verification of the app store. Companies like Meta believe that the app itself needs to check the age of users. These entities host and distribute apps. However, the app claims that the company that is creating the app should be held responsible because it is the company that is providing…

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Google is rolling out several new AI-powered features across Search, Maps and Gemini, designed to help people plan their summer vacation. New features are coming to help users turn to tools like Openai's ChatGpt to help them plan their trips. A Google Search AI overview, which displays a snapshot of information at the top of the results page, now helps users get ideas for travelling in a particular region or country. Starting this week, users can search for things like “Create a Costa Rica Itinerary with a Nature Focus.” From there you can view photos and reviews and see the…

NHS vendor Advanced will pay a small £3 million ($3.8 million) fine for failing to implement basic security measures before being hit by a ransomware attack in 2022, UK data protection regulator confirmed. It was half of the fines the intelligence officer's office initially sought in August 2024, and Data Watchdog said it would raise more than £6 million due to security failures. The ICO said Wednesday it had proceeded to “break data protection laws” by not fully deploying multifactor authentication prior to the violation. It said that hackers can break in with stolen qualifications and steal the personal information…