AI Therapy: Emotional Sanctuary Or Digital Abandonment?

Convenience and accessibility are drawing users to AI therapy, but can these tools truly support mental health or do they risk leaving vulnerable users behind?

Threads overtakes X on mobile, but still lags far behind
Threads overtakes X on mobile, but still lags far behind

After launching almost three years ago, Meta’s Threads is now reportedly attracting more daily mobile users than rival platform X. According to Similarweb data shared by TechCrunch, Threads has 141.5 million daily active iOS and Android global app users as of January 7th, compared to 125 million users for Elon Musk’s mobile platform. Similarweb reports […]

Microsoft’s first Windows 11 update of 2026 stopped some computers from shutting down
Microsoft’s first Windows 11 update of 2026 stopped some computers from shutting down

Microsoft released its first security update of 2026 for Windows 11 on January 13th. Just four days later, it was forced to release an emergency out-of-band update to fix some pretty serious bugs, the first one introduced. The security patch was stopping some systems from shutting down or hibernating properly, and also preventing some users […]

Here are the 10 deals worth grabbing from Best Buy’s winter sales event
Here are the 10 deals worth grabbing from Best Buy’s winter sales event

Good deals are often hard to come by at the beginning of the year — which is precisely what makes Best Buy’s Winter Sale worth checking out. The ongoing sales event features discounts on everything from big-ticket OLED TVs to smaller electronics, including fitness trackers that can help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions. There […]

Kaoss Pad V is the first major upgrade to Korg’s touch-based effects in 13 years
Kaoss Pad V is the first major upgrade to Korg’s touch-based effects in 13 years

The Kaoss Pad has seen many different iterations, but the mainline effect unit and sampler hasn’t received an update since the launch of the KP3+ in 2013. Korg has finally given it the attention it deserves with the release of the Kaoss Pad V. Rather than a dramatic reimagining of what a Kaoss Pad is, […]

Why Coinbase derailed the crypto industry’s political future
Why Coinbase derailed the crypto industry’s political future

January was going to be a landmark month for the crypto industry. The Senate would start negotiating the finer details of the CLARITY Act, a major law that would finally enshrine the fundamental structure of how the crypto market could legally operate in the United States: what digital assets counted as a security versus a […]

Under Musk, the Grok disaster was inevitable
Under Musk, the Grok disaster was inevitable

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on dystopian developments in AI, follow Hayden Field. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started You could say it all started with Elon Musk’s AI […]

Disney deleted a Thread because people kept putting anti-fascist quotes from its movies in the replies
Disney deleted a Thread because people kept putting anti-fascist quotes from its movies in the replies

“Share a Disney quote that sums up how you’re feeling right now!” That’s what Disney posted on Threads the other day, and people immediately replied with lines from Star Wars, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and even Mary Poppins. The throughline between all the quotes: they were pretty pointedly anti-fascist and clearly aimed at the […]

The Setapp Mobile iOS store is shutting down on February 16th
The Setapp Mobile iOS store is shutting down on February 16th

Setapp Mobile seemed like one of the many alternative app markets with promise that launched in the wake of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). While the law may have forced Apple to allow third-party app stores on its devices, it couldn’t make users actually embrace them. MacPaw, the Ukrainian developer behind the subscription-based Setapp, […]

The LG C5 and Apple’s M4 Mac Mini are both steeply discounted this weekend
The LG C5 and Apple’s M4 Mac Mini are both steeply discounted this weekend

Happy Saturday, folks! This week, Best Buy kicked off its so-called “Winter Sale,” introducing a whole host of price cuts that range from not-so-good to legitimately great, at least for this time of year. We’ll be publishing many of the highlights in a dedicated news post tomorrow, though, per usual, not all of this week’s […]