You unlock your phone to glance at the time or read a brief message. Suddenly, an hour slips away while you find yourself immersed in a continuous stream of celebrity gossip, amusing cat clips, terrible news items, influencer rants, and whatever else the algorithm has deemed appropriate for you.

Despite likely wishing to stop squandering your time and energy on this tedious content, you inevitably repeat the cycle the following day.

Doomscrolling, characterized by the excessive consumption of content via social media, is rampant. A survey conducted last year revealed that 64% of Americans admit to participating in doomscrolling. 

Experts have cautioned that doomscrolling can adversely impact various aspects of your well-being, such as your mental health and ability to concentrate. Prolonged scrolling can result in mental exhaustion, trouble focusing, and disrupted sleep patterns. If much of the content you’re viewing is negative or upsetting, it may leave you feeling demoralized, anxious, and emotionally depleted. 

Breaking the doomscrolling habit can be challenging, but numerous apps offer engaging and constructive content.

Of course, you could always opt to read a book or take a stroll (we have a guide on ceasing doomscrolling), but this list caters to those moments when you find yourself with a few free minutes and seek an alternative to endless scrolling on your phone. 

Dudel Draw

If you’re looking to take a breather from doomscrolling and explore something creative, Dudel Draw could be an app worth trying. Every day, it presents a random shape for you to transform into a drawing. These daily shapes range from simple geometric figures to more intricate and abstract forms.

You can also get your friends involved in the creativity by comparing your different artworks, which provides a pleasant diversion from sending each other countless TikToks or Instagram Reels.

Dudel Draw is available free of charge on iOS.

Radio Garden

For those who still want to stay connected to the world without scrolling through social media, consider using Radio Garden. This app provides access to over 25,000 live radio stations from around the world. 

Upon launching the app, you’ll encounter green markers indicating cities and towns. Tap on any marker to tune into radio stations broadcasting from that area. You can save favorites or search for radio stations, countries, and locations. 

Radio Garden is free to use, with an optional ad-free premium subscription available for $2.99 per month. It’s accessible on both iOS and Android. 

Elevate

Elevate is an app meant to enhance your focus, memory, reading, math skills, and overall cognitive functions. It offers more than 40 games designed to train various abilities you utilize daily, from accelerating your reading to efficiently comparing prices. 

You can monitor your training streaks and evaluate your cognitive performance over time. 

The app provides a free version which allows access to three games daily, or a yearly subscription priced at $39.99 for unlimited access. It’s available on iOS and Android. 

Vocabulary 

Vocabulary is an application that assists you in learning new words each day. You can select your difficulty level and choose categories that pique your interest, such as emotions, the human body, business, and more. Each entry includes a definition, illustrative sentences, and a pronunciation guide. 

The app also features mini-games to reinforce the words you’ve acquired. You can set weekly goals for how many words you wish to learn and establish a steady learning regimen. 

Vocabulary provides a free trial, followed by a cost of $4.99 per month or $59.99 annually. It is accessible on both iOS and Android. 

Seterra

If you’re an aficionado of geography eager to challenge your knowledge or simply want to enhance your geographic understanding, Seterra is the app for you. It includes over 300 games designed to test your mapping expertise. You can explore world flags, investigate oceans, seas, and rivers, and learn about mountain ranges and volcanoes across the planet.

Seterra allows you to monitor your advancement in various categories and view leaderboards for top performers in each game. 

The app is free and compatible with both iOS and Android. 

NYT Games

The NYT Games app provides a variety of word, logic, and number games that rotate daily to engage your mind. You can tackle the crossword puzzle, try your hand at the word-guessing game Wordle, group related words in Connections, and discover how many words you can form from seven letters in Spelling Bee, among others. 

The app charges $5.99 per month for unlimited access and archives, although some games, like Wordle, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, can be enjoyed for free. 

NYT Games is available on both iOS and Android. 

Drops

If you’re eager to learn a new language but prefer an alternative to Duolingo, Drops presents a viable choice. The app employs visually stimulating mini-games to assist you in acquiring vocabulary and essential phrases in over 45 languages, featuring bite-sized lessons meant to be completed in around five minutes daily.

