Category: 4. Technology

Instagram announced Monday that it’s finally adding the ability for users to listen to previews of songs that they’ve shared from Spotify to Stories.

While Instagram has long allowed users to share Spotify songs to their Stories, it would do so without sound, and simply provide a link to the song on the streaming platform. Now, when a user posts a song to their Story, viewers will be able to listen to a preview of the song right within Instagram.

The small, yet notable change makes it easier to share and discover music on the platform without having to leave the app.

The move comes a few weeks after the social network rolled out a similar capability for Instagram Notes. Users can now stream songs from Spotify directly to their Instagram Notes, letting their followers see and check out what kind of music they’re into in real time.

The new capabilities could help position Instagram as a hub for music discovery and, in turn, encourage people to spend more time on the app. Building out music features could also make Instagram more competitive with TikTok, which is already dominating the space and influencing music charts globally.

Instagram also announced Monday it’s rolling out new fonts this year for Stories and Reels. To start, the platform is introducing a limited-time font inspired by singer and songwriter Rosalía’s handwriting.

Users can unlock secret symbols hand-drawn by Rosalía when typing in characters such as ” 🙂 “, ***,” and “<3,” Instagram says.

June 30, 2025 (Sonoma County, CA) — Bricoleur Vineyards, the acclaimed Sonoma County estate known for its exceptional, food-driven wines, is proud to announce a new partnership with SingleThread, the three-Michelin-Star restaurant and inn located in Healdsburg. Together, the two hospitality leaders have developed an exclusive private label Viognier sourced from Bricoleur’s prized Kick Ranch vineyard in the Fountaingrove District.

Now available by the glass and bottle at SingleThread—and offered as a special amenity to guests of the Inn—the wine reflects a shared commitment to craftsmanship, hospitality and Sonoma’s terroir-driven identity. 

“This collaboration is a testament to the quality and character of Bricoleur wines,” saidSarah Citron, Co-Founder and COO of Bricoleur Vineyards. “We’re honored that SingleThread—a restaurant known globally for its precision and creativity—selected our Viognier as a wine worthy of its cellar. It speaks to the integrity of the fruit and the expressive, food-friendly style that defines Bricoleur.” 

Grown on the slopes of Kick Ranch, where warm days and cool evenings yield optimal ripeness and balance, this Viognier reveals bright notes of white peach, apricot, and citrus zest, framed by floral undertones and a crisp, refreshing finish. Its aromatic elegance and versatility make it an ideal match for SingleThread’s evolving tasting menus, which showcase micro-seasonal produce grown just miles away on the restaurant’s own farm. 

Chris McFall, Wine Director at SingleThread, shared: “The addition of Bricoleur’s Kick Ranch Viognier reflects the intentionality behind every element of the SingleThread experience. It’s a beautifully expressive wine—elegant on its own and perfectly in sync with the seasonality and nuance of our cuisine.” 

A small reserve of the private label will remain available throughout the year and will be thoughtfully integrated into SingleThread’s pairings as seasonal menus evolve. For a boutique, family-owned winery still in its first decade, inclusion on one of the world’s most esteemed wine lists marks a defining moment for Bricoleur Vineyards and its rising influence in Sonoma County and beyond. 

To learn more about the Bricoleur Vineyards wine portfolio, visit www.bricoleurvineyards.com. To book a dining experience at SingleThread, visit https://singlethreadfarms.com/restaurant/.

