Meta is shutting down the standalone Messenger website, according to a company help page. The website will disappear in April, though web users will still be able to send and receive messages within Facebook.
"After messenger.com goes away, you will be automatically redirected to use facebook.com/messages for messaging on a computer," the help page reads. "You can continue your conversations there or on the Messenger mobile app."
Users will be able to restore their chat history after switching to the app by entering a PIN number. This is the same PIN that was used to initially create a backup on Messenger. It can be reset for those who simply don't have the bandwidth to remember yet another six-digit code.
This comes just a few months after Meta shut down Messenger's standalone desktop apps. At that time, Meta directed existing users to Facebook to continue using the service and not the dedicated Messenger website. In other words, the writing has likely been on the wall since October.
Messenger has had a long and storied history. The platform first launched as Facebook Chat all the way back in 2008. Facebook Messenger became a standalone app in 2011. The company has long-tried to make Messenger a thing outside of Facebook. It removed messaging capabilities from the main Facebook app in 2014 and began directing users to the Messenger app. Meta began reintegrating Messenger back into the Facebook app in 2023 and now here we are.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/meta-is-shuttering-messengers-standalone-website-which-is-a-thing-that-exists-191808134.html?src=rss
Google has announced that using its newly incorporated Lyria 3 model, Gemini users will be able to generate 30-second music tracks based on a prompt, or remix an existing track to their liking. The new model builds on Gemini's pre-existing ability to generate text, images and video, and will also be available in YouTube's "Dream Track" feature, where it can be used to generate detailed backing tracks for Shorts.
Like some other music generation tools, prompting Gemini doesn't require a lot of detail to produce serviceable results. Google's example prompt is "a comical R&B slow jam about a sock finding their match," but after playing with Lyria 3, you can definitely get more granular about individual elements of a track — changing the tempo or the style of drumming, for example — if you want to. Outside of text, Gemini can also generate music based on a photo or video, and tracks can be paired with album art created by Google's Nano Banana image model.
Google says that Lyria 3 improves on its previous audio generation models in its ability to create more "realistic and musically complex" tracks, give prompters more control over individual components of a song and automatically generate lyrics. Gemini's outputs are limited to 30-second clips for now, but given how Google's promotional video shows off the feature, it's not hard to imagine those clips getting longer or the model getting incorporated into other apps, like Google Messages.
Like Gemini's other AI-generated outputs, songs made with Lyria 3 are also watermarked with Google's SynthID, so a Gemini clip can't as easily be passed off as a human one. Google started rolling out its SynthID Detector for identifying AI-generated content at Google I/O 2025. The sample tracks Google included alongside its announcement are convincing, but you might not need the company's tool to notice their machine-made qualities. The instrumental parts of Gemini’s clips often sound great, but the composition of the lyrics Lyria 3 produces sounds alternately corny and strange.
If you're curious to try Lyria 3 for yourself, Google says you can prompt tracks in Gemini starting today, provided you're 18 years or older and speak English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean or Portuguese.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-generate-a-30-second-approximation-of-what-real-music-sounds-like-204445903.html?src=rss
Ticketing marketplace SeatGeek has announced a partnership with Spotify that will direct an artist's fans to its platform from the Spotify app. The integration is currently limited to a few participating venues for which SeatGeek is the primary ticket seller.
While SeatGeek is one of the largest online marketplaces for the secondary ticketing market, the company's announcement makes clear that this Spotify integration only applies to venues where it's the primary ticketing company. For now, that's just 15 US partner venues, primarily professional sports arenas like AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Spotify has experimented with direct ticket sales in the past, but now focuses on signing on partners to integrate into the streaming experience. The company currently lists 46 ticketing partners, including Ticketmaster, AXS and others. The app also allows users to follow specific venues to be notified about upcoming concerts and events.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/spotify-debuts-seatgeek-integration-for-concert-ticket-sales-162248870.html?src=rss
This provides several benefits for the end user. It lets people switch seamlessly between watching and listening, in addition to offering a horizontal full display option. It'll also make both video and audio streams available to download for offline viewing. This wasn't possible with the previous streaming method, which pulled content from an RSS-like feed. RSS is still available as a distribution option, but HLS definitely brings some advantages
The technology integrates picture-in-picture for multitasking on products like the iPad. Finally, the updated app will automatically adjust the picture quality to ensure smooth playback in various network conditions, including both Wi-Fi and cellular.
