Tech Boys

Fans of the 1930s character Betty Boop can rejoice as a precursor of the iconic cartoon is now in the public domain, as of Jan. 1, 2026. That means anyone can adapt that specific version of Betty Boop, which appeared in the Dizzy Dishes cartoon , into their own creative work without being subject to copyright laws. This version of Betty Boop featured her characteristic large eyes and pout but also had elongated dog ears. Her romantic interest at the time was a dog chef, hence her surreal canine appearance. SEE ALSO: Yes, Popeye can eat spinach: Everything you need to know about Public Domain Day 2025 In 2026, Betty Boop is joined in the public domain by other popular characters, books, films, and songs, including new Mickey Mouse cartoons and comics; the Blondie comic strip characters Blondie and Dagwood; William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying , the illustrated version of Watty Piper's children's book The Little Engine That Could ; the film All Quiet on the West...

TL;DR: The 1min.AI lifetime subscription bundles AI writing and image tools into one platform and is discounted to $24.97 (reg. $234) through Jan. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Opens in a new window Credit: 1minAI 1min.AI: Lifetime Subscription $24.97 $234 Save $209.03   Get Deal Staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor can be one of the most time-consuming parts of creating content. AI writing tools won’t replace human creativity, but they can help get your creative juices flowing faster. For a limited time, the 1min.AI Lifetime Subscription is on sale for $24.97 (reg. $234), through Jan. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT, and is at its lowest price to date. 1min.AI provides users with access to a variety of AI models through a single dashboard. Its writing tools include an article generator, rewriter, paraphraser, and summarizer, which are terrific features designed to help users get through writer’s block. Instead of starting from scratch, you can generate a rough...

After a year like 2025, it's easy for anyone who inhales large quantities of online news to be downhearted. This was a year that began with a terrifying salute from the world's richest man . His government IT department , known as DOGE, swung a wrecking ball at the agency that oversees U.S. overseas aid ; many experts say widespread disease and famine will be the result. There was already a famine in Gaza , ceasefire notwithstanding. Ukraine remains at war. Climate change is still a thing , 2025 was one of the hottest years on record, and the tech industry's obsession with AI data centers is making it worse . But in many cases, this wasn't the full picture. Elon Musk, faced with multiple protests and a Tesla boycott , left his controversial government role in May to spend more time with his tech companies. DOGE died, unlamented. In December, the World Health Organization reported fragile gains in feeding Gaza that inched the region out of its famine. Ukraine rema...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is spending millions to turn the chronically online into deportation agents, according to internal communications reviewed exclusively by the Washington Post . The agency's $100 million marketing strategy , detailed in a 30-page document distributed to ICE officials this summer, includes a massive push to flood the digital market with geo-targeted and content-based advertising. The plan even names specific platforms, like Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, and Rumble, a popular "alt-tech" video platform frequented by conservatives. SEE ALSO: Trump's golden phone is delayed. Again. Recruitment advertisements under this plan would specifically target users whose devices ping near military bases, NASCAR races, UFC fights, college campuses, or gun and trade shows, as well as listeners of "patriotic" podcasts, country music, fitness, and true crime. A significant portion of the strategy hinges on g...

It's no secret that AI-generated content took over our social media feeds in 2025. Now, Instagram's top exec Adam Mosseri has made it clear that he expects AI content to overtake non-AI imagery and the significant implications that shift has for its creators and photographers. Mosseri shared the thoughts in a lengthy post about the broader trends he expects to shape Instagram in 2026. And he offered a notably candid assessment on how AI is upending the platform. "Everything that made creators matter—the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked—is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools," he wrote. "The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything." But Mosseri doesn't seem particularly concerned by this shift. He says that there is "a lot of amazing AI content" and that the platform may need to rethink its approach to labeling such imagery by "fingerprinting real media, not just c...

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The demand building out AI infrastructure has placed on PC component makers has already led to the death of one consumer-facing RAM brand, but a new report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) suggests it could have an even worse impact on the PC industry at large. In its worst-case-scenario model, the IDC predicts PC shipments could shrink by up to 8.9 percent in 2026 because of the high cost of memory. "Instead of expanding conventional DRAM and NAND used in smartphones, PCs and other consumer electronics, major memory makers have shifted production toward memory used in AI data centers, such as high-bandwidth (HBM) and high-capacity DDR5," IDC writes. That's continued to drive up the price of the RAM that is available for PC makers, which has naturally led to them to raise the price of their own products to stay above water. For example, modular PC maker Framework has already had to raise prices on some of its laptops and parts, and says "further cos...

There was a time — years ago, mind you — that "Rickrolling" someone was the peak of internet humor. If you don't know what this is, bless your either young or old heart. The nearly 20-year-old prank was simple: You'd get someone to unknowingly click the link to the cheesy music video for Rick Astley's '80s classic "Never Gonna Give You Up." Boom, you've just been Rickrolled. SEE ALSO: Rian Johnson on 'Wake Up Dead Man,' Josh O'Connor's neck tattoo, and AI slop Well, in a neat bit of synergy, the latest installment of the beloved-by-the-internet series Knives Out actually shared a location with the filming of "Never Gonna Give You Up." Director Rian Johnson confirmed on Bluesky that the gym scene in Wake Up Dead Man was shot where Astley filmed his classic music video. Surprisingly, not that much of anyone cared on set. "This is true, and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song...

It seems certain at this point that laptop and smartphone prices are going to go up even more in 2026. Case in point: modular PC maker Framework just announced yet another price hike on DDR5 RAM components. Framework says that it's charging customers "as close as possible to the actual purchase prices we have with our suppliers," and that it will now be charging roughly $10 per gigabyte. Why? Demand for memory hardware, as a result of the AI boom, has led to a global memory shortage, which has in turn forced companies like Framework to raise their prices. Earlier this month, we reported that Samsung had warned its manufacturing partners that it was doubling prices on DDRM RAM, and laptop makers like Lenovo, Dell, and HP have all warned of looming price increases in the new year. The most recent price hike from Framework adds $10 per GB for the 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB options, with prices going up even higher for RAM modules 48GB and up. And, again, this is yet another p...