Rumors have been swirling around Ableton’s Push 3 for years. Arguably the best hardware controller for one of (if not the) most popular DAWs (digital audio workstation), the Push 2, was released in 2015. And nearly eight years later it’s still head and shoulders above much of the competition. But there are some modern amenities that it’s lacking. And Native Instruments changed the game in 2020 when it released the Machine+, a controller for its desktop suite that could also function as a standalone music production box thanks to an Intel Atom CPU and 4GB of RAM.

Considering the long lead times required for product development, it’s safe to assume that Ableton was already hard at work on its new controller when Maschine+ was announced. But I’d also venture to guess that the company watched the reaction to Native Instruments’ box closely and tweaked its plans accordingly.

The result is the Ableton Push – not Push 3, not Push+ – just Push. And it makes a hell of a first impression. It comes in two configurations, a basic controller for $999 and with a processor for $1999. With a processor it can function as a fully standalone instrument, like the Maschine+. But it still also offers tight integration with Ableton Live 11 when connected to a computer. It has 64 MPE enabled pads, that pair perfectly with Live’s latest updates. It has a built-in battery for truly untethered creation. And, in a pleasant surprise, even if you stick with the controller only variant to start, you’ll be able to upgrade it with a DIY kit later this year for full standalone operation.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

But let’s start with the hardware. Physically the new Push and the Push 2 are very similar. They’re both hulking black slabs that seem like they were ripped out of the control panel of an alien spaceship. The screen appears to be exactly the same. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s a large, reasonably high resolution LCD with excellent viewing angles. It refreshes fast enough that you actually watch your MIDI notes scroll by in real time as you record them. The UI itself is simple and intuitive but attractive. There’s no unnecessary graphics or anything, just clean lines and text.

The knobs, buttons and pads all feel great. One of the new additions to the controls is a large jog wheel to the right of the screen that is a delight. It’s reminiscent of the one on Polyend’s Tracker, but more noticeable detents. (Another fun feature Push borrows from Tracker is auto generated project names, which comes in handy.) And the pads. Well. They’re the first I’ve encountered that truly give Akai’s a run for their money. I think I still have a slight preference for the feel of an MPC’s larger pads but, those aren’t MPE capable so, Ableton wins? My only complaint about the hardware really is that the pads might be too sensitive. But that can easily be fixed by going into the settings. Which you should probably do anyway to tweak the responsiveness to your liking since MPE can be fickle and unforgiving at times.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

Around back you’ll notice you’ll find a bunch of new connections too. There’s USB-C for connecting to a computer to control Live, a 12v DC connector, and two jacks for connecting sustain pedals just like on a Push 2. But those pedal jacks can also send CV now, so you can control modular gear. There’s also a USB-A port for connecting class compliant MIDI controllers, so if pads aren’t your thing you can connect a keyboard, or play one instrument with the keyboard while knocking out drum tracks on the Push directly. You’ll also find ⅛” MIDI in and out ports.

More importantly, there are two audio ins and two audio outs, plus a headphone jack and two ADAT jacks for connecting to other audio gear. See, the new Push – even without a processor in it – is also an audio interface. Granted it only has ¼” jacks (switchable between balanced and unbalanced), so not ideal if you’re recording vocals and need an XLR jack with phantom power. But if you’ve got another audio interface already with ADAT you can connect it to the Push and then suddenly you’ve got eight or 12 or however many inputs to work with. It is truly capable of being the centerpiece of a recording studio now.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

If you opt for the Push with a processor you’ll find an 11th Core i3 inside, with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive. That might not sound like much, but it’s plenty of power to handle most audio processing, especially without the overhead of trying to handle a windowing system and security software and those 16 Firefox tabs you haven’t closed in about three months. In fact, I noticed far less latency working with live audio on the Push directly than I do on my XPS 15 with a 8th gen Core i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM and a second generation Focusrite Scarlett interface. If you’re concerned about your $2,000 MIDI controller / groovebox becoming obsolete though, Ableton says it expects to make processor upgrades available in the future.

