Meta's Threads celebrates 500 million users with a bunch of new features

There was a time when many Twitter alternatives popped up, and Meta couldn't resist throwing its hat in this game too, with Threads. Threads may have started as a way to capture people leaving Twitter after Elon Musk bought it, but it's now all grown up, it seems. The service has reached 500 million monthly active users, having added about 100 million since last August. Undoubtedly, its ties with Instagram have made it easier to jump to than other Twitter wannabes. But Meta says the recently launched communities feature has been driving a lot of the growth. To celebrate the...

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Apple releases second developer betas of iOS 26.6 and iPadOS 26.6

Apple is working on iOS 27, but this doesn’t mean that work on the current iOS 26 version has stopped. In fact, iOS 26.5 came out a month ago, which was followed by 26.5.1 to fix a charging issue. Now there is iOS 26.6 on the way too. Currently, Apple is seeding the second developer beta for iOS 26.6 (build number 23G5043d), iPadOS (23G5043d), watchOS (23U5040d) and macOS (25G5043d). The release notes don’t mention any new features, so this appears to be just a round of polish. iOS 26.6 developer beta 1 included a security upgrade for Apple Maps. Also, it added a warning in the Contacts...

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Verizon's $1 billion deal to improve network coverage faces resistance from regional carriers

The FCC recently approved a $1 billion deal between Verizon and UScellular. The former purchased several cellular spectrums, which help the carrier strengthen its coverage in rural areas. The deal includes AWS-1, AWS-3 and PCS spectrum licenses covering roughly 8% of the US population. However, some people in the industry are opposing the deal and are asking the FCC to review its decision. The challenge is being led by the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), arguing that the deal is just part of a larger pattern of big carriers absorbing spectrum and cornering smaller businesses, which...

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GSMArena.com turns 26 today: happy birthday to us!

The smartphone world never gets boring – we’ve been covering it for 26 years now and we hope to continue to do so for many more years to come. Yes, it’s that time of year again, GSMArena.com is having a birthday party! The last twelve months had their ups and downs – foldables were improving at a rapid pace, the first phones with 10,000mAh batteries were announced and we witnessed the potentially short-lived trend of super-slim phones trying to get off the ground. Also, the EU forced makers to display informative energy labels that also list durability and repairability stats. It was all...

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Fox buys Roku

Today Fox Corporation has announced that it's entered a definitive agreement with Roku to purchase it for $160 per share, of which $96 will be cash and the rest will be Fox shares. This transaction values Roku at $22 billion, but it's actually unclear how much Fox is paying. For what it's worth, it says it has obtained $12 billion of fully committed bridge financing from Morgan Stanley for the transaction, so that's probably the ballpark. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of next year, after securing all of the necessary regulatory approvals. This acquisition pairs the...

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Honor X70 Pro Max silently launched with an 8,560mAh battery

Ahead of next week's X80 Pro Max launch, Honor has quietly introduced the new X70 Pro Max in China. The Honor X70 Pro Max comes with a 6.79-inch AMOLED display that has a resolution of 2640×1200 pixels, a 120Hz refresh rate, up to 6,000 nits of peak brightness, and 1.3mm slim and uniform bezels. It is powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 Enhanced edition chipset, paired with the Adreno 810 GPU. The handset gets 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. It runs Android 16-based MagicOS 10.0. The phone features a 50MP primary rear camera housed inside a circular module. For selfies,...

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vivo X Fold6 camera and display specs officially revealed, to support teleconverter

Last week, vivo confirmed that its upcoming foldable, the vivo X Fold6, will be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 Super Edition chipset. The company has now unveiled key details about its cameras and displays. While vivo has yet to announce a launch date, it has revealed new details about the X Fold6. The foldable will feature an 8.02-inch inner display built using Samsung's M14 luminous material. According to vivo, the panel can reach a peak brightness of 5,000 nits while also supporting a 1-nit ultra-low brightness mode. It has also received TÜV Rheinland Global Eye...

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