The update will be available on most platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, visionOS and the web. It's in beta right now, but the company plans a major rollout this spring as part of the upcoming 26.4 operating systems.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apples-podcasts-app-now-supports-http-live-streaming-video-technology-182605460.html?src=rss
Recently we were introduced to OpenClaw, an AI that allows users to create their own agents to control apps like email, Spotify and home controls. Now, Sam Altman has announced that OpenAI has absorbed OpenClaw by hiring developer Peter Steinberger "to drive the next generation of personal agents," he wrote on X. Steinberger confirmed the news on his own blog. "I’m joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone. OpenClaw will move to a foundation and stay open and independent."
Steinberger was also in talks to join Meta, with both companies reportedly making offers in the "billions," according to Implicator.AI. The primary attractant was said to be OpenClaw's 196,000 GitHub stars and 2 million weekly visitors rather than its codebase.
OpenClaw became buzzy in the last few weeks thanks to its multifaceted ability to carry out tasks. People have used it to create agents that can write code, clear their inboxes, do online shopping and other assistant-like jobs. On its website, OpenClaw touts its ability to interact with popular apps and sites including WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, iMesage, Hue and Spotify.
Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents. He is a genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other to do very useful things for people. We expect this will quickly become core to our…
OpenClaw was recently called "Clawdbot" but Anthropic forced a name change due to similarities with its "Claude" branding. OpenClaw is often compared to Claude Code by "vibe coders" seeking to automate website development and other programming chores.
In his announcement, Altman said that "the future is going to be extremely multi-agent and it's important to support open source as part of that," adding that "OpenClaw will live in a foundation as an open source project" supported by Open AI. Steinberger, meanwhile, said that "what I want is to change the world, not build a larger company and teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-has-hired-the-developer-behind-ai-agent-openclaw-092934041.html?src=rss
Apple has steadily expanded home screen customization on the iPhone over the past few years, and iOS 26 continues that trend with more visual control over app icons. Building on the changes introduced in iOS 18, the latest update lets you resize icons, remove app labels, apply system-wide color tints and make icons translucent using Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language.
Most of these options live in one place: the Customize menu, which appears after entering edit mode on the home screen. While iOS still doesn’t allow total freeform icon placement or third-party icon packs without shortcuts, the tools Apple provides are now flexible enough to dramatically change how an iPhone looks and feels. This guide walks through how to customize app icons and layouts using the options available in iOS 26, with a focus on icon size, color, appearance and arrangement.
How to customize your iPhone home screen
All home screen customization starts the same way.
Go to the Home Screen.
Touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen background until the apps begin to jiggle.
Tap Edit in the top left corner, then select Customize from the menu.
A customization panel appears along the bottom of the screen. Changes made here apply across all home screen pages at once, rather than on a per-page basis.
From the Customize menu, you can:
Adjust icon size
Change appearance (e.g., Dark)
Make icons translucent with a clear look
Add a color tint to icons and widgets
How to make app icons larger and remove labels
One of the simplest changes in iOS 26 is also one of the most visually impactful. From the Customize menu, tap the icon showing two app squares of different sizes. This switches the home screen to Large App Icons mode.
When large icons are enabled, app labels disappear entirely and the icons themselves expand to fill more of the grid. This creates a cleaner look and makes apps easier to tap, particularly on iPhone models with larger screens. The tradeoff is that fewer icons fit on each screen and spacing between rows becomes more pronounced.
To revert to standard icons with labels, repeat the steps and tap the same button again.
