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As an app designed to facilitate gay hookups, popular site Sniffies has had a limitation since it started in 2018—it was only accessible via web browser. Until Monday, when the map-based cruising site debuted its Apple-approved iOS app. Building an app that complies with Apple’s notoriously stringent content moderation—and total ban on apps that directly serve adult content—was a challenge for Sniffies, which wears its sexuality proudly. Its users, which it calls “cruisers,” do, too. Many users put nude images as their cover photos, meaning adult content is visible from the second the platform is opened in a browser. The company needed to tame the experience for…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National home prices have risen by 2.6% year-over-year from January 2024 to January 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index, a slightly decelerated rate from the 4.6% year-over-year rate last spring. However, not every housing market is seeing rising home prices. Among the 300 largest metro area housing markets, 31 markets are seeing falling home prices on a year-over-year basis. While home prices continue to rise in regions with tight inventory—such as much of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern California—some housing markets in states like…

In 2024, Amazon introduced its AI-powered HR assistant, which helps managers with performance reviews and workforce planning. Similarly, Tesla deployed AI personas to assist in real-time production monitoring and supply chain optimization. These advancements showcase how AI personas are becoming essential in business operations, streamlining processes, and enhancing decision-making. As artificial intelligence evolves, we’re witnessing two interrelated phenomena shaping our future: AI personas and agentic AI. These developments bring both opportunities and challenges. Understanding AI Personas AI personas are collections of digital elements that combine to form …

Pretend you and 99 peers had to duke it out against a gorilla. Would your squad emerge victorious? That debate has been dividing the internet over the past few days. The conversation originally surfaced on Reddit back in 2020, when a user posed the question in the r/whowouldwin subreddit. It recently reignited after the question was put to X users last week. The viral post—now with over 288 million views—suggests that 100 men could defeat a single gorilla if everyone was “dedicated” to the task. Since then, arguments have raged across social media. MrBeast even joined the discussion: “Need 100 men to test this, any volunteers?” he wrote, alongside a fake thumbnail…

Michelle Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson, will host a new weekly podcast series starting this month featuring a special guest pulled from the world of entertainment, sports, health and business. “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson” will address “everyday questions shaping our lives, relationships and the world around us,” according to a press release. IMO is slang for “in my opinion.” Some of the guests slated to speak to the former first lady and Robinson, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, include the actors Issa Rae and Keke Palmer and psychologist Dr. Orna Guralnik. Other guests include filmmakers Seth…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Economic forecasting has never been an easy task, and it becomes even more challenging when confronted with unprecedented economic events like COVID-19 lockdowns and unparalleled levels of government intervention, followed by a rapid cycle of interest rate hikes. Look no further than recent mortgage rate forecasts. Last year marked the third year in a row that mortgage rates ended the year higher than forecasters expected. Will they finally get it right this year? ResiClub’s latest roundup of quarterly mortgage rate forecasts shows that most …

The relentless hype around AI makes it difficult to separate the signal from the noise. So it’s understandable if you’ve tuned out recent talk about autonomous AI agents. A word of advice: Don’t. The significance of agentic AI may actually exceed the hype. An Autonomous AI agent can interact with the environment, make decisions, take action, and learn from the process. This represents a seismic shift in the use of AI and, accordingly, presents corresponding opportunities—and risks. The P in GPT To date, generative AI tools, largely subject to human supervision, have been designed to function by being pretrained (the P in GPT) on vast amounts of data such as l…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Typing isn’t always the best way to get your thoughts down. Sometimes talking through an idea leads to better clarity. New AI tools can reliably transform those spoken thoughts into clean, organized text. I’ve spent months experimenting with voice AI tools—first on my phone, and now on my laptop. They’ve been helping me pull ideas from my brain onto paper. The tools below have become crucial to my workflow. Why voice AI beats traditional transcription Traditional transcription simply converts speech to text. Mod…

As the Super Bowl clock ticked just below three minutes left in the game, Eagles wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith picked up the giant Gatorade cooler, snuck behind head coach Nick Sirianni on the sideline, and hit him with the traditional shower celebration. It was probably one of the best ads of the Super Bowl, and it wasn’t even a commercial. And yet, it still told a story about how close the ties are between this brand and one of the most significant moments in sports. This year, Gatorade celebrates its 60th anniversary since Dr. James Cade first concocted his formula to keep the Florida Gators football team hydrated. Gatorade chief brand of…

Throughout Harvard Square, there are many bookshop brimming with the latest literary fiction and intellectual memoirs, patronized by scholarly types. But in January, a new bookshop popped up in the neighborhood that is nothing like the others. Lovestruck Books is a romance bookstore. It’s Instagrammable entrance is adorned with pink and purple flowers. There’s a coffee shop that transforms into a wine bar for evening events. Besides an enormous selection of romance novels, you can also purchase sex toys and tote bags emblazoned with “I read smut.” “We want to toe the lie a little bit with being provocative and edgy,” says Rachel Kanter, the store’s founder. “But the …