Drops caters to both novices and seasoned learners aiming to enhance their foreign language vocabulary.

The free version allows for five-minute lessons each day. For unlimited access and premium features, you can subscribe for $11.99 per month or $79.99 per year. The app is available on both iOS and Android.

This article was initially published in March 2026 and receives regular updates with fresh information.

As Apple strives to maintain its competitive edge in AI while dealing with tariffs and uncertainties in the supply chain, the company’s trajectory is set to change with new leadership.

On Monday, Apple revealed that John Ternus will step in as CEO later this year, succeeding Tim Cook.

Cook has turned Apple into a $4 trillion multinational giant, broadened its services sector, and led the company through some of the most profitable times in tech history. Ternus offers a different expertise. A veteran in hardware, he has dedicated his career to developing Apple’s devices rather than overseeing the entire business.

Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001, climbed the ladder within hardware engineering. Throughout his career, he has played a role in the development of some of the company’s most significant products, like AirPods, the Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.

His promotion indicates a renewed emphasis on hardware at a time when Apple faces pressure to define its forthcoming era. Ternus is now set to help shape that vision.

Hardware with AI at the forefront

Instead of directly competing with firms creating the largest AI models, Ternus might steer Apple toward concentrating on the AI-infused devices themselves, whether they are handheld, wearable, or integrated into home environments.

There is already considerable speculation about Apple’s next potential launches. Concepts being discussed include smart glasses, a wearable pendant equipped with a camera, and even AirPods featuring AI capabilities. According to Bloomberg, the vision is that all these devices would interact with the iPhone, with Siri taking on a crucial role.

Ternus is anticipated to propel products that have been in a state of uncertainty. Foldable iPhones are a prime example. They have been rumored for years, and while rivals have progressed, Apple has adopted a more cautious approach, waiting for the technology to meet its standards. Reports indicate it will launch in September, placing Ternus in charge of this rollout.

Apple has also been investigating robotics, especially for home applications. One idea includes a tabletop unit with a robotic arm linked to a display, functioning as a smart assistant that can orient and move towards you. This aligns with Ternus’s long-held fascination with robotics. During college, he created a device enabling quadriplegics to control a mechanical feeding arm using head movements, as reported by the New York Times.

There are also proposals for mobile robots that could accompany you, perform simple tasks, or serve as a moving FaceTime screen. Some reports even refer to trials with humanoid robots, though those are likely still years away.

While none of these plans are guaranteed to materialize, they provide a clear insight into Apple’s potential direction.

Nevertheless, ongoing shortages in memory chips, President Trump’s frequently changing tariff regulations, and the company’s dependency on Chinese manufacturing could pose significant challenges ahead. Approximately 80% of iPhones were made in China prior to the tariffs. Recently, the company has shifted to India, producing about 25% of its iPhones in that region last year, according to Bloomberg.

Snabbit, a startup from India providing instant household assistance, is nearing a fresh funding round that estimates its valuation at approximately $400 million, as reported by TechCrunch, with Susquehanna Venture Capital leading the investment.

The startup, located in Bengaluru, is reportedly negotiating to raise about $50 million in this round, as disclosed by three sources familiar with the situation. One source indicated that the total might exceed $55 million due to high investor interest, potentially leading to a larger raise than initially anticipated.

The funding round is expected to see participation from Mirae Asset, FJ Labs, along with existing stakeholders such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bertelsmann India Investments, according to the sources who spoke to TechCrunch. This would represent a substantial increase from the $180 million valuation when Snabbit secured $30 million in October 2025. An announcement regarding the deal could be made as soon as next week.

Established in 2024, Snabbit provides connections between households and on-demand domestic assistance for tasks like cleaning, dishwashing, laundry, and other chores, ensuring quick service delivery via a managed network of workers. Prior to this funding round, the startup amassed a total of $55 million in funding.

This fundraising effort emerges amid a surge of interest from investors in Indian instant household services. Competing company Pronto is wrapping up a funding round led by tech investor Lachy Groom at an estimated $200 million valuation. Urban Company, a prominent competitor in this market, announced that its instant home services crossed over one million bookings in March.

The increasing demand can be attributed to India’s youthful, urban workforce, which has become accustomed to ordering on-demand services like groceries through mobile applications.