About Bricoleur Vineyards 
Tucked away in an expansive, stunning estate amid Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley, Bricoleur Vineyards has gained acclaim for its exceptional wines designed for food pairing. Bricoleur’s award-winning winemaking team — Tom Pierson, Cary Gott & Bob Cabral — sources grapes from its two estate properties and select heritage vineyards in Sonoma County. Bricoleur’s allure lies in its incredible terroir that grows the best grapes, herbs, edible flowers, and produce imaginable. The 40-acre estate is home to a renowned culinary program, anchored by a wine-first philosophy and led by Executive Chef Todd Knoll and Senior Sous Chef Rebeca Robinson, whose estate-to-plate menus reflect the seasonality of the land and source ingredients from the winery’s internationally acclaimed culinary gardens. As a family-owned winery, Bricoleur is dedicated to fostering a welcoming, family-friendly environment (dogs are welcome too!) and hosts numerous events throughout the year that bring the community together. Rooted in community, Bricoleur is committed to supporting breast cancer research after co-founder Sarah Citron received a diagnosis at age 32 and has since raised over $100,000 for the cause. To learn more about Bricoleur Vineyards, visit bricoleurvineyards.com. 

About SingleThread 
The first and only three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Sonoma County, a recipient of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ “Miele One to Watch” Award and ranked #46 on the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and La Liste’s rated #2 Best Restaurants in the world, SingleThread is a farm-driven restaurant and inn that offers a unique and authentic taste of the region and season. SingleThread was born out of Kyle and Katina Connaughton’s California upbringing, extensive international travels and experiences living and cooking abroad in world-renowned restaurants in the UK and Japan. Their philosophy is rooted in a wealth of Japanese principles and traditions surrounding hospitality, food culture and service while focusing on the seasons, their farm, the products of Sonoma, and the health and wellness of their guests. Together with SingleThread Co-Owner and CEO of Vertice Hospitality Management Tony Greenberg, their goal is to evoke an authentic experience of their Sonoma lifestyle which combines the art of sustainable agriculture with culinary excellence, fully integrating the farm into its hospitality spaces, with food sourcing and storytelling at the forefront.

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In our modern world driven by innovation, tech gifts are more than just trendy — they’re practical, exciting and transformative. It seems like everywhere we look these days, technology illuminates new possibilities for improving upon the status quo and broadening our horizons.

Whether you’re shopping for a gadget guru, a futuristic wellness enthusiast or a productivity fanatic, the right tech gift can strike the perfect balance between function and fun. Giftable tech runs the gamut, from mixed reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3S, fitness trackers like the Oura Ring 4 or gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2.

Check out the best tech to gift in 2025 below:

Starting at $299.99, the Meta Quest 3S is a headset designed for new users with its sleek design and intuitive controls to enter the Metaverse, an immersive and interactive shared virtual world. This makes this the perfect tech gift to give in 2025. The headset comes with two Touch Plus controllers and a free digital copy of the game “Batman: Arkham Shadow,” as well as a Meta Quest+ subscription for three months, which has a value of $23.97 (or $7.99/month) for free.

The Meta Quest 3S is the best way to enter the world of mixed reality, especially if you’re new to it, thanks to its ease of use, comfort and wide range of experiences. Learn more about Meta Quest 3S and Meta Quest+ here.

Giving the gift of an Oura Ring this year will be nothing short of life-changing. This one-of-a-kind device unlocks personalized insights into the wearer’s sleep, activity, stress, heart health and more, empowering users to prioritize wellness goals and build healthy habits that will last a lifetime. This model, Oura Ring 4, is the most accurate and comfortable version yet, letting users get seriously up close and personal with their health. If your goal for giving is to show someone how much you care about them (and their health), this gift is unbeatable.

With this new, smart Hatch Restore 2 Alarm Clock, say goodbye to grogginess and hello to restful sleep that will power a busy day. This device is designed to transform and customize a quality sleep routine, from soothing adjustable lighting and sleep sounds to sunrise alarms for gentler wake-ups and energized mornings. This is the ultimate tech gift for anyone who values quality rest, ensuring they wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the day’s to-do list.

Know a music lover who might like to take their passion into their own hands? This Pioneer DJ deck is the perfect gift to get them started mastering a new craft – it’s easy to use and will help them play like a pro! The design of this 2-channel DJ controller emulates a professional DJM-S mixer + PLX turntable setup, including specialized features for both open-format and scratch DJs. This super fun gift will allow someone to cultivate a new hobby and channel their creativity, both invaluable pursuits of life.