That Intel NUC Compute Element does chew through the battery pretty quickly, though. Ableton estimates that Push can get two to two-and-a-half hours out of the battery, which lines up with my anecdotal experience so far. The Push is kinda big and heavy at 8.7 pounds, I wouldn’t exactly call it portable. But it’s actually been great to sit down on my couch at night, after the kids go to bed and chip away at this review without an elaborate setup or being tied to an outlet.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

Hardware is all well and good, but what is really going to make or break the experience here is the software and, well, so far so good. A few intriguing things to note at the top, the Push is running Linux. Which means that, technically, Ableton Live 11 has been ported to Linux. I don’t think you should get your hopes up about an official port being made available for that Mint box you’ve been building, though. I’ve also been told that VST support on Push is technically possible, though obviously that would require getting developers on board and converting their plugins.

There is one way of getting third party instruments on Push though – Max for Live, a development platform inside the DAW. Support for Max is huge as it can really open the possibilities of the Push as a standalone instrument. Ableton even recently released a pack of building blocks and tutorials to encourage people to build their own Max for Live devices. And there’s companies like Fors that build incredible commercial products that run on Max. Support right now can be spotty since the controls need to be properly mapped for Push. And even some of Ableton’s own Max devices like the Inspired by Nature series don’t work properly at the moment.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

But don’t worry, Ableton’s built-in devices are excellent. And while I might be sad not having access to my favorite softsynth in standalone mode, you can easily build a complete and highly polished track using nothing but the default Live instruments and effects. But if you do need more variety, you can install Ableton sound packs directly over wifi. You can also drag over your own sample library using the Continuity feature in Live 11. You’ll see Push showup in the sidebar when connected to the same wifi network. Though, oddly, you can’t transfer over USB.

In addition to dragging over samples you can pull over presets, collections and favorites. I highly recommend, by the way, that you use the Collections in Ableton to organize your goto sounds, effects, et cetera. While the jog wheel is certainly an improvement, it can still be a bit of a slog navigating through long lists of presets and samples. Organization – not my strong suit – is clearly key to getting the most out of Push as a standalone instrument.

One incredible feature of continuity though, is being able to connect to your Push and pull a project you started in standalone mode into the desktop app for final arrangement. Which is kind of essentially because, while Push seems great for jamming, live performance and sketching out ideas, you can’t do fine tuned arrangement editing or mix down to audio.

Photo by Terrence O'Brien / Engadget

Obviously the price is going to be an issue, though. The standalone configuration costs $1,999, while the controller only variant will set you back $999. The DIY upgrade kit is expected to ship later this year for $1,049. That's a lot for a MIDI controller, even one as nice as this. And while I'm fairly certain there aren't any DAWs in a box as powerful as what Ableton has put together, they're also not nearly as expensive. Even Maschine+ is only $1,199. 

I’ve only had Push for about a week and am still coming to grips with the workflow. So this is really more of an extended hands-on than a full review. While Ableton is my DAW of choice and I own a Push 1, the differences are significant. Plus there are still some software kinks to iron out. I’ve encountered a handful of bugs, especially when trying to edit MIDI notes in the piano roll. And once the entire unit froze up on me. But the Push is currently running prerelease firmware and requires a beta version of Live 11 to take advantage of Continuity. I plan to continue testing Push and revisit it for a longterm review.

We were enamored with the Kindle Scribe when we reviewed it, but we weren't blind to its shortcomings, including its limited editing capabilities. Now, Amazon has rolled out an update for the device, which solves some of the issues we had with it and makes it a much better option for note-taking. One of the new features is the ability to write directly on page. It's still not available for every book, but the Kindle Store on the Scribe now has a new section called "Write-on Books" where you can find titles that support the feature. 

At the moment, the selection of books with direct on-page writing is mostly made up of guided journals, as well as games like crossword and sudoku. In other words, books that don't make sense on a device where writing on them is not supported. If you're checking out titles on a laptop or a phone, you can also see if they support the feature by looking for "On-page writing" under their product details section. For books that don't support on-page writing, you'll still have to create a sticky note and write within a designated rectangle. You'll have to keep your fingers crossed for the ability to doodle and take notes on the margin of a book if that's something you've been wishing for. 

If you want to share or upload notes you've written on the Scribe, the update also gives you the capability to easily convert them to text. You'll find a new option that reads "Convert to text and quick send" in the share menu and another that says "Convert to text and email." Both options share your handwritten notebooks as a .txt file, but for the latter, you'll be given the the chance to review and edit the converted text before sharing them via email to five addresses. 

