We’ve all seen them: tacky, suggestive, borderline explicit ad images littered across spammy, low-rent, minimally informative websites looking for a few easy clicks on Facebook. On Wednesday, the social media platform announced an offensive. “Starting today, we’re rolling out an update so people see fewer posts and ads in News Feed that link to these …

To screen or to stream? Two Netflix original films will be allowed to compete next week at the Cannes Film Festival in France even though they aren’t expected to be released widely in French theaters, the festival’s board said Wednesday. But after complaints from a cinema group, the festival amended its rules for future years, requiring that films “will have …

Try not to get too excited, MacBook owners, but your beloved MagSafe charging cables might be coming back from the dead — albeit via dongle. The magnetic-attaching charging cables were a fan-favorite feature from the MacBook Pro because of how easily they’d disconnect when accidentally yanked, a design that no doubt saved countless laptops from coming crashing down to the …

No one likes it when the cable guy runs late, especially New Yorkers. Nine years after signing a contract with Verizon to bring fiber-optic internet and television service to the city’s 3.1 million households — and nearly three years after the 2014 deadline to finish the job — New York City officials are sick of waiting. The city filed a …

BlackBerry is crying foul against Nokia, alleging in a new lawsuit that its mobile networking products are infringing on as many as eleven of BlackBerry’s patents without being properly licensed, according to Bloomberg. The infringement case reportedly lands in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, in Wilmington, and comes as both the BlackBerry and Nokia names work …

If, for some reason, you find yourself in desperate need of a middle-of-the-day escape on Wednesday, then Google has just the thing: a VR symphony. The music will come straight from the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, where Google’s Art & Culture initiative is set to broadcast a live performance celebrating the concert hall’s opening. Festivities are set to begin at 6:30 p.m. …

Get ready: Ads are on their way into the middle of your Instagram Stories. Users should expect to begin seeing the ads, which will be limited to 15 seconds each, within the coming weeks, Instagram tells us. The Facebook-owned social sharing platform will start tests with a limited number of global brands, including Nike, Netflix and Maybelline New York. The …

Facebook is taking more responsibility over its role in the media industry. The social network on Wednesday announced a new initiative called the Journalism Project, which seeks to put Facebook on steadier footing with the news industry. As part of the effort, the social network will work to help train journalists on how to use Facebook as a reporting tool …

Notion is a free app for Android and iOS devices that syncs with your inbox, then uses artificial intelligence to make it easier to find the info you actually need. Its latest upgrade: an Amazon Alexa skill that lets you access Notion’s insights with simple voice commands. The coolest trick? Email summaries that let Alexa tell you the most most …

Multi-speaker audio setups make for great dance parties, but they can get expensive fast. Now, a free app called Amp Me thinks it has the solution: synced audio playback across multiple phones and tablets. It’s a clever idea that makes good use of the fact that a lot of today’s mobile devices can double as Wi-Fi hotspots. Amp Me taps …