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TikTok introduced a new “bulletin board” feature for creators that allows them to blast out updates directly to their followers’ inboxes. The idea is similar to broadcast channels on Instagram or Telegram’s one-way messaging feature. 

People who opt to join a creator’s bulletin board will receive updates in their TikTok inbox. Updates can include text, links, polls or photos; as well as other TikTok posts or lives. Followers who join a board can react to messages but won’t be able to comment or reply like a typical DM or post. According to TikTok, the feature could be especially useful for musicians and artists, as it allows them to share new songs and give fans a way to “pre-save” an upcoming release.

For creators with a large following, having a bulletin board could help streamline their ability to interact with fans without having to wade through an overloaded inbox or post separate video updates. It also gives them a way to get their work (including links to non-TikTok content) in front of their biggest fans without relying on the whims of the app’s recommendation algorithm.  

Bulletin Board is available now to all creators over the age of 18 with 50,000 or more followers. TikTok users can find and join bulletin boards on creators’ profiles. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktoks-new-bulletin-board-feature-lets-creators-send-updates-to-their-fans-inboxes-181000448.html?src=rss 

Meta is revamping Facebook Marketplace in an effort to make it more appealing to “young adults” on the platform. The updates includes new collaborative shopping features, as well as AI-generated suggestions and “insights” about specific listings. 

Now, would-be buyers can create Pinterest-like “collections” of Marketplace listings and invite friends to join. These collections can then be shared elsewhere on Facebook or on WhatsApp and Messenger. People will also be able to invite their Facebook friends to join messages with sellers, which Meta says will make it “easier to coordinate pickup, negotiate prices, and get answers to your questions.” Facebook is also making Marketplace listings themselves more social, with the ability to add comments and reactions. And while I’m not sure many Facebook users are clamoring for this, it seems like it could seriously up the meme potential for accounts like @insanefbmarketplace. 

Meta will provide AI-generated insights about vehicles listed on Marketplace.

And, because it’s 2025 and AI is in just about every other part of Facebook, the company is also adding “AI insights” to listings. This will allow Meta AI to offer up suggestions for questions to ask sellers about the items they’ve listed. (Importantly, though, it looks like the default first-message suggestion is still a variation of “is this still available,” which I’ve always found to be one of the more annoying quirks of using Marketplace.) The company is also experimenting with vehicle-specific “insights” from Meta AI as car shopping is apparently one of the most popular use cases for Marketplace among younger adults. 

All of the updates are part of Meta’s years-long mission to make Facebook cool — or, at least, useful — for “young adults.” And the company has long touted Marketplace as one of the more popular features among that demographic. The company has also experimented with local events, a friends-only feed and bringing back the Facebook “poke.” 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-trying-to-make-facebook-marketplace-a-social-shopping-experience-170000682.html?src=rss 

At the end of 2024, Google was one of the first companies to start offering a Deep Research tool through its AI chatbot. Now, nearly a full year later, the company is bringing that same capability to NotebookLM. Like its Gemini counterpart, the tool allows you to task the app with generating an extensive report on a single topic. When you queue a Deep Research task, NotebookLM will browse hundreds of websites on your behalf before it starts writing up its findings. 

The entire process can take a few minutes, but at the end you’ll have a multi-page report to read. As the model works in the background, you can instruct it to seek out specific online sources. NotebookLM will also recommend articles, papers and websites that might be relevant to your query. Once its findings are ready, you can use any of NotebookLM’s capabilities to generate insights on the content.

With today’s update, Google is also adding to the variety of sources NotebookLM can access. Now the app can pull data from Google Sheets, Microsoft Word documents and PDFs you’ve uploaded to Google Drive. It’s now also possible to add Google Drive files just by copying over the URL. Google says all of today’s enhancements should roll out to users within a week. The timing of the update is fortuitous given the company recently gave NotebookLM the capability to generate flashcards and quizzes.   

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-adds-deep-research-capabilities-to-notebooklm-170000817.html?src=rss 

Yesterday, Valve announced three (3) hardware products: a Steam Machine console, an accompanying Steam Controller and the long-rumored Steam Frame VR headset. This hardware, along with the excellent Steam Deck, gives Valve a pretty comprehensive way to get people playing games wherever they want, on any sort of screen. And, of course, the games are what this is all about. Steam’s catalog is impossibly vast, encompassing every genre you can imagine — but there’s still one crucial title missing from the thousands of games available.

I am, of course, talking about Half-Life 3.

I swore back in 2017 that I’d stop beating this dead horse, but Valve sucked me back in with the utterly unexpected, excellent, VR-only Half-Life: Alyx prequel. At the very least, it was a sign that the Half-Life universe wasn’t dead and buried in Valve’s mind, despite the fact that it had lain dormant with an unresolved cliffhanger for more than a dozen years.

At the time, Valve indicated it was interested in moving forward with more games in the series, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if the company just dropped things again. But, a big push into hardware that is significantly more powerful than the Steam Deck feels like another perfect opportunity to make Half-Life 3 happen.