There's also a new lasso select tool to move your notes and doodles around. You simply have to circle your handwritten text or drawings with it to resize them, drag them to another location or to cut, copy and paste them within a sticky note, a notebook or a PDF. Speaking of PDFs, files with the format uploaded through Send to Kindle are now more customizable. You can crop their margins to make their text easier to read, select text to highlight it and add text notes. You'll now also be able to look up the definitions, translations and Wikipedia results for text found in PDF files, as well as switch between portrait and landscape view. 

These features will roll out to all Kindle Scribes in the coming weeks, but you can manually download the latest software update to get them right now. 

There are a lot of factors to consider when you’re looking for the best iPad to fit your needs. But, if you’re more interested in an entry-level model than something more powerful and pricey, the standard iPad might just fit the bill. Even better, the 2022 iPad is currently on sale for $399. That’s $50 off the regular price and it matches a record low.

This deal is for the base model with 64GB of storage. We gave this tablet a score of 85 in our review. We liked the updated design that takes a page out of the iPad Air's book, the improved performance and battery life compared with the previous generation and the switch to USB-C charging. Moving the front-facing camera to the landscape side is a welcome change too. That makes far more sense for those who use the tablet for video calls while propping it up with the kickstand or a keyboard folio. Speaking of which, the keyboard folio got an upgrade, since there are larger trackpad and function keys.

On the downside, the $250 folio is expensive; it's not far off the price of the tablet during this sale. We also felt that, while larger than previous models, the quality of the screen isn't as refined as those in higher-end iPads. For instance, it doesn't have an anti-reflective coating or support for the P3 wide color gamut. Perhaps most gallingly for those with a first-generation Apple Pencil, you'll need a USB-C cable and a Lightning to USB-C adapter to charge the peripheral from this iPad.

Still, there's more positives than negatives to be found here. This iPad has a lot of improvements over the previous generation. If you've been holding onto an older model for several years and don't want to break the bank on a replacement, this deal is certainly worth considering.

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Sony's WH-1000XM5 is the best wireless ANC headphone you can buy, thanks to the stellar sound quality, comfort and awesome active noise cancellation. Amazon currently has them on sale in both black and white for $348, the lowest price we've seen in months, saving you 13 percent or $52 over the regular price. 

The WH-1000XM5 scored an impressive 95 in our Engadget review, thanks to improvements across the board over our previous favorite headphones, the WH-1000XM4 (which are also on sale for $278 right now, by the way). Perhaps the biggest improvement is in fit and comfort thanks to the more optimal weight distribution, synthetic leather ear cups and reduced weight.

Sound quality also went up, due to the new 30mm carbon fiber drivers that deliver punchier bass. They offer more clarity that helps you hear fine detail, along with improved depth that makes music more immersive. And Sony's DSEE Extreme sound processing recovers detail lost to compression, without any noticeable impact on sound quality.

The ANC is equally impressive. With double the number of noise cancellation microphones found in the M4, along with a new dedicated V1 chip, the M5 does a better job at minimizing background noise. And in terms of the microphone, we found that the M5 offers superior call quality over its predecessor. Moreover, you get 30 hours of listening time with ANC enabled, enough for the longest of flights.

The main drawback of the WH-1000XM5 headphones is the $400 price tag, but you can pick them up right now in either white or black for just $348 and save $52 — but act fast before the sale ends.

If you missed the chance to purchase the Apple Watch Series 8 at $329 earlier this year, Amazon is once again selling the 41mm model for that price. With that 18 percent discount, the Series 8 is $70 off its usual $399 starting price. What's more, Amazon has also cut the price of the 45mm model. It too is $70 off, meaning you can get that variant of the Series 8 for $359.

Although the Series 8 is only a modest upgrade over the Series 7, it’s still one of the best smartwatches you can buy. The Series 8 is fast and features a handy always-on display. It also sports robust app support and tight integration with Apple’s broader ecosystem. New to the Series 8 is a crash detection feature that can alert first responders in case of an emergency. It’s also the first wearable from Apple to feature a temperature sensor that can assist with ovulation tracking.

