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Following a major court ruling limiting Apple's control over App Store payments, Patreon plans to update its iOS app to allow payments outside Apple's system, letting creators keep more of their earnings. Spotify and Proton are also preparing similar updates. The Verge reports: "This is a huge moment for creators and their businesses," [spokesperson Adiya Taylor] says. "The iOS app is the number one platform for fan engagement on Patreon, and we believe this ruling allows creators to get paid without giving Apple 30 percent. As a first step, we will submit an app update for review by Apple to enable payments outside of IAP so creators keep more from iOS based fan payments." Last year, Patreon said it was forced to switch to Apple's in-app purchase system, which applied a 30 percent fee to all new memberships purchased in the app, or else risk "being removed from the App Store." "When we first announced rolling out Apple's IAP requirements last year, we shared that we used three principles to guide our decision in how we wanted to move forward: transparency, control, and stability," Taylor says. "Keeping with those principles, we're exploring further action we can take, and we'll continue to keep creators and fans posted on any changes to our experience." Taylor wasn't able to share a timeline for when the update might be rolled out. Further reading: Epic Games Is Launching Webshops To Circumvent App Store Fees

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House Oversight probes missing Musk disclosures, background checks, data mess at NLRB

Elon Musk is backing away from his Trump-blessed government gig, but now House Democrats want to see the permission slip that got him in the door.…

Earlier on Thursday President Donald Trump had fired the top adviser following huge tension over leaked texts.

Seriously, HTF does Reality Labs bleed SIXTY BILLION US DOLLARS in FIVE years?

Meta's Reality Labs division continued its losing streak with another $4.2 billion down the drain in the first quarter of 2025. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's stated priorities on Wednesday's earnings call suggest his metaverse dream is well and truly over.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Epic Games is taking a victory lap. After notching a big win against Apple in a years-long legal dispute, Epic announced that its Epic Games Store will allow developers to open webshops, which can offer players out-of-app purchases to circumvent fees from Apple and Google. [...] With the Epic Games Store's new webshops feature, other developers will be more easily able to follow suit. Usually, Epic takes a 12% share of a developer's earnings from the Epic Games Store, which is still a better deal than what developers get from Apple. But starting in June, Epic Games will not take a cut from the first $1 million each game earns annually. Only after a game eclipses $1 million in revenue will Epic begin taking a cut. "With new legal rulings in place, developers will be able to send players from games to make digital purchases from webshops on any platform that allows it, including iOS in the European Union and United States," Epic said.

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The most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest could erupt 'any day now,' experts say. The last time it blew, it triggered 8,000 earthquakes, produced 400-foot-thick lava flows and sink the ocean floor.

The little girl and boy, as well as an 18-year-old woman, were injured after being attacked by a dog inside a property on Johnson Avenue, Prescot, at around 4pm on Thursday.

Meta's Reality Labs posted a $4.2 billion operating loss in Q1 2025. According to CNBC, cumulative losses since 2020 now exceed $60 billion. From the report: Meta's Reality Labs unit is responsible for the company's Quest-branded virtual reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. It's the key business unit that anchors CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plans to build a new computing platform involving digital worlds accessible via VR and augmented reality devices. [...] Wall Street has questioned Meta's big spending on the metaverse, which Zuckerberg has said could take many years to turn into a real business. The company must now also contend with sweeping new tariffs from President Donald Trump and the likely increase in costs that will follow, potentially leading to higher-priced devices. Last week, Meta said that an unspecified number of Reality Labs employees were laid off. Those workers were part of the Oculus Studios unit, which creates VR and AR games and content for Quest VR headsets.

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EMERGENCY services have confirmed a woman is being treated for burns after a fire broke out at retirement flats in Coggeshall.

At the annual meeting with shareholders, chief exec Tufan Erginbilgic said 'global tariff increases have created a degree of uncertainty for the industry'.

In an age of online shopping and AI the M&S experience represents a clear and present danger to retail, commerce, and the broader economy.

At the company's AGM, 30% of shareholders voted against plans to raise the pay of chief executive David Schwimmer from £5.1m to £7.8m this year.

Tucker was the first external candidate brought in to chair the bank when appointed in 2017 - and is nearing the nine-year maximum term.

McDonalds Chief exec Chris Kempczinski said lower and middle class Americans were anxious about inflation and wider growth prospects.

Satya Nadella reveals attempts to merge Word, PowerPoint, Excel, which may now happen with LLMs

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has claimed about thirty percent of code in at least some of the Windows titan's repositories was written by an AI.…

The former president and secretary of state stepped out in New York City on Wednesday night after eating at Carota in the city's West Village.

King Charles and Queen Camilla were joined by fellow monarchs, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, for a special tree planting at Windsor tonight.

Ella Rae Wise, 24, who recently appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, led the way as she joined the likes of Rachel Riley and Gabby Logan at the glam event.

The Met Office has confirmed that with the Kew Gardens in London hitting 28.0C (82.4F) this afternoon and 'still climing', today is officially the hottest May Day ever.

Sam Altman's eye-scanning identity project, now called World, officially launched in the U.S. with six in-person registration sites. CNBC reports: Here's how it works: You go up to an Orb, a spherical biometric device, and it spends about 30 seconds scanning your face and iris, then creates and stores a unique "IrisCode" for you verifying that you're a human and that you've never signed up before. Then you get some of the project's cryptocurrency, WLD, for free, and you can use your World ID as a sign-in with integrated platforms, which currently include an open API integration with Minecraft, Reddit, Telegram, Shopify and Discord. Starting Thursday, the company is opening six flagship U.S. retail locations where people can sign up to have their eyeball scanned: Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Miami and San Francisco. At an event in San Francisco on Wednesday, the venture announced two high-profile partnerships: Visa will introduce the "World Visa card" this summer, available only to people who have had their irises scanned by World, and the online dating giant Match Group will begin a pilot program testing out World ID and some age verification tools with Tinder in Japan.

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