And there have actually been a few more concrete bread crumbs to follow over the last year or so indicating Valve might finally be returning to the Half-Life story. It started with the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, when Valve dropped a major update for the game. “Every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to fix longstanding bugs, restore content and features lost to time, and improve the quality of a few things like lightmap resolution and fog,” the developer wrote. Along with some developer commentary, a documentary and the inclusion of the two episodic follow-up games, this was a pretty substantial update for such an old game.

At the end of last year, YouTuber Gabe Follower dropped some details on a potential Half-Life 3 coming soon. Follower had previously called the release of Counter-Strike 2, lending some credibility to his findings. To make a long story short, Follower claimed a Valve project internally titled “HLX” had reached the play-testing stage. That didn’t necessarily mean a launch was imminent, but at the very least the game was advancing in development.

Another less consequential but fun tidbit dropped around the same time: actor Michael Shapiro (who voiced the infamous G-Man in the Half-Life series) posted a New Years’ message where he spoke in the G-Man’s strange accent and said he’d see viewers in the year to come. Not coincidentally, he also did this in 2020 prior to the Half-Life: Alyx launch. The game had already been announced when he posted that message, but it’s still an intriguing tease. 

The timing couldn’t be better, either. The Game Awards are less than a month away, and that extravaganza is about the biggest platform you could ask for if you’re announcing a big new title. Not that Valve really needs the stage — they could just drop a trailer on YouTube and the gaming world would take care of the rest.

But as a companion piece to the company’s renewed hardware ambitions? The synergy would be too good to pass up. After all, the Valve Index VR headset launched just a short time before Half-Life: Alyx was announced, and anyone who had purchased it got the game for free. A theoretical Half-Life 3 isn’t quite the same, as there’s no chance the game will require the official Steam Machine. But it would still make a heck of a launch title to help drive interest in the company’s new devices. 

As for me, I’m not letting myself get too excited here. I remember in 2013, when Valve introduced the first Steam Machines initiative and its first attempt at a controller, I assumed it would be a perfect time to announce Half-Life 3. That clearly did not happen. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit hopeful this time around. There’s enough smoke to make me think that the fire is real; it’s hopefully time to wake up and smell the ashes. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/valves-trio-of-hardware-announcements-revived-my-half-life-3-fever-dream-170000561.html?src=rss 

Don’t forget to claim your $20 credit from YouTube. (Getty Images)

If you’re a YouTube TV subscriber who relies on ESPN for football games, or maybe you never miss an episode of Dancing with the Stars (which airs on ABC), you’re probably getting frustrated with the ongoing Disney feud. The two channels, along with other Disney-owned channels like Freeform and FX, have been off air since October 30, which is just over two weeks.

While no resolution has been reached yet, the two large streaming companies are still negotiating the new pricing terms. One analyst has estimated that Disney is losing upwards of $4 million per day while the holdout continues. “We’re ready to go as long as they want to,” said Disney’s CFO Hugh Johnston on CNBC while discussing the company’s quarterly earnings. Disney, of course, is trying to maximize the fees it gets for its channels, while YouTube claims Disney is “proposing costly economic terms,” which could result in higher subscription prices.

But there’s good news: YouTube has made good on its promise to offer a $20 credit to subscribers — you should’ve received an email from YouTube about it. However, it’s not automatic so you’ll need to claim it first — here’s how to do it.

How to get your $20 credit from YouTube TV

YouTube TV already costs you at least $83 a month, so take advantage of the $20 credit while you can. Here’s what you need to do.

Open YouTube TV in a web browser and go to your Membership Settings in the upper-right corner.

Go to the bottom of the menu and click Updates.

Click “Claim credit” on the Updates screen.

You should see a confirmation screen showing you’ve claimed the credit. It will be applied to your next bill, likely in December.

Here’s what your screen should look like when claiming the $20 credit. (Screenshots by Engadget)

How to pause or cancel YouTube TV

If the two can’t reach an agreement, you may be looking to cancel your YouTube TV subscription (or at least pause it until there’s a resolution). Here’s how to do it.

Open YouTube TV in a web browser and go to your Membership Settings.

Click Membership.

Click Manage.

Click Cancel Membership, and then click Cancel to confirm.

In the same settings, you can also pause your subscription until YouTube cuts a deal with Disney. Go to Settings > Membership > select the number of weeks you want to pause your subscription, and then click Pause.

That’ll at least give you more time to decide whether it’s worth keeping your account or closing it out.

What are my alternatives to YouTube TV?

Your $20 credit just goes to your next YouTube TV bill. But if you view that as “$20 more to spend on streaming this month,” you can put that budget towards some fairly straightforward workarounds, including ESPN’s new standalone service, Fubo (a YouTube TV competitor) and several more. Check out the best ways to watch ESPN and ABC during the YouTube TV blackout for more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/how-youtube-tv-subscribers-can-get-their-20-credit-while-disneys-espn-and-abc-remain-off-the-air-172824463.html?src=rss