Got games? The Nintendo Switch 2 is top-of-the-line when it comes to versatile gaming systems. It has 3 different gaming modes — connect it to a TV for an HD big-screen experience, stand it up on a flat surface to share the screen for multiplayer gaming or hold it in your hands with controllers attached to play solo from the LCD touchscreen. These options make the Nintendo Switch 2 the ultimate ‘play from anywhere’ device. Banish boredom and gift a Nintendo Switch 2 to your favorite Player.

The Bose SoundLink Flex Portable Speaker (2nd Gen) is a gift everyone could use. With a big, bold sound in a packable size, this speaker will elevate the mood for any occasion in any location. Durable, waterproof, and dustproof, it’s made to survive the elements. Bring it to the beach, take it on a hike, or simply put it on the dining room table. This gift will keep the good tunes and good times flowing.

This award-winning Portable Monitor from Plugable is a must-have gift for someone who appreciates productivity on the go. Universally compatible with all Mac, Windows, Chrome, iPad, iPhone, and Android devices, this sleek monitor seamlessly adds extra screen space to elevate any professional setup. It’s easy to use, lightweight, and hassle-free (no driver downloads necessary); simply plug it in and get to work. Whether it’s used for remote work, travel, or multitasking, Plugable’s Portable Monitor makes the perfect companion for anyone who loves to stay efficient on the go.

was released six years ago this past Saturday. While Nintendo didn’t do a whole lot to mark the occasion, one of the game’s most dedicated players sure did. DSteves hit a remarkable milestone by becoming the first to clear 1 million SMM2 levels.

The Twitch and YouTube streamer had hoped to reach that point by the game’s sixth anniversary and got there toward the end of a . In fact, DSteves cleared 1,000 levels during that single stream.

After the 999,999th level clear, an emotional DSteves punched in the code for a custom level a player named raysfire created just for this occasion — you can try it yourself by entering the level ID QKQ-4TD-0DG. Since this is SMM2, of course there was some cheap (or should that be Cheep Cheep?) trolling from raysfire, such as a Question Block that dispensed an enemy instead of a power-up. DSteves died a couple of times while playing this level, including to Bowser fireballs that were disguised by a bunch of coins.

DSteves said on the stream it took six years and eight hours to beat 1 million SMM2 levels, and then toasted the achievement with some champagne. The vast majority of the level clears, nearly 800,000 of them, occurred in one Endless Challenge streak on Easy difficulty (just slightly more than my current streak of 581). So, DSteves didn’t exactly grind through several hundred thousand ultra-hard kaizo-style stages, but it’s still an impressive achievement.

To reach the goal, DSteves cleared an average of 456.4 levels per day. The streamer skipped more than 80,000 levels, died more than 772,000 times and hit the million mark with about 165,000 more stage clears than the player in second place (I love that SMM2 shows these stats publicly).

Despite hitting an astounding number of cleared levels, DSteves isn’t done with SMM2. The streamer was back to playing the game the following night and, at the time of writing, has now beaten 1,000,050 Super Mario Maker 2 stages.

There are a number of iPad apps that can help you explore and express your creativity. Although the iPad started off as a simple device that could be used to stream content or browse the web on the go, Apple has essentially turned its iPads into powerful machines that can be used to do things like create digital art and edit videos.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best iPad apps for creativity that are available on the App Store. 

Before we get into the list, it’s worth noting that although Adobe’s creative apps are often top choices for creativity on the iPad, this list won’t include them because they are already quite well-known. The list will instead focus on somewhat lesser-known apps.

Procreate

Procreate is one of the most popular drawing apps for the iPad, and for good reason. The app lets you create digital paintings, sketches, and illustrations using dozens of different types of brushes. Procreate is easy to use and features built-in gesture controls, along with a simple interface. 