Of course, the Series 8 isn’t for everyone. For one, you can’t use the wearable with an Android phone. It’s also worth pointing out that the Apple Watch SE offers many of the same core features as the Series 8 but costs significantly less, especially when it’s sale like it is right now on Amazon. Alongside the Series 8, the retailer has discounted the SE. The 40mm model is 12 percent off or $30 off from its regular $249 price. You can also get the 44mm model for $30 off.

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A software update Hewlett-Packard released earlier this month for its OfficeJet printers is causing some of those devices to become unusable. Since about the second week of May, the HP support forums have been rife with complaints of OfficeJet printers bricking after they automatically installed the company’s most recent firmware update.

After downloading the faulty software, the built-in touchscreen on an affected printer will display a blue screen with the error code 83C0000B. Unfortunately, there appears to be no way for someone to fix a printer broken in this way on their own, partly because factory resetting an HP OfficeJet requires interacting with the printer’s touchscreen display. For the moment, HP customers report the only solution to the problem is to send a broken printer back to the company for service.

Among the affected printers are OfficeJet 902x models, including the Pro 9022e, Pro 9025e, Pro 9020e All-in-One and Pro 9025e All-in-One variants. If you own an OfficeJet printer, for the time being, your best bet is to disconnect your printer from the internet so that it doesn’t automatically download the buggy update.

On Saturday, HP acknowledged the issue and told Bleeping Computer it was working on a fix. “Our teams are working diligently to address the blue screen error affecting a limited number of HP OfficeJet Pro 9020e printers,” the company said. “We are recommending customers experiencing the error to contact our customer support team for assistance: https://support.hp.com.”

This isn’t the first time one of HP’s recent software updates has created a headache for its customers. In March, the company appeared to double down on its unpopular ”dynamic security” policy and began rolling out a security update that saw more of its printers not work with third-party ink cartridges.

For the first time, Apple has published an App Store transparency report. You can read the full two-page document on the company’s website. It reveals several interesting tidbits about the App Store, including the fact that, as of 2022, there were 1,783,232 apps on the storefront.

In the document, first spotted by 9to5Mac (via The Verge), Apple also reveals that it reviewed 6,101,913 submissions last year (submissions can include updates to existing apps, not just new releases). Of those, it rejected 1,679,694. Surprisingly, the majority of submissions, more than 1 million, didn’t make it to the App Store for failing to comply with Apple’s performance guidelines. The company also rejected 441,972 submissions on legal grounds.

Apple also removed 186,195 apps removed from the App Store in 2022. Last year, the company fielded 1,474 takedown requests, with the vast majority (1,435, to be exact) coming from mainland China. In a distant second was India, with 14 requests. Over that same time frame, Apple says it fielded 5,484 appeals involving apps removed from the App Store in China. Following successful appeals, it also restored 169 apps to the Chinese App Store. Last year, iPhone, iPad and Mac users downloaded an average of 747,873,877 apps every week, which would be an even more impressive number if they didn’t also redownload an average of 1,539,274,266 apps every week.

Apple agreed to begin publishing App Store transparency reports as part of a settlement the company came to with App Store developers in 2021. At the time, the company said the reports would “share meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.”

Every third Thursday of May, the world commemorates Global Accessibility Awareness Day or GAAD. And as has become customary in the last few years, major tech companies are taking this week as a chance to share their latest accessibility-minded products. From Apple and Google to Webex and Adobe, the industry’s biggest players have launched new features to make their products easier to use. Here’s a quick roundup of this week’s GAAD news.

Apple's launches and updates

First up: Apple. The company actually had a huge set of updates to share, which makes sense since it typically releases most of its accessibility-centric news at this time each year. For 2023, Apple is introducing Assistive Access, which is an accessibility setting that, when turned on, changes the home screen for iPhone and iPad to a layout with fewer distractions and icons. You can choose from a row-based or grid-based layout, and the latter would result in a 2x3 arrangement of large icons. You can decide what these are, and most of Apple’s first-party apps can be used here.

The icons themselves are larger than usual, featuring high contrast labels making them more readable. When you tap into an app, a back button appears at the bottom for easier navigation. Assistive Access also includes a new Calls app that combines Phone and FaceTime features into one customized experience. Messages, Camera, Photos and Music have also been tweaked for the simpler interface and they all feature high contrast buttons, large text labels and tools that, according to Apple, "help trusted supporters tailor the experience for the individual they're supporting." The goal is to offer a less-distracting or confusing system to those who may find the typical iOS interface overwhelming.

