Wired

• The AI IPO Race Heats Up, DOGE Whistleblower Sues Elon Musk, and Instagram Gets Hacked

  On Uncanny Valley, we dive into the IPO bonanza that the top AI companies are embarking on to the point where some real estate listings are looking for not just regular old cash, but Anthropic stock.

• Phoebe Bridgers Ditched the Internet to Hype Up Her New Music. It’s Working

  The indie artist has played a string of surprise, small-venue shows with no phones allowed, prompting fans to piece together clues about a potential upcoming album.

• Meta Silently Added Face-Recognition Code for Its Smart Glasses to Millions of Phones

  Code reviewed by WIRED uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. It’s designed to identify people via biometric data stored on users’ phones.

• The TikTok Ban Was Never About TikTok

  A new documentary chronicles how the app became a stand-in for American anxieties about social media, China, and political power.

• Wave Cash App’s Magic Wand to Pay for Stuff

  You can tap the star-shaped, NFC-enabled wand at terminals to make contactless payments. It's the first of several tap-to-pay hardware doodads coming from Cash App.