YouTube is raising its prices—the individual plan goes from $14 to $16 a month, and the family plan jumps from $23 to $27 a month. If you've been thinking about subscribing to skip ads and get ad-free music, it's worth deciding soon whether the extra cost is worth it to you.
When you download Meta's new AI app, Instagram automatically tells your friends what you're doing—so they'll see a notification about it whether you want them to or not. If privacy matters to you, it's worth knowing that Meta shares this kind of activity information by default, so you might want to check your notification settings before downloading new apps from them.
YouTube is raising the price of its ad-free subscription service starting June 2026, with the individual plan going from $14 to $16 a month and the family plan jumping from $23 to $27 a month. If you watch YouTube regularly and pay to avoid ads, you'll want to check your email soon—YouTube is notifying people quietly rather than making a big announcement. Worth knowing: many streaming services are raising prices around the same time, so if you're thinking about canceling or switching, now might be a good moment to compare what you actually use.
# Breanna Olson Dances Again Through Technology A dancer living with motor neurone disease has performed on stage using a digital avatar controlled by her brainwaves, allowing her to express herself and connect with audiences the way she did before her illness. For someone facing the loss of physical abilities, this kind of technology offers a powerful way to keep doing the things that matter most—performing, creating, and sharing joy with others. You can look into how brain-computer interfaces are developing if you're interested in assistive tech, though these systems remain specialized and not yet widely available for home use.
A father discovered his teenage daughter's Discord account had been hacked when a scammer started demanding banking information, but the real problem was that his daughter had lied about her age to join in the first place—something Discord's safety systems didn't catch. When Frey tried to get help from Discord's support team, he found himself in a frustrating loop because the account was technically registered to someone over 18, making it harder to prove he was the parent of the real user and get the problem fixed quickly.
Insurance companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence to decide whether to approve treatments, partly to cut costs—but researchers warn this could repeat past mistakes if the AI learns from a system that already denies too many claims unfairly. Several lawsuits claim insurers are already using AI to wrongfully block coverage, raising serious concerns about whether patients will get the care their doctors prescribe. Worth knowing: Ask your doctor to help you appeal any treatment denial, and don't assume an AI decision is final—human review is still possible and often succeeds when people push back.
Since 2018, sports betting apps have made it effortless to place bets on games anytime from your phone, turning what was once a Vegas-only activity into something available to everyone around the clock. Medical experts classify gambling addiction as seriously as alcohol addiction, and it carries real risks—including a troubling link to suicide—so it's worth understanding how these apps are designed to keep people betting. You can protect yourself by setting strict spending limits before you download any betting app, and asking your doctor or a trusted family member if you notice yourself thinking about betting more often than feels comfortable.
A new study found that people who support Reform UK see fewer posts from their actual friends and family on social media—just 13% compared to 23% for Green party voters—and instead get bombarded with content from companies and news outlets. Researchers say these invisible rules (called algorithms) that decide what appears in your feed are actually pushing people apart and into separate information bubbles, which can make it harder to stay connected to the people who matter to you. Worth knowing: if you've noticed your social media feed lately feels full of ads and news stories rather than updates from people you care about, you're not alone—it might be worth checking your notification settings to see if you can adjust what gets shown to you first.
Researchers have developed a simple stool test that can spot 9 out of 10 colorectal cancers by analyzing the bacteria in your gut, potentially offering an alternative to the more invasive colonoscopy procedure. This matters because many people delay or avoid colonoscopies due to discomfort or inconvenience, so a test you can do at home could catch cancer earlier when it's easier to treat. You can ask your doctor in the next year or two whether this test might become available through your regular health check-ups, as it's likely to move from research into clinical use fairly soon.
ChatGPT now lets you create separate "projects" to keep your conversations, documents, and instructions neatly organized—think of them like filing folders for different topics or tasks you work on regularly. This makes it easier to pick up where you left off on long-running projects, share your work with others, and avoid getting lost in a jumble of old chats.
ChatGPT can help you develop ideas by asking it questions, bouncing thoughts back and forth, and getting the AI to organize your half-formed thoughts into clear plans you can actually act on. For someone juggling multiple interests or planning a project—whether it's a hobby, a home improvement plan, or figuring out next steps in retirement—having a brainstorming partner available anytime can spark ideas you might not have thought of alone. You can start by typing a rough idea into ChatGPT (like "I'm thinking about learning woodworking but not sure where to begin") and see how it helps you think through the practical steps.
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