Apple also launched Live Speech this week, which works on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It will allow users to type what they want to say and have the device read it aloud. It not only works for in-person conversations, but for Phone and FaceTime calls as well. You'll also be able to create shortcuts for phrases you frequently use, like "Hi, can I get a tall vanilla latte?" or "Excuse me, where is the bathroom?" The company also introduced Personal Voice, which lets you create a digital voice that sounds like yours. This could be helpful for those at risk of losing their ability to speak due to conditions that could impact their voice. The setup process includes "reading alongside randomized text prompts for about 15 minutes on iPhone or iPad."

For those with visual impairments, Apple is adding a new Point and Speak feature to the detection mode in Magnifier. This will use an iPhone or iPad's camera, LiDAR scanner and on-device machine learning to understand where a person has positioned their finger and scan the target area for words, before reading them out for the user. For instance, if you hold up your phone and point at different parts on a microwave or washing machine's controls, the system will say what the labels are — like "Add 30 seconds," "Defrost" or "Start."

The company made a slew of other smaller announcements this week, including updates that allow Macs to pair directly with Made-for-iPhone hearing devices, as well as phonetic suggestions for text editing in voice typing.

Google's new accessibility tools

Meanwhile, Google is introducing a new Visual Question and Answer (or VQA) tool in the Lookout app, which uses AI to answer follow-up questions about images. The company's accessibility lead and senior director of Products For All Eve Andersson told Engadget in an interview that VQA is the result of a collaboration between the inclusion and DeepMind teams. 

Google

To use VQA, you'll open Lookout and start the Images mode to scan a picture. After the app tells you what's in the scene, you can ask follow-ups to glean more detail. For example, if Lookout said the image depicts a family having a picnic, you can ask what time of day it is or whether there are trees around them. This lets the user determine how much information they want from a picture, instead of being constrained to an initial description. 

Often, it is tricky to figure out how much detail to include in an image description, since you want to provide enough to be helpful but not so much that you overwhelm the user. For example, "What’s the right amount of detail to give to our users in Lookout?" Andersson said. "You never actually know what they want." Andersson added that AI can help determine the context of why someone is asking for a description or more information and deliver the appropriate info. 

When it launches in the fall, VQA can present a way for the user to decide when to ask for more and when they've learned enough. Of course, since it's powered by AI, the generated data might not be accurate, so there's no guarantee this tool works perfectly, but it's an interesting approach that puts power in users' hands. 

Google is also expanding Live Captions to work in French, Italian and German later this year, as well as bringing the wheelchair-friendly labels for places in Maps to more people around the world. 

Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe and more

Plenty more companies had news to share this week, including Adobe, which is rolling out a feature that uses AI to automate the process of generating tags for PDFs that would make them friendlier for screen readers. This uses Adobe's Sensei AI, and will also indicate the correct reading order. Since this could really speed up the process of tagging PDFs, people and organizations could potentially use the tool to go through stockpiles of old documents to make them more accessible. Adobe is also launching a PDF Accessibility Checker to "enable large organizations to quickly and efficiently evaluate the accessibility of existing PDFs at scale." 

Microsoft also had some small updates to share, specifically around Xbox. It's added new accessibility settings to the Xbox app on PC, including options to disable background images and disable animations, so users can reduce potentially disruptive, confusing or triggering components. The company also expanded its support pages and added accessibility filters to its web store to make it easier to find optimized games.

Meanwhile, Samsung announced this week that it's adding two new levels of ambient sound settings to the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, which brings the total number of options to five. This would let those who use the earbuds to listen to their environment get greater control over how loud they want the sounds to be. They'll also be able to select different settings for individual ears, as well as choose the levels of clarity and create customized profiles for their hearing.

We also learned that Cisco, the company behind the Webex video conferencing software, is teaming up with speech recognition company VoiceITT to add transcriptions that better support people with non-standard speech. This builds on Webex's existing live translation feature, and uses VoiceITT's AI to familiarize itself with a person's speech patterns to better understand what they want to communicate. Then, it'll establish and transcribe what is said, and the captions will appear in a chat bar during calls. 

Finally, we also saw Mozilla announce that Firefox 113 would be more accessible by enhancing the screen reader experience, while Netflix revealed a sizzle reel showcasing some of its latest assistive features and developments over the past year. In its announcement, Netflix said that while it has "made strides in accessibility, [it knows] there is always more work to be done."