Chili’s is celebrating National Margarita Day this month with a new romcom Lifetime holiday movie. The casual-dining restaurant chain and cable network will debut a 15-minute TV short film, called I’ll Be Home For National Margarita Day, first airing on Lifetime on February 19 and available on Lifetime.com, YouTube, and social platforms. Starring actors Maria Menounos and Taye Diggs, the new flick hits on all the classic Lifetime tropes, including a big-city-dwelling woman returning to her hometown to reconnect with an old flame, who happens to be a bartender at Chili’s. The reunited lovers must work together to save a small town’s National Margarita Day celebrati…

Every few months, there’s a new story or study or think piece on the exact dollar amount needed to afford retirement. The most recent is Northwestern Mutual’s 2025 Planning & Progress Study, which found that Americans believe they need $1.26 million to retire comfortably. Unfortunately, many people give up on the very idea of saving for retirement when they hear $1.26 million is the price tag for a comfortable (not lavish) retirement. Aiming for a seven-figure nest egg can feel out of reach for many of us—which may explain why Northwestern Mutual also found that 51% of Americans expect to outlive their money. But the reality of retirement is far more nuanced t…

There are plenty of questionable examples of companies shoehorning useless artificial intelligence features into their products (Meta’s AI-powered profiles say hello!), but finally, Crocs has found one that actually makes sense. The casual footwear brand has partnered with ABLO, an AI fashion design platform, to let people use AI to design their own Jibbitz charms. Crocs are already all about customization, a strategy that’s helped the brand grow its revenue 4% over last year. Jibbitz charms, which can be plugged into the holes on the shoes’ upper and heel strap, add an extra layer of personalization, and AI takes that to the next level. “We have Jibbitz for ever…

Watch any Olympic event, and you’ll notice this universal ritual: The moment an athlete completes their performance, they turn to their coach for feedback. There’s no defensiveness—just a hunger to know how to improve. They understand that even the smallest adjustment could be the difference between standing on the podium or watching from the sidelines. For athletes, feedback is not criticism. It’s a tool for enhancement. This mindset isn’t confined to sports. High performers in every field—whether that’s business, academia, or the arts—share an insatiable appetite for actionable feedback. It’s their secret weapon for continual improvement. Why feedback fuel…

Living in Los Angeles and paying $1,000 a month for rent seems like a fantasy for many cash-strapped tenants, or a rental figure from decades ago. But a new proposal from architecture and design firm Gensler and the Pew Charitable Trust underscores the idea that more affordable urban living can be found in old, vacant office buildings. The analysis, which was initiated and funded by Pew and nonprofit Arnold Ventures, looks at the potential of a new kind of building conversion in Houston and Los Angeles, two U.S cities where this type of conversion would currently be legal. The aim is to build a better version of single-room occupancy units, or SROs, that have pr…

As Los Angeles reels from deadly January wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will order the state to advance long-delayed regulations requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear combustible materials around their homes. His office didn’t immediately say if the executive order will set a timeline for implementing the rule, which was passed by lawmakers in 2020 and originally set to take effect by January 1, 2023. Newsom is expected to sign it after his trip to Washington to advocate for disaster aid. The rule requires homeowners to clear materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet (1.5 me…

In mountain ranges around the world, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries—almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks. Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries. Too much water behind these dams or a landslide into t…

Over the last month, Jamie Dimon has rapidly emerged as one of the most vocal proponents of the return-to-office movement. During a recent appearance at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the J.P. Morgan Chase CEO could not help but complain—again—about workers who were pushing back on RTO policies. When fielding a question about his recent colorful remarks on RTO, Dimon noted that it was only “people in the middle” who were unhappy about going into the office. “If you work in a restaurant, you’ve got to be in. You all may not know this, but 60% of Americans worked the whole time,” he said, seemingly in reference to the pandemic. “Where did you get you…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Mortgage giant Rocket Companies—the parent company of Rocket Mortgage, formerly known as Quicken Loans—announced on Monday it has entered into an agreement to buy Redfin in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.75 billion equity, or $12.50 per share. If completed, the move would integrate Redfin’s real estate search platform, which attracts nearly 50 million monthly visitors, with Rocket’s mortgage services. “Redfin is known for its beautiful product but is also [a] data powerhouse in an AI-driven world—100 million properties, 50 million engaged mont…

The Daytona 500 is one of the more challenging races on the NASCAR circuit. The speedway is long and narrow, forcing drivers to be more aggressive. And the weather in central Florida doesn’t always cooperate. During the 2024 event, a deluge of rain had forced a Monday conclusion. After 41 lead changes and with only eight laps to go, a crash involving half the field prompted a red flag and a 15-minute delay. At the end, another collision between leader Ross Chastain and Austin Cindric opened the door for William Byron to zip by and take the checkered flag. Byron’s win wasn’t a huge surprise—he’d notched 10 prior wins on the NASCAR circuit—but his backstory is unusual.…