https://www.theverge.com/news/617534/ios-18-4-developer-beta-default-navigation-news-plus-food

https://www.theverge.com/24040543/eu-dma-digital-markets-act-big-tech-antitrust

“Bouncing” winds

Damage sustained by the Chevron Building Auditorium during the derecho: a) damaged side of the building, b) global damage view, c) & d) localized glass damage.

Elawady decided to investigate why the Houston derecho’s structural damage was so much more extensive than one might expect. He and his colleagues analyzed the impact of the derecho on five of the city’s most notable buildings: The Chevron Building Auditorium, the CenterPoint Energy Plaza, the El Paso Energy Building, the RRI Energy Plaza, and the Wedge International Tower.

The Chevron Building Auditorium, for instance, suffered significant damage to its cladding and shattered glass windows, mostly on the side facing another skyscraper: the Chevron Corporation Tower. The CenterPoint Energy Plaza’s damage to its double-skin facade was concentrated on one corner that had two tall buildings facing it, as was the damage to two corners of the El Paso Energy building. This suggested a wind-channeling effect might have played a role in that damage.

Next Elawady et al. conducted wind tunnel experiments at the FIU Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure’s “Wall of Wind” facility to determine how the winds may have specifically caused the observed damage. They placed a revolving miniature tall building in the tunnel and blasted it with wind speeds of up to 70 meters per second while placing an identical mini-model at increasing distances from the first to mimic possible interference from nearby buildings.

The results confirmed the team’s working hypothesis. “When strong winds move through a city, they can bounce due to interference between tall buildings. This increases pressure on walls and windows, making damage more severe than if the buildings were isolated,” said co-author Omar Metwally, a graduate student at FIU. For example, in the case of the Chevron Building Auditorium, the channeling effects intensified the damage, particularly at higher elevations.

“On top of this, downbursts create intense, localized forces which can exceed typical design values for hurricanes, especially on the lower floors of tall buildings,” Metwally added. The problem is only likely to worsen because of accelerating climate change. Glass facades seem to be particularly vulnerable to this kind of wind damage, and the authors suggest current design and construction guidelines for such elements should be re-evaluated as a result of their findings.

Frontiers in Built Environment, 2025. DOI: 10.3389/fbuil.2024.1514523  (About DOIs).

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/02/why-houstons-2024-derecho-did-more-damage-than-hurricane-beryl/

Hostinger announced a new service called Hostinger Horizons that allows anyone to build interactive online apps (like an AI-based website builder) without having to code or hire programmers. The new service allows users to turn their ideas into web applications by prompting an AI to create it.

AI Democratizes Entrepreneurship

In the early days of the Internet it seemed like people with backgrounds from Stanford University and Harvard Business School had access to the resources and connections necessary to turn ideas into functioning web apps. Over time, platforms like WordPress lowered the barrier to entry for starting and running online businesses, enabling virtually anyone to compete toe to toe with bigger brands. But there was still one last barrier and that was the ability to create web apps, the functionalities that power the biggest ideas on the Internet. Hostinger Horizons lowers that barrier, enabling anyone to turn their idea into a working app and putting entrepreneurial success within reach of anyone with a good idea. The significance of this cannot be overstated.

AI Powered Web App Builder

Hostinger Horizons is an AI-powered no-code platform created specifically for individuals and small businesses that enables them to create and publish interactive web applications without having to use third-party integrations or requiring programming knowledge.

The new platform works through an AI chat interface that creates what users are asking for while also showing a preview of the web app. A user basically prompts what they want, makes feature requests, tells it what to change and preview the results in real-time.

Hostinger Horizons speeds up the time it takes to create and deploy a functioning web app. Hosting and all other necessary services are integrated into the service, which simplifies creating web apps because there’s no need for third party services and APIs. Once an app is created an online a user can still return to it, edit and improve it in minutes. It promises to be a solution for fast prototyping without the technical and investment barriers that are typically associated with translating a good idea to deployment on the web.

The Hostinger announcement noted that simple web apps only takes minutes to create:

“Early access trials show that simple web apps, such as a personal calorie tracker, a language-learning card game, or a time management tool, can be built and published in minutes.”​

How Hostinger Horizons Works

The new service combines AI-powered chat, with real-time previews and the ability to instantly publish the app to the web.

Hostinger provides all the necessary elements to get the work done:

• Domain name registration
• Email services
• Multilingual support (80+ languages)
• Supports image uploads
• Supports user-provided sketches and screenshots
• Voice prompting
• Web hosting

Giedrius Zakaitis, Hostinger Chief Product and Technology Officer, offered these insights:

“Web apps have turned ideas into million-dollar startups, but building one always required coding or hiring a developer. We believe it is time to change the game. Just like Hostinger AI Website Builder introduced a new kind of site-building experience, Hostinger Horizons will democratize web apps so that anyone can bring their unique and exciting ideas online…”

Hostinger Horizons is an AI-powered no-code platform that is specifically designed to enable individuals and small businesses to build and publish fully functional web apps with no coding experience or external integrations needed. Users can just prompt what they want through an AI chat interface with real-time previews. It even allows uploading screenshots and sketches.