How to change the appearance of app icons
iOS 26 offers four icon appearance styles: Default, Dark, Clear and Tinted. These options are available from the top row of the Customize panel. From the Customize panel, you can tap the sun icon across all options in the top left-hand corner to toggle wallpaper dimming. This generally makes app icons and labels easier to read.
The Default option keeps icons looking as the developers intended, with no system-wide color or transparency applied.
Selecting Dark applies a darker background to supported app icons and widgets. Apple’s own apps fully support this mode, and some third-party apps do as well, though many retain their original colors. When Dark is enabled, iOS can also dim the wallpaper slightly, which may help reduce power usage on OLED displays.
The Clear option enables translucency across all apps on the Home Screen. This removes all color but retains app labels. The layered, frosted-glass effect changes depending on the background image. Clear icons can be paired with Light, Dark or Auto styles using the options along the bottom of the Customize panel.
Tinted mode allows all supported app icons and widgets to take on a single color scheme. After selecting Tinted, color and saturation sliders appear at the bottom of the screen. Adjusting these changes the hue applied across icons, creating a uniform look that can range from subtle pastels to high-contrast monochrome themes.
If you want a specific color from your iPhone’s wallpaper, select the eyedropper tool, then tap and hold while dragging the cursor across the screen until you land on your chosen color. Like the Clear option, you’ll be able to select from Light, Dark or Auto when adjusting the Tinted settings.
The Auto option allows icons to switch between light and dark appearances based on system-wide light or dark mode.
How to arrange apps around the home screen
App placement works the same way it did before iOS 26, but the visual changes introduced by larger icons and spacing make layout choices more noticeable.
Apps can be rearranged by accessing an empty space on the Home Screen, then tapping and holding until the apps start jiggling. From here you can drag icons to new positions. The grid remains fixed, meaning icons cannot overlap or be placed freely, but there is more flexibility in how empty space is used.
Icons can be clustered toward the bottom of the screen, aligned to one side or arranged to frame a wallpaper. With large icons enabled, the gap between the dock and the first row of apps becomes more pronounced, but it cannot be filled with additional icons.
Changes apply across all home screen pages, so reorganizing one page does not affect icon size or appearance on another.
What iOS 26 still doesn’t allow
Despite expanded customization, some long-standing limitations remain. iOS 26 does not support per-app icon color selection, custom icon packs without shortcuts or freeform icon placement outside the grid. Icon appearance settings apply globally, not per page or per app.
Widgets, lock screen customization and focus mode filters add additional layers of personalization, but those tools sit outside the scope of the home screen Edit menu.
iOS 26 gives iPhone users more control over the look of their home screen than ever before, even if Apple’s approach remains structured. By combining icon resizing, appearance modes and careful app arrangement, it’s possible to create a layout that feels cleaner, more personal and easier to use without relying on workarounds.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/how-to-customize-your-iphone-home-screen-with-ios-26-130000798.html?src=rss
Apple’s Vision Pro is a curious product — it initially wowed me two years ago, but it was hard to ignore that the visionOS platform felt incomplete without dedicated apps for YouTube and Netflix. Well, it seems that Google has finally decided to take the Vision Pro seriously, as it’s launching a YouTube app on the platform today. Previously, you could only view YouTube videos via Safari, or through third-party apps like Tubular Pro.
According to an Apple representative, the YouTube Vision Pro app features every video on on the service, including shorts, 360, 3D and VR 180 content. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but it certainly couldn’t be worse than trying to navigate through YouTube’s desktop app via finger gestures. Now that Google is spinning up its Android XR ecosystem, the company probably couldn’t avoid the Vision Pro for long. And don’t forget, we may also see a cheaper Vision Air next year.
Your move, Netflix.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/apple-vision-pro-finally-gets-a-youtube-app-today-170000886.html?src=rss
NVIDIA's cloud gaming service, GeForce Now, has expanded to another platform. Starting today, folks with select Amazon Fire TV sticks can install a native GeForce Now app. While it was already possible to access GeForce Now through the Fire TV platform, you won't necessarily need to sideload an Android app to do so anymore.