That sentiment is true not just for Netflix, nor the tech industry alone, but also for the entire world. While it's nice to see so many companies take the opportunity this week to release and highlight accessibility-minded features, it's important to remember that inclusive design should not and cannot be a once-a-year effort. I was also glad to see that despite the current fervor around generative AI, most companies did not appear to stuff the buzzword into every assistive feature or announcement this week for no good reason. For example, Andersson said "we're typically thinking about user needs" and adopting a problem-first approach as opposed to focusing on determining where a type of technology can be applied to a solution.

While it's probably at least partially true that announcements around GAAD are a bit of a PR and marketing game, ultimately some of the tools launched today can actually improve the lives of people with disabilities or different needs. I call that a net win.

AT&T doesn't think that the satellite-to-phone service T-Mobile and SpaceX's Starlink are planning should be approved as it is, and it has informed the FCC of its opinion in a filing (PDF). As Bloomberg notes, the carrier has raised concerns that the companies' service, in its current proposed state, could interfere with existing wireless services. "[I]t is paramount that operations do not jeopardize or inhibit the delivery of terrestrial wireless services," AT&T wrote. 

In August last year, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced a collaboration that would allow the carrier's subscribers to connect to Starlink's second-gen satellites for coverage even if they're in the most remote locations. The companies are gearing up to begin testing this year, and the FCC started seeking comments (PDF) in April on their request to establish supplemental coverage from space (SCS). AT&T's filing is a response to that call. 

The carrier wrote that FCC's rules "do not permit SpaceX’s proposed use of T-Mobile’s terrestrial spectrum" and that the companies "fail to even request — much less justify — rule waivers that would be necessary to authorize their proposed SCS authorizations." It added: "More broadly, the Applicants' technical showings are woefully insufficient regarding the risk of harmful interference posed by their planned SCS deployments. SpaceX and T-Mobile’s applications fall far short of meeting the threshold for waiver and cannot be granted in their current state."

AT&T has plans for a satellite service of its own in partnership with communications specialist AST SpaceMobile. The companies successfully conducted the first two-way satellite audio call on AT&T's network in Texas to a Rakuten number in Japan on a Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone in April. The carrier assured in its filing that consistent with its comments, "AT&T and AST intend to provide the demonstrations necessary to show that they will not cause interference to any authorized terrestrial system."

Folks are spending less time on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social media site last year, but there’s still plenty of demand for similar platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky. To that point, Meta has long been rumored to be building its own platform to rival Twitter. After months of speculation, there’s finally some details to go along with the rumors, according to digital media marketing expert Lia Haberman.

Haberman says the app is nearing completion and could launch as early as the end of June. She says that Meta has been meeting with select content creators to discuss the platform. One of these creators furnished Haberman with all kinds of info about the forthcoming app, calling it “Instagram for your thoughts.”

Instagram is the right word here, as it looks like the entire platform is built out of the popular photo-sharing social network. The decentralized app is said to work with current Instagram parameters, like usernames and passwords. So if you already have an Instagram account you should be able to sign right up and automatically sync up with your current followers. Your handle, bio and verification should all carry over from IG. Haberman says that even blocked Instagram accounts and hidden words transfer to the new platform.

This is also set to be a decentralized app that’ll integrate with other platforms like Mastodon, meaning you should be able to interact with users across multiple services without having to constantly switch between apps. The report indicates that text updates will be limited to 500 characters, which is less than an Instagram caption, but still plenty long enough to make a sarcastic comment or whatever. 

You’ll likely be able to attach links, photos and videos up to five minutes long, which of course is much shorter than Twitter's recently launched two hour video-sharing feature. Just like Twitter and similar platforms, Meta’s service will have its own versions of likes, replies and reposts. Haberman got her hands on a leaked marketing slide that shows the app in action and, well, it looks a whole lot like Twitter, Bluesky and the rest, with a dash of Instagram's design scheme. 

Back in March when these rumors first surfaced, Meta said it was indeed “exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates.” So this is coming, it’s just a matter of what it’ll look like and if it’ll be “the one” to dethrone Twitter. There's no name for the service yet, though within Meta it has a few codenames like Barcelona and P92.