The app allows for high-resolution canvases up to 16K by 8K on compatible iPad Pros. It also lets you create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations. Plus, you can import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF. Procreate includes several features that are designed to help you during the creative process on your iPad, such as QuickShape, StreamLine, Drawing Assist, and ColorDrop.

Once you’re finished creating your piece, you can relive your creative journey with the app’s time-lapse “Replay” feature and share a 30-second time-lapse video on social media. 

You can access Procreate with a one-time payment of $12.99.

LumaFusion

LumaFusion is a great app for editing videos if you’re ready to graduate from iMovie. The app features numerous user-friendly features that make it perfect for aspiring videographers or indie filmmakers on a budget. 

With LumaFusion, you can create multiple layer edits with 4K ProRes and HDR media. You can add different effects, choose from dozens of transitions, and record voice-overs. The app lets you create multilayer titles and import fonts and graphics. Plus, you can fine-tune audio with Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Voice isolation, and more. 

The app lets you create projects with a variety of aspect ratios, including 16:9 landscape, 9:16 portrait, square, widescreen film, anamorphic, and more. 

LumaFusion is available for a one-time payment of $29.99. You can also purchase additional features, such as multicam editing and the ability to send your project to Final Cut Pro for Mac. 

Canva

Canva offers a user-friendly platform that allows anyone to create visual content, even without graphic design experience. You can use it to create presentations, infographics, videos, websites, social media posts, and more with over 250,000 templates.

Canva features tools for editing photos, personalizing content with logos and images, adding audio, and cropping and speeding up video. 

The platform also has a series of AI features that are designed to make the creation process easier. For instance, you can extend an image using “Magic Switch” or turn ideas into images with “Magic Media.”

Canva is free but offers a $12.99 monthly subscription if you want unlimited access to its AI features, premium templates, and more. 

Affinity Designer 2

Affinity Designer 2 is a graphic design app that combines vector design, pixel-based textures, and retouching into a single platform. It’s great for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives. 

The app lets you create illustrations, branding, logos, icons, UI/UX designs, typography, posters, labels, fliers, stickers, concept art, digital art, and more. It supports Apple Pencil’s precision, pressure sensitivity, and tilt functionality.

Affinity Designer 2 features gesture controls to speed up your workflow, and it lets you customize keyboard shortcuts. You can also do things like create your own custom font and zoom to over 1,000,000% for absolute precision. 

You can access the app through a one-time payment of $18.49. 

Concepts

Concepts is a great app for exploring your ideas and experimenting with designs. You can use the app to sketch plans, make notes and mindmaps, and draw storyboards and designs. 

The app features Nudge, Slice, and Select tools that allow you to easily change any element of your sketch without redrawing it. The app features realistic pens, pencils, and brushes that flow with pressure and tilt. 

Concepts gives you access to scale and measurement tools that calculate real-world dimensions, and also features a tool wheel or bar that you can personalize to your liking. 

The app’s basic features are free. Concepts offers a $4.99 monthly subscription if you want access to additional features, such as the ability to create your own brushes and premium editing tools.

Tayasui Sketches

Tayasui Sketches is a good, user-friendly sketching and drawing app. It has several different features such as a realistic watercolor brush, digital acrylic brushes, the ability to blend two colors to get the perfect shade, gradient and depth tools, and more.

The app lets you multitask by opening up another app and dragging lawyers and documents between the two. There’s also a “Zen Mode” that lets you create without distractions.

You can also upload your images to incorporate them into your creations. Tayasui Sketches lets you store your creations into personalized folders.

Tayasui Sketches’s basic features are free. The app offers a $2.99 monthly subscription that unlocks unlimited layers, new brushes and markers, an extended brush editor, the ability to backup your drawings, and more.

This story originally published in December 2024 and is updated regularly with new information.

Those of you who use Microsoft Authenticator as a password manager will have to find another option, and soon. That’s because an upcoming change will pull the plug on the ability to use the Authenticator app to store and autofill passwords.