Aayush Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Snabbit, stated in a recent LinkedIn update that the firm completed more than one million tasks in March alone. Previously, he mentioned to TechCrunch that the platform handled over 10,000 daily tasks and accumulated more than 300,000 total orders by October.

At that point, the startup was collaborating with approximately 5,000 professionals on its platform, all of whom were women, he mentioned.

Neither Snabbit nor its investors responded to inquiries for commentary.

Silicon Valley often overlooks a degree of founder embellishment when approaching investors, frequently viewing it as a component of promoting a vision. However, certain actions can overstep boundaries and result in incarceration for founders and scandal for their backers.

A notable example is Joseph Sanberg, whose previously successful fintech venture Aspiration Partners received backing from a lineup of tech luminaries, including former Microsoft CEO and present Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. In August 2025, Sanberg admitted guilt to two charges of wire fraud and deceiving several investors and lenders, as reported by the U.S. Department of Justice. Each charge carries a potential maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Prior to sentencing, set for Monday, victims were given the opportunity to share their experiences with Sanberg in court. Ballmer did so publicly. In a letter, Ballmer’s lawyers indicated that he has incurred financial losses, faced public scorn, and that the NBA is probing into claims arising from the relationship.

Sanberg co-established the eco-friendly fintech company Aspiration Partners, which provided what it described as sustainable banking services such as credit cards and investment options that steered clear of fossil fuels. The company pledged to “automatically plant trees with every card purchase.” In 2021, it declared intentions to go public through a SPAC merger valued at $2.3 billion, although that transaction ultimately did not occur.

The DOJ asserted that Aspiration booked and recognized revenue from entities owned by Sanberg, who misrepresented the firm as having a consistent influx of clients and income that it lacked. The department further claimed he misled investors by presenting a forged letter from Aspiration’s audit committee indicating that the company had $250 million in cash and equivalents when it possessed less than $1 million. Additionally, the DOJ alleged that Sanberg, along with a board member who also accepted guilt, manipulated financial records to secure $145 million in loans.

When Ballmer posted his letter on X, requesting the judge to factor in the damage done to him during sentencing, he stated, “I was deceived and feel foolish about that. Everyone who had faith in Aspiration, including employees, customers, and investors, was similarly misled. The tally of losses continues.”

Five years ago, I invested in Aspiration, a company focused on environmental sustainability, a cause deeply important to me and my family. I also bought carbon credits and trees through the company to reduce the carbon footprint of the Clippers, Intuit Dome, the Kia Forum and all…

— Steve Ballmer (@Steven_Ballmer) April 23, 2026

The letter reveals that Ballmer invested a total of $60 million in Aspiration, losing all of it. Not only was Ballmer an investor, but he had also engaged Aspiration to deliver carbon-offsetting initiatives for the Clippers and its arena. Furthermore, Aspiration became a prominent sponsor for the Clippers.

The billionaire conveyed in the letter that not only did he suffer financial losses, but his reputation was adversely impacted. He utilized the letter to counter claims made in a multipart series from the well-known sports podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out, which explored the connection between the Clippers and Aspiration. The podcast alleged that Aspiration assisted in circumventing the salary cap for a star Clippers player. Ballmer’s lawyers dismissed those claims as “misapprehension or intentional disregard of the facts,” in the letter.

Additionally, Ballmer’s letter indicated that due to his association with this company, the podcast, and other public scrutiny, he has been implicated in lawsuits. Meanwhile, the NBA stated in a separate letter concerning Sanberg’s sentencing that it is investigating the salary cap claims and that Sanberg has been providing evidence, according to ESPN.

As the basketball community grapples with these subsequent developments, the clear takeaway for founders is evident: If one fabricates financial documents to raise capital, incarceration is a highly likely outcome.

The Ballmer Group did not respond to our request for reflection.

Series, a social networking application, has revealed that it has secured $5.1 million in a pre-seed funding round, with notable investors such as Venmo co-founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Pear VC, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and GPTZero founder Edward Tian participating. The startup was established early last year by Yale students Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, who are both currently seniors at the institution. 

