MapQuest hit No. 1 on the U.S. App Store on Sept. 2, 2026 after refusing to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” under a Trump Aug. 27 executive order; Sensor Tower estimates 632K U.S. downloads from Aug. 27–Sept. 1.
On Sept. 2, 2026, Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ruled Google won’t have to divest its ad business, but must change practices to help competitors. The order gave no specifics and the written ruling is sealed 14 days; it stems from the DOJ’s 2023 ad-tech antitrust case after an April 2025 illegal-conduct finding.
On Sep 2, 2026, X shifted U.S. creator payouts from Stripe to X Money for Original Content Rewards and subscriptions: instant access, no $30 minimum (previously every two weeks). X Money accounts auto-receive; Sept 7 retires the Creator Revenue Sharing Program.
Google’s September 2026 Android rollout adds five updates, led by Motion Assist (Android 17): a bubble overlay that tracks a vehicle’s motion, with auto activation, Quick Settings, and customizable shape/color/transparency. It also brings Guided Vision (Gemini + camera on Android 9+ where Gemini is available) and “remembered items” in Find Hub, optionally with photos.
Google announced a September 2026 feature drop for Android devices, introducing several updates including a tracker-free item location tool in Find Hub, a new motion sickness aid called Motion…
Mozilla rolled built-in ad blocking to Firefox iOS in September 2026, using Apple’s WebKit Content Blocker + EasyList to block third-party ads and trackers before they load (off by default). Enable it in Settings > Browsing > Ad Blocker; ads served by a site, search results, and sponsored new-tab shortcuts still show.
Indian edtech startup Unacademy has been acquired by rival upGrad in an all-stock deal valuing the company at ₹19.55 billion (approximately $206 million) — about 94% below its 2021 peak valuation of $3.44 billion. The deal closed on September 1, 2026, nearly six months after it…
Instagram announced in August 2026 that it will restrict the reach of accounts featuring AI-generated people that fail to disclose that fact, and is renaming its existing disclosure label to make the…
VideoLAN says VLC has topped 7B downloads on all platforms as of Aug 2026, about 18 months after hitting 6B in Jan 2025. President/lead dev Jean-Baptiste Kempf cites a port to Amazon’s Vega OS for TVs and ongoing work on VLC 4, plus last year’s local-model translation/subtitle tease.
Phil Schiller, one of Apple’s longest-serving executives, is stepping down from his roles overseeing the App Store and Apple events, according to a report from Bloomberg published August 31, 2026….
Google Maps began displaying “Lake America” in place of Lake Ontario for US users in late August 2026, making it the first major online maps provider to reflect President Donald Trump’s executive…
Fraudsters in China are exploiting Microsoft Teams to run romance and cryptocurrency investment scams, tricking victims into transferring large sums of money through the enterprise messaging…
