Jess Weatherbed

After initially being tested by “select creators,” Creator Studio is now available for iOS users in the US and Canada. The original Creator Studio page manager experience was shut down in 2023, but Meta describes this revived version as an “AI-powered companion app” that helps creators to grow and engage with their audience.

Following Netflix’s growing “podcast” investment and a similar deal with TikTok, six more video podcasts are coming to Disney subscribers in the US, starting with the official Jonas Brothers podcast, Hey Jonas!, on August 14th across both Disney Plus and Hulu, leading up to the release of Camp Rock 3.

Muse Glimmer — essentially an open-weight version of Meta’s Muse Spark — is a 30 billion parameter model that can run on a Mac or PC with a single graphics card, allowing users to generate code, text, and images. While bigger parameter counts doesn’t necessarily mean better performance, Glimmer’s 30 billion is notably smaller than models from Chinese rivals, including Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-Max (2.4 trillion) and Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 (2.8 trillion).

This report from The New York Times lays out the impact that Flock camera’s are having on communities in Texas, noting that 700 police departments across the state have now contracted with the surveillance company. Locals are pushing back, including cellphone tower repairman Philip, who uses the DeFlock app to publicly map the cameras: “Am I just being paranoid? No, they’re actually everywhere.”

Xbox and PC gamers in Australia are reportedly being notified that they’ll soon need to verify their age before purchasing 18+ rated apps and games on both the Xbox Store and Microsoft Store. Existing purchases and downloads won’t be affected. Microsoft has a September 9th deadline to comply with Australian online safety rules, or risk facing an almost AUS$50 million fine (about $34.9 million in US monies).