Series positions itself as a cutting-edge social networking platform rather than an AI application, and it claims to be among the pioneers in operating entirely via iMessage, as stated by CEO Johnson in an interview with TechCrunch.

Users can send a text to a phone number (Series AI) on iMessage, describing their identity and whom they wish to connect with. Subsequently, Series AI responds to the user with “shares”— a carousel containing 10 images that users can effortlessly swipe through — showcasing posts from others who are also utilizing Series AI for similar purposes. Each carousel card features a person’s photo along with their request, and users can press and hold the carousel image to initiate a private discussion with another user in the Series AI chat, all without disclosing their personal phone number. 

Johnson, who is pursuing studies in computer science and economics, is founding a company during a distinctive moment in technology history, characterized by swift AI progress and unprecedented levels of investment. He is part of a new generation of young entrepreneurs whose ventures and perspectives are AI-centric from the outset, a factor that investors believe gives these young founders an advantage over existing players and older entrepreneurs adapting to new trends. 

He observes a significant transformation in the industry from traditional user interfaces to conversational interfaces, similar to the shift from Google search to ChatGPT, “where you shift from browsing through libraries and clicking on websites to engaging with AI or other entities to quickly pinpoint what you’re after.” 

Johnson and Hargrow crossed paths while collaborating on a podcast during their freshman year at the Yale Entrepreneurial Society. Johnson mentioned that they would interview founders and CEOs to extract valuable lessons for building a successful enterprise, and through these dialogues, “realized the value of warm connections.” 

“We then took a step forward during our freshman summer to launch a business independent of the club and formalized a company rooted in that same concept, leveraging AI as a facilitator for warm connections,” Johnson stated. He and Hargrow, who majored in neuroscience at Yale, experimented with various iterations before arriving at what is now Series. Following a year post their initial prototype, they initiated fundraising in March 2025 while assembling a team of eight along the way. 

Johnson and his team opted to create a now-viral LinkedIn video to announce the launch of Series. “We devised the trailer concept at 1 a.m. the night prior, stayed up all night filming the video, and posted it at 3 p.m. on the same day,” Johnson recounted. Within two days, they were able to meet their inaugural investor.

The platform has recently expanded its reach beyond just college students but continues to focus on Gen Z and professionals. Most users engage with it for business purposes, according to Johnson, although they have noticed some utilizing it for dating or friendship. “Students are using Series on over 750 campuses,” he stated. “Active users on Series have an 82% retention rate through Day 30, surpassing early Facebook’s metrics.” 

Competitors in this sector include Boardy AI, which similarly harnesses AI to cultivate networking introductions.

The new funding will be directed towards recruiting additional engineers and enhancing product features. After graduation, the startup plans to remain on the East Coast and is already operating from an office in Chelsea, New York (they frequently commute two hours from New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located, to New York, according to Johnson).

“We have established an initial network for Series among the Ivy League and particularly at schools along the East Coast. Additionally, we firmly believe in the potential of Silicon Alley,” Johnson explained regarding the choice to stay on the East Coast, which aligns with the trend of young consumer entrepreneurs favoring New York over Silicon Valley. 

Notably, both he and Hargrow have chosen not to drop out of college. Johnson remarked that a good day is characterized by everything running smoothly, while a challenging day can involve numerous exams and essays to complete, all while managing a team. He decided against dropping out, believing he had sufficient time to balance his studies with running a business. He appears to have made the right choice.

“Your additional time outside of your expected obligations can be leveraged to propel you towards your true calling,” he stated. “People are often too apprehensive to make the most of their extra time.” 

Weiyao Wang dedicated eight years to Meta — his inaugural position after college — assisting in the development of multimodal perception frameworks and taking part in open-world segmentation initiatives, including SAM3D. His last day at Meta occurred last week, and he has now transitioned to Thinking Machines Lab (TML).

Wang’s transition to TML coincides with the AI startup’s expansion across various sectors. It recently secured a multibillion-dollar cloud agreement with Google, granting it access to Nvidia’s newest GB300 chips and positioning it as one of the initial startups to utilize this hardware.

The contract, revealed this past Tuesday at Google Cloud Next, follows a prior collaboration with Nvidia, placing TML alongside Anthropic and Meta in the equivalent infrastructure category. (Meta reportedly considered acquiring Thinking Machines around the same time last year and has recently been recruiting TML’s founders individually.)

