Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion takeover bid for games developer Activision Blizzard Inc. came back from the brink after

American YouTuber FaZe Rug has released his own brand of candy designed to create a user experience for the consumer. FaZe, whose real name is Brian Awadis, launched 1UP Candy – a product designed to appeal to his mainly Gen Z audience – as an experience-driven sweet treat. The 26-year-old YouTuber has 23 million subscribers and has used his following to help launch the first product under the 1UP name. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The initial product is a sour gummy marketed as the Sour Gummy Challenge as it comes alongside a dare that can win the user money if they complete it. How do you take part in the challenge? To successfully complete it, challengers have to put three sour gummies in their mouths and suck on them for thirty seconds while keeping a straight face the entire time. If they are able to complete it and provide evidence in the form of a TikTok or Instagram post, hashtagged #1UPsourchallenge and accompanied with the Cash App information, users can be in with a chance of winning cash prizes. I Created the Worlds Sourest Candy - SOUR CHALLENGE www.youtube.com Rug explained: “When I was approached to fully engage in developing a new candy that was designed to be fun and social, I jumped all over the opportunity.” He continued: “Anyone who knows me knows I love candy, and I love challenging my family, friends and fans to experience it with me.” In a YouTube video launch, Rug tested the challenge on his friends and family, with two out of three failing and having to use the neutraliser to get rid of the sour taste from their mouths. It is recommended by the company that the challenge is avoided by people who have soft teeth, sensitive gums or gastrointestinal disorders. The co-founder of 1UP, Matt Weiss, said: “Launching 1UP Candy with an experiential sour candy challenge is the perfect way for Rug to reach through the screen — and even create connections among his viewers as they experience the candy together via social media.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

While shaky and skewered by critics, Twitter’s forum for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to announce his presidential run nevertheless underscored the platform’s unmistakable shift to the right under new owner Elon Musk

Business is booming at Boston University, which is borrowing $224 million in the municipal bond market next week.

Thousands of Reddit communities have gone dark this week in protest of upcoming API changes, which include a controversial policy that will charge some third-party apps for continued use

The world only has a tiny chance of keeping global warming below a key threshold that could cause

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 1, 2023--

New York City, Long Island and New Jersey have been hit with air-quality alerts as another plume of

Threads, Instagram’s new Twitter rival, has now hit 70 million sign-ups, parent company Meta has said. The app is now easily the fastest-growing app in the world, and has seen the fastest growth of any app ever. That position was originally held by ChatGPT, but it took a couple of months for that app to reach 100 million users. It also means that Threads is well on its way to the size of Twitter, its rival. That app had 229 million monthly active users in May 2022, according to a statement made before Elon Musk’s buyout latest last year. Meta revealed the latest sign-up numbers as it looked to highlight high-profile early adopters, including Selena Gomez, Khloe Kardashian and Lewis Hamilton. It did not reveal how many posts had been made on the site, though that is already likely to be in the hundreds of millions. Meta launched Threads – which uses Instagram branding and borrows accounts from the platform – late on Wednesday. Since then it has been growing quickly, with the number of users seemingly doubling every few hours. Dubbed as the “Twitter-Killer”, Threads was the top free app on Apple’s App Store in the UK and US on Thursday. Its arrival comes after Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Musk have traded barbs for months, even threatening to fight each other in a real-life mixed martial arts cage match in Las Vegas. “The cage match has started, and Zuckerberg delivered a major blow. In many ways, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Meta: Stellar execution and an easy-to-navigate user interface,” Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg said. Twitter responded on Thursday by threatening to sue Meta, according to the publication Semafor, citing a letter delivered to Zuckerberg by a lawyer for Twitter. Twitter was not immediately available for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the Semafor report. Meta said no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee. Numerous competitors to Twitter have sprung up following Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform last year, which was followed by a series of chaotic decisions that have alienated both users and advertisers. Musk’s latest move involved limiting the number of tweets users can read per day. Twitter’s stumbles make room for a well-funded competitor like Meta Platforms, analysts and experts said, particularly because of its access to Instagram users and its advertising strength. “Meta’s release of Threads came at the perfect time to give it a fighting chance to unseat Twitter,” said Niklas Myhr, professor of marketing at Chapman University, referring to the turmoil at Twitter after it limited the number of tweets users can see. “Threads will be off to a running start as it is built upon the Instagram platform with its massive user base and if users adopt Threads, advertisers will be following closely behind.” Other competitors have found limited success. Mastodon, another Twitter-like app, has 1.7 million monthly active users, according to its website, while Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky has about 265,000 users. Read More People are realising something really worrying about Threads Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over new ‘Threads’ app Meta responds to Musk’s threat as Threads becomes most rapidly downloaded app Musk, Zuckerberg and the chaotic fight to succeed Twitter Kim Kardashian, Rylan Clark and Dalai Lama among those joining new app Threads Threads is already more than three times bigger than every Twitter rival combined

ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots have become the go-to source for cheating in college

Madison Beer recently talked to xQc about and he asked her how she is managing her music and streaming career together

(Reuters) -Canadian media and telecom firm Bell is cutting 1,300 jobs, shuttering six radio stations and selling another three as