In a recent support document, Microsoft revealed the timeline for Authenticator’s retirement as a password manager. Starting in June, you’ll no longer be able to add or import new passwords in the app, though you’ll still be able to save passwords through the autofill option. Beginning in July, you’ll no longer be able to autofill passwords with Authenticator. Come August, any passwords you’ve saved in the app will no longer be accessible.

Also: 10 passkey survival tips: Prepare for your passwordless future now

Microsoft Authenticator isn’t going away. You’ll still be able to use it for its primary purpose, namely to generate and display multi-factor authentication codes for logging in to secure websites. But its sideline as a password manager will come to an end.

OK, but what should you do if you’ve been saving and using passwords in the app?

Microsoft offers a few suggestions. Your stored passwords are synced to your Microsoft account, which means you can still use them elsewhere. For that, you can turn to Microsoft Edge. In its support document, the company explains how to use Edge to autofill saved passwords. At the same time, you can use this opportunity to review your saved passwords to remove any you no longer need or want.

But Microsoft would really prefer that you start to renounce the dreaded password and move to the more evolved passkey. If you’ve already set up passkeys for your Microsoft account, Authenticator can serve as your passkey provider. If not, now might be the time to make the switch.

There’s a reason we all hate passwords. They’re hard to create and remember, vulnerable to cyberattacks and security threats, and challenging to juggle even with a password manager. In contrast, passkeys offer a more convenient and secure alternative. Authenticating yourself with a passkey requires a PIN, facial scan, fingerprint recognition, or physical security key, all of which are more robust methods than a password.

The main drawback of passkeys is that they can be difficult to sync across multiple devices, especially between a PC and a mobile device. However, using a central repository, such as Microsoft Authenticator, can help with that obstacle.

Also: The best password managers: Expert tested

The Microsoft document on “Register passkeys in Authenticator on Android or iOS devices” explains how to set up the Authenticator app to create passkeys for any supported account. Of course, you can use other programs to generate passkeys. I use my password manager to store passkeys for different sites and accounts, and the process is quick and easy. Plus, since I use my password manager on all my devices — PCs, mobile phones, and tablets — I can access the same passkeys everywhere.

With the deadline looming for Microsoft Authenticator’s retirement as a password manager, now is as good a time as any to start migrating to passkeys.

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For a better way to stream from your laptop or attend online courses, meetings and interviews, a webcam is ideal. Today’s webcams have better color, AI features and even 4K resolution support, so you always have a clear video feed. And we’ve spotted the Insta360 Link 2 webcam bundle for just $150 at Amazon — that’s $50 cheaper — just ahead of this year’s major summer shopping events (Fourth of July and Prime Day). This price also represents a new low for this bundle.

The Insta360 Link 2 webcam is compatible with PC and Mac devices and requires a simple USB-C connection.

The Insta360 Link 2 webcam has AI algorithms that cancel ambient noises for clear sound and fewer distractions, which is perfect for online teaching, presentations and streaming. It focuses on you so that anyone in your online meetings or hangs gets crisp video, thanks to Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF).

Insta360’s Link 2 has three modes for optimal lighting and focus: whiteboard, desk view and portrait mode. Need more privacy? You can blur or change your background — which is especially handy for parents who don’t want toys or clutter to distract viewers. This bundle includes the webcam, a USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, a magnetic mount and four recognition markers.

On the lookout for a webcam but aren’t sure if this deal is for you? Check out our list of the best gear for online classes or meetings, where we’ve curated multiple webcams and accessories. We’re also keeping up with Fourth of July and upcoming Prime Day deals across all categories, so check back with us.

Why this deal matters

This Insta360 Link 2 webcam offers 4K resolution, clear images and distraction-free sound-canceling AI algorithms that can reduce extraneous noise while presenting or streaming. Plus, this bundle includes a USB-C cable, adapter and magnetic gimbal so you can start using it right away. At a massive $50 off, this deal is perfect for streamers, instructors and people who want to stand out during professional video calls.