Airbnb is adding thousands of boutique hotels, new services and experiences to its app.

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Spellcasters Chronicles struggled to compete with games like League of Legends and Dota.

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Google announced a new YouTube Shorts Remix feature that lets users restyle clips or even insert themselves into other people’s videos using Gemini Omni. Now, at the bottom of a YouTube Short, when you click the remix icon, you’ll see an option to “reimagine” it. Here, you can prompt Gemini to turn a video into pixel art, an anime, or a found-footage horror film. But, beyond that, you can also alter the contents by, say, inflating heads, inserting background actors, dressing people in pirate costumes, or even putting yourself in the clip.

Creators can enable or disable the ability to reimagine videos. So, if you upload a short of your kids …

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Microsoft has recruited game industry analyst Matthew Ball as Xbox chief strategy officer. Ball publishes an annual state of video gaming report, which is a popular read across the game industry, and he’s “widely respected across gaming, media, and technology,” according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

Sharma announced Ball is joining Microsoft in a memo to Xbox employees this morning, seen by The Verge. She described Ball as a “longtime gamer,” who has held strategy and leadership roles at Illumination, Amazon Studios, Otter Media, and Accenture Strategy. “Matthew has been partnering with us on strategy since day 10 and will officially start this …

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Google’s AI-powered Search era apparently also extends to its ads. Now, when you search for a product, Google’s Gemini AI chatbot will surface relevant items and generate a “custom explainer” about why you should purchase a specific one.

The update comes just one day after Google revealed a new Search box for larger, more conversational queries, along with a focus on AI-generated results. In an example shared by Google, someone searching for a “compact espresso pod machine” might see a Nespresso Vertuo Up under a “Sponsored Product” label, alongside an AI-generated description saying:

For a quality machine, look for capsule compatibility …

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Android Auto’s big 2026 makeover is full of small but helpful upgrades.

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We don’t know much yet, but the Kingdom Come studio is making a Lord of the Rings RPG

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