A sound once synonymous with the internet—a screeching, crunching melody of beeps and static—will soon fade into silence. AOL, the company that brought millions online with its dial-up service, is discontinuing this relic of the digital age on September 30, 2025. Along with it, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, designed for slower connections and older systems, will also disappear.
Nintendo’s Satellaview for the Super Famicom existed around the height of America Online’s popularity in the mid-1990s, but did you know that AOL Desktop Gold still exists today? You can think of it as a modern version of the web portal many grew up using, including email and even a browser.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX secretly installed Starlink internet on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas cruise ship last month and since then, passengers have been able to use it freely with their Voom package. Why? The Federal Communications Commission recently approved SpaceX to provide Starlink satellite internet to vehicles in motion, which includes cruise ships.
If you require high-speed internet access in remote areas, then SpaceX Starlink Premium is the solution. At $500 per month, along with a $2,500 one-time hardware fee, this new Premium tier offers download speeds of 150Mbps-500Mbps at just 20ms-40ms latency, almost anywhere in the world with a clear view of the sky. Unlike the base tier, this one boasts an antenna for improved performance in extreme weather conditions as well as 24/7, prioritized support. Read more for a video and additional information.
Alphabet’s Project Taara team bridged a connectivity gap between Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These two cities are separated by the Congo River, and despite being just 4.8 kilometers apart, internet connectivity is 5-times more expensive in Kinshasa because the fiber connection has to travel more than 400 kms to route around the river.
Back in 1984, smartphones and tablets didn’t exist, so checking email wasn’t quite as easy. One BBC reporter traveled all the way to Japan to show us how people completed these tasks using an acoustic modem and a TRS-80 Model 100. The latter is basically a portable computer first introduced in 1983, and one of the first notebook-style computers equipped with a keyboard as well as liquid crystal display. Read more for the video and additional information.
For those who either weren’t around in the 1990s or just never tried them, Doritos 3D is essentially a puffed version of the chip that was discontinued in the United States in the mid-2000s. Think of them as “Doritos-meets-Bugles”, with original flavors including Jalapeño Cheddar, Nacho Cheese and Zesty Ranch. The company announced late last month that it would be making comeback on December 28th in Chili Cheese Nacho and Spicy Ranch flavors.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, better known as the Winkelvoss twins, may not have been given an ownership stake inn Facebook, but they became billionaires anyways. For those who don’t know, they officially launched ConnectU, a social networking website, on May 21, 2004, and users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. They were also placed in networks based upon the domain name associated with the email address they used for registration. As you already know, that didn’t quite work out. Read more for a recent interview on their journey.
Petz, a Brazilian pet shop chain, has decided to use facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to let dogs to buy their favorite products by simply analyzing their facial expressions. How does it work? Simply turn on your internet connected camera, put the dog’s face in frame and then allow the AI system to analyze its facial expressions as you scroll through the various products listed on the site. Once it detects excitement, it automatically adds the product to your shopping cart. Read more for a video and additional information.