At the outset, the new app is compatible with the second-gen Fire TV Stick 4K Plus and second-gen Fire TV Stick 4K Max (running Fire OS 8.1.6.0 and later). It also works with the original Fire TV Stick 4K Max if you're running Fire OS 7.7.1.1 or later.
On the Fire TV platform, GeForce Now streaming quality tops out at a resolution of 1080p and a frame rate of 60 fps, with SDR visuals, H.264 video encoding and stereo audio. So you won't necessarily get the best GeForce Now experience here as the service has support for up to 5K resolution and up to 360 fps, along with HDR10 and 7.1 audio at the highest tier. But it's not a bad option if you already have the right hardware. You'll need a controller too, of course.
NVIDIA announced the GeForce Now app for Fire TV during CES last month. It joins other cloud gaming services on the Fire TV platform, including Xbox Cloud Gaming (PC Game Pass titles are available on GeForce Now as well) and Amazon's own Luna.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidias-geforce-now-app-lands-on-amazon-fire-tv-sticks-140000516.html?src=rss
After warnings from lawmakers last year, WhatsApp has been blocked in Russia for as many as 100 million users, the Financial Times reported. Russian authorities removed the app from an online directory, effectively wiping it from Russia's internet. The government has previously said that it wants users to switch to an app called Max, an unencrypted WeChat clone.
"Today the Russian government has attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive users to a state-owned surveillance app," Meta told the FT in a statement. "Trying to isolate over 100 million people from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia."
The Russian government deleted WhatsApp rival Telegram yesterday, while also erasing Meta apps Facebook and Instagram. YouTube access was also reportedly degraded, though it's not clear if the app has been completely removed.
In July 2025, a Russian lawmaker who regulates the IT industry said it's very likely that WhatsApp would be placed on a list of restricted software. Parent Meta has been designated as an extremist organization in Russia, and last year Vladimir Putin issued a directive for the nation to further restrict communication apps originating from "unfriendly countries" that have sanctioned Russia.
The state has said that an in-house app would protect citizens from fraud and terrorism, given the large number of scammers on WhatsApp in the nation. However, restrictions on Telegram haven't gone over well domestically, even among Putin's allies, as residents along Ukraine's borders have relied on it for drone and missile alerts. "I am concerned that slowing Telegram could affect the flow of information, if the situation deteriorates," said the governor of one of those regions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/whatsapp-is-now-fully-blocked-in-russia-110953485.html?src=rss
TikTok US just launched a local feed for users to "get the inside scoop on must-try restaurants, shops, museums and events." This is done by leveraging the exact location of people that are using the app and comes after a change in the platform's terms of service that says the app can do just that. The platform's terms of service used to note that it could collect approximate locations, but the sale to US investors looks to have changed that to precise locations.
This is an opt-in feature, despite the app potentially collecting this data whether the feed is activated or not. The feed is set to "off" by default, but can be changed via a trip to settings.
The local feed doesn't show your neighbors or people you might vibe with to help solve that pesky loneliness epidemic. Instead, it prioritizes local businesses and will highlight nearby events, shopping suggestions and restaurants to try.
TikTok
This looks to be part of a broader push to attract small businesses to the app, both as content producers and as advertisers. As TechCrunch notes, this could also help insulate the company from future regulation and increased scrutiny, as it could point to the many small businesses that rely on its services.
Supporting local businesses is a noble goal, but users will have to consider whether or not the value of a dedicated feed is worth the privacy risk. Oracle is a prominent investor in the new American TikTok, and company founder Larry Ellison once said "citizens will be on their best behavior" when they are being constantly surveilled.
This local feed isn't exactly a new idea. TikTok has been trying something similar in Europe since the tail-end of last year. It has shown up in the UK, France, Italy and Germany.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-us-launches-a-local-feed-that-leverages-a-users-exact-location-170651916.html?src=rss