Internet & Websites

For those who remember the Wild Wild West days of the internet, Napster was a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that launched in 1999. It quickly took off as a means to share MP3 music files and quickly grew in popularity thanks to the arrival of high-speed broadband internet at the time. Most users had dial-up connections and had to wait several minutes or an hour to get a few songs.

It didn't take long until the Recording Industry Association of America took note, and bands like Metallica made headlines as they moved to sue Napster for facilitating the sharing of copyrighted material. After bankruptcy, Napster became a music streaming service similar to Spotify in 2016 - even though the name 'Napster' has faded into the background.

This week, Napster was acquired by Infinite Reality, the creator of "immersive 3D interfaces," for a cool $207 million. According to CNBC, the company and its name will be used to create virtual 3D spaces for music fans and artists - aka metaverse stuff.

X has been up and down for the last few hours and I've been wondering why... but wonder no more: Elon Musk has said that there is a "massive cyberattack" against X and Grok right now.

Elon posted: "There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved". X user Hassan Sajwani replied to Elon's post saying "they want to silence you and this platform" to which Elon replied with a simple: "Yes".

The news of the massive cyberattack comes after weeks of outrage against Elon and more specifically Tesla, with lunatics (calling a spade a spade) have been targeting Tesla vehicles across the US and the world, attacking them and at times, out outright destroying them. Not just vehicles like the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck, but Tesla dealerships have been damaged in this blind outrage, too.

Those paying for YouTube in the US now have a new option to fork out less money to watch with no adverts (mostly) on the platform, a 'Premium Lite' plan.

This ad-free subscription (with a slight catch that we'll come back to) has been a pilot scheme in the US (and elsewhere, including Australia), but is now becoming an official offering from YouTube priced at $7.99 per month.

This is just in the US right now, but Australia will be in line for the same treatment in the "coming weeks" (as well as Germany and Thailand, which are also set to have their pilots converted to a full rollout).

Those of you thinking about buying a new car might be a bit shocked to know that you can grab the latest model simply by heading to Amazon - if you're after a Hyundai, that is.

Amazon Autos is the retail giant's play to get into the car sales game, and it's available right now to customers across 48 cities in the US.

People can head to Amazon and browse through Hyundai's range, then order a new car from a participating local dealer, including arranging finance if necessary, and scheduling a pick-up time at said dealership.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly considering developing a web browser that would compete directly against Google and its popular Chrome browser, combining its AI chatbot and "separately discussed or struck deals to power search features".

In a new report from The Information picked up by Reuters, we're learning that OpenAI has spoken about the search product with website and app developers including Conde Nest, Redfin, Eventbrite, and Priceline according to people who have seen the prototypes or designs of the products.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is going in a different direction with the company, establishing itself firmly into the search engine market to defy Google's dominance with the likes of SearchGPT. We all know that Google is the undisputed leader of the search industry, as it's in our everyday speaking terms that we say "I'll Google it" without a second thought, so OpenAI would have an uphill battle (that is worth fighting for).

The US election has seen winners away from the political landscape, and Bluesky has been one of them, with the social media firm seemingly benefiting from an exodus of users from X.

Yesterday, Bluesky declared that it had gained a million new recruits (on X, as you can see above).

As TechCrunch reports, the social media outlet reached approximately 14.6 million users as of November 12, having witnessed a surge of folks joining over the weekend. (Bluesky membership was around 9 million just a couple of months back in September 2024).

We've likely all been in the situation where we've subscribed to a service, and then had difficulty canceling that subscription - it's a frustrating place to be, but one which might be a thing of the past thanks to new regulations in the US.

The FTC has just announced a finalized 'click-to-cancel' rule which requires that businesses which get consumers to sign up to a subscription should ensure that it's very easy to subsequently cancel that service.

As mentioned at the outset, we've likely all been there where we come to cancel a service and find ourselves scratching our heads as to how this is achieved. Often, the method of canceling can be hidden deep within the service's dashboard, behind multiple nested menus perhaps.

Google is planning on removing one of the most popular ad blockers available on Chrome, as the company informs users who now attempt to download it that it "may soon no longer be supported."

That ad blocker is uBlock Origin, and according to reports Google has been informing ad blockers such as uBlock that it will be severing support for them after it rolled out the Chrome Manifest V3 extension update. uBlock appears to be included in that as BleepingComputer reports Google's Chrome Web Store is now warning users uBlock may soon be removed "because it doesn't follow best practises for Chrome extensions." Additionally, Google's support bulletin cited user privacy and security as one of the reasons why uBlock is being removed.

BleepingComputer reports that uBlock Origin is not invasive or insecure and that Google's mention of privacy and security has to do with its deprecation of the Manifest V2 extension in favor of Manifest V3. Google's introduction of Manifest V3 ruffled the feathers of extension developers as V3 presented technical challenges, particularly with those such as ad blockers that require greater control over web browsers.

The exponential growth fueled by the demand for even more sophisticated artificial intelligence-powered models has resulted in supporting technologies getting an upgrade as well.

One of those sectors is networking, as these AI models need consistent, low-latency communication capabilities, fast data transfer speeds, and programmable features. AMD has unveiled a new solution to this growing problem, and it's called the Pensando Pollara 400. This fully programmable Ethernet-ready network interface card (NIC) is capable of pushing 400 Gbps and is specifically designed for AI cluster networking, which predominantly comes in the form of large-scale large language models (LLMs).

Unfortunately, the expansive, power-hungry nature of AI systems is outpacing the developments of Ethernet, meaning manufacturers are now turning to AI-tailored networking solutions such as the Pensando Pollara 400. According to AMD, its new NIC is designed around GPU-to-GPU communication and is tailored for data transfer within AI networks. Moreover, AMD believes its Pensando Pollara 400 will be capable of providing buyers with up to sixfold performance boost for AI workloads.

Streaming services have become an essential part of how we consume entertainment. Whether it's catching the latest episode of your favorite TV show, binging on an entire season in a weekend, or listening to music on demand, subscriptions power much of our everyday digital activities. From Netflix and Hulu to Spotify and Apple Music, these services offer unparalleled convenience and endless options.

It's not just entertainment either - news outlets, fitness apps, software, and even grocery deliveries have entered the subscription model. At first, it seemed like an exciting way to get everything you wanted, whenever you wanted it. But for many people, what began as a handful of convenient services has snowballed into a mountain of subscriptions. With the average person juggling multiple streaming platforms, productivity tools, and other recurring payments, it's no wonder people are starting to feel the weight of this overload.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of subscription services you're paying for - or maybe even forgot you were subscribed to some - you're not alone. This phenomenon, known as subscription fatigue, is increasingly common as people manage more and more digital services.