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Britons sent 1.6bn fewer text messages last year as the rise of instant messaging services threatens to kill off traditional phone habits. The number of mobile messages sent in the second quarter, including SMS and MMS, dropped to 5.4bn, according to the latest data from Ofcom. That was down from more than 7bn in the same three-month period last year, representing a drop of more than a fifth. The figures underscore how mobile messaging habits are changing as phone users increasingly turn to alternatives such as WhatsApp. Telegraph
More than 20% of the videos that YouTube’s algorithm shows to new users are “AI slop” – low-quality AI-generated content designed to farm views, research has found. The video-editing company Kapwing surveyed 15,000 of the world’s most popular YouTube channels – the top 100 in every country – and found that 278 of them contain only AI slop. Together, these AI slop channels have amassed more than 63bn views and 221 million subscribers, generating about $117m (£90m) in revenue each year, according to estimates. The Guardian
Charlie Kirk was the top trending search term Google in the UK in 2025, according to an annual list compiled by the search engine. The Turning Point USA founder, 31, who was gunned down at a speaking event at a Utah college campus, was also the most read article globally on Wikipedia. Following Kirk, the second most searched subject was Ozzy Osbourne. The Black Sabbath frontman, 76, passed away from Parkinson’s disease in July. Daily Mail
US senator Bernie Sanders amplified his recent criticism of artificial intelligence on Sunday, explicitly linking the financial ambition of “the richest people in the world” to economic insecurity for millions of Americans – and calling for a potential moratorium on new datacenters. Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democratic party, said on CNN’s State of the Union that he was “fearful of a lot” when it came to AI. The Guardian
Google is continuing its commitment to adding newer features to older hardware by quietly updating the Google Pixel 8 camera with an advanced Pixel 9 feature. Google updated the Pixel Camera app this month to version 10.2. With it came the ability for Pixel 8 users to use the Pixel 9’s panorama mode, as spotted by 9to5Google. Panorama mode allows users to create panorama pictures by stitching together individual frames using the Pixel 8’s full HDR+ pipeline. Forbes
Look, Microsoft: sometimes we all make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are small, and sometimes they’re huge, multi-year debacles that annoy millions of people and fundamentally damage the functionality of your flagship product. I am, of course, referring to the elephant in the room that is Microsoft Copilot, the AI-powered assistant that is now heavily baked into multiple aspects of not just Windows 11, but the broader range of Microsoft products as a whole. Tech Radar
As stocks sit near all-time highs, strategists are brushing off concerns of an AI bubble. At least for now. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is on pace to close out the year with a gain of over 17%, powered by a 26% jump in technology stocks (XLK). “I don’t see a bubble at all. However, I do believe we’re going to be going into a bubble,” Sanctuary Wealth chief investment strategist Mary Ann Bartels told Yahoo Finance last week. Yahoo! Finance
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