The landscape of talent is shifting. Wang and Kenneth Li — a Harvard PhD who spent 10 months at Meta before joining TML this month — exemplify a two-way talent exchange. Business Insider indicated last week that Meta has now recruited seven of TML’s founding members. An examination of recent hires suggests Thinking Machines is also actively recruiting from Meta. Based on a review of LinkedIn profiles, TML seems to have attracted more researchers from Meta than from any other single organization.

Among the most notable is Soumith Chintala, TML’s CTO, who spent 11 years at Meta and co-founded PyTorch, the widely-used open source deep learning framework that forms the foundation for much of today’s AI research. He departed Meta in late 2025 and took on the CTO role earlier this year. Piotr Dollár, another 11-year veteran of Meta who served as research director and co-authored the seminal Segment Anything model, is now part of TML’s technical team. Andrea Madotto, a research scientist in Meta’s FAIR division with a focus on multimodal language models, joined TML in December. James Sun, a software engineer with almost nine years at Meta concentrating on LLM pre- and post-training, also made the switch.

TML has also recruited talent from outside Meta. Neal Wu — a three-time gold medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics and a founding member of the popular coding startup Cognition — came on board earlier this year. Jeffrey Tao transitioned from Waymo, Windsurf, and OpenAI. Muhammad Maaz previously held a research fellowship at Anthropic. Erik Wijmans joined from Apple. Liliang Ren spent two and a half years with Microsoft’s AI Superintelligence group pre-training OpenAI models for code before coming on board in March.

The startup currently employs around 140 people.

Meta’s compensation packages — reaching seven figures without conditions — are now widely recognized. For researchers assessing their alternatives, the equation might be straightforward: Thinking Machines Lab is presently valued at $12 billion. While this amount may seem extraordinary for a company at this stage during any prior tech cycle (having launched only one product thus far), in comparison to the record valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic, the financial potential remains substantial.

Contacted on Friday morning, a representative from TML opted not to provide comments for this article.

X-energy’s shares surged today as they made their debut on the Nasdaq, starting at $30.11 and closing at $29.20, reflecting a 27% increase from its initial public offering price of $23 per share.

It seems investors are eager for nuclear energy. The opening share price had already been adjusted upwards from the $16 to $19 range suggested by the company during its investor presentation. By market close, the company was valued at $11.5 billion.

Just five years ago, such enthusiasm for a nuclear startup would have taken many by surprise. 

At that time, the nuclear sector was plagued by project delays and significant cost overruns at recently finished reactors. Two power plants were completed in Georgia—one in the late 2010s and another in the early 2020s. The total investment was around $30 billion.

Nuclear startups in the early 2020s were just beginning to emerge, and at least one leading contender faced considerable regulatory hurdles, raising concerns that the industry was still struggling with its past issues.

Now, investors seem hopeful that X-energy and its competitors have discovered solutions to these challenges.

Much of the enthusiasm can be linked to the AI-powered data center surge. GPUs require vast amounts of electricity, and while solar, wind, batteries, and natural gas have been fulfilling current needs, technology firms are looking to diversify their energy sources. Nuclear energy is among the multiple options they are investigating, believing that its compact design could perfectly accommodate their expansive data centers.

Historically, nuclear power has had greater potential to supply the U.S. grid than it has realized. Currently, around 18% of the nation’s electricity comes from nuclear energy. However, reactor expenses have escalated in recent decades. While nuclear energy stands as one of the most dependable electricity sources in the U.S., it is also among the priciest.

X-energy’s 80-megawatt reactor design is significantly smaller than many existing nuclear power facilities. The company is banking on modularity to reduce costs, and data center operators are optimistic that a single site could be supplied by a array of reactors, offering the redundancy and stability they value. Amazon has announced plans to purchase up to 5 gigawatts of capacity from X-energy in the next decade or so, while chemical producer Dow will be the recipient of the startup’s initial power plant. 

Construction is currently in progress at X-energy’s fuel facility, and while the company has not yet broken ground on a power plant, investors appear confident that it will succeed in freeing nuclear energy from its prolonged stagnation.