Hostinger Horizons promises to dramatically simplify the process of turning an idea into a working business by bundling hosting, domain registration, and email services into one solution.

Four reasons that make this a breakthrough service:

1. Rapid Prototyping: Create, modify, and deploy interactive apps in real-time, including rapid revisions after the app is published.
2. Integrated Services: Hosting and other essential tools are built in, eliminating reliance on third-party providers.
3. Democratized Development: Hostinger Horizons enables anyone to turn their ideas into an online business without technical barriers.
4. Supports 80+ languages

Creating Complex Websites With AI

What can you do with Hostinger Horizons? It seems like the right question to ask is what can’t you do with it. I asked Hostinger if the following applications of the technology was possible and they affirmed that the short answer is yes but that some of the ideas that I suggested may not be 100% straightforward to implement but that they were indeed possible to create.

Money makes the web run and I think applications that many would be interested in are ways to interactively engage users by enabling them to accomplish goals, capture leads, product comparison, improved shopping experiences and follow-up emails.

Since Hostinger Horizons handles hosting, domain registration, and email in a single platform, entrepreneurs and businesses can build these kinds of web pages by describing it to the AI chat interface, iteratively improving it and then publishing the finished project when it’s ready.

This could be useful to a restaurant, a law office, or a product review site, for example. Here are examples of the kinds of things I’d like to see it do.

Restaurant:

• Reservation & Loyalty App
  Allows users to sign up and reserve tables and receive follow up reminders and offers.
• Interactive Menu Explorer
  Can enable users to browse a menu according to dietary preferences and capture contact information for special offers.

Legal Office

Could be used to generate questionnaires and streamline the intake.

Product Reviews

• Can encourage users to provide their requirements and preferences and then generate a summary of product reviews with quick links to where to purchase them.
• Interactive Comparison Tools with links to where to purchase

Read more:

Prompt, refine, go live: We are set to disrupt the web app market with a fully integrated no-code solution — Hostinger Horizons

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/hostinger-horizons-ai-web-app-development/540268/

https://www.theverge.com/news/617014/federal-workers-we-the-builders-website-doge

Elon Musk apparently no longer believes that crowdsourcing fact-checking through Community Notes can never be manipulated and is, thus, the best way to correct bad posts on his social media platform X.

Community Notes are supposed to be added to posts to limit misinformation spread after a broad consensus is reached among X users with diverse viewpoints on what corrections are needed. But Musk now claims a “fix” is needed to prevent supposedly outside influencers from allegedly gaming the system.

“Unfortunately, @CommunityNotes is increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media,” Musk wrote on X. “Working to fix this.”

Musk’s announcement came after Community Notes were added to X posts discussing a poll generating favorable ratings for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That poll was conducted by a private Ukrainian company in partnership with a state university whose supervisory board was appointed by the Ukrainian government, creating what Musk seems to view as a conflict of interest.

Although other independent polling recently documented a similar increase in Zelenskyy’s approval rating, NBC News reported, the specific poll cited in X notes contradicted Donald Trump’s claim that Zelenskyy is unpopular, and Musk seemed to expect X notes should instead be providing context to defend Trump’s viewpoint. Musk even suggested that by pointing to the supposedly government-linked poll in Community Notes, X users were spreading misinformation.

“It should be utterly obvious that a Zelensky[y]-controlled poll about his OWN approval is not credible!!” Musk wrote on X.

Musk’s attack on Community Notes is somewhat surprising. Although he has always maintained that Community Notes aren’t “perfect,” he has defended Community Notes through multiple European Union probes challenging their effectiveness and declared that the goal of the crowdsourcing effort was to make X “by far the best source of truth on Earth.” At CES 2025, X CEO Linda Yaccarino bragged that Community Notes are “good for the world.”

Yaccarino invited audience members to “think about it as this global collective consciousness keeping each other accountable at global scale in real time,” but just one month later, Musk is suddenly casting doubts on that characterization while the European Union continues to probe X.

Perhaps most significantly, Musk previously insisted as recently as last year that Community Notes could not be manipulated, even by Musk. He strongly disputed a 2024 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that claimed that toxic X users were downranking accurate notes that they personally disagreed with, claiming any attempt at gaming Community Notes would stick out like a “neon sore thumb.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/elon-musk-to-fix-community-notes-after-they-contradict-trump/

The European Commission is reportedly preparing to charge Google with not fully complying with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

According to sources, Google’s recent tweaks to its search algorithms haven’t satisfied regulators’ requirements, prompting the EU to step up its scrutiny.

Key Details

Under the DMA, tech companies are expected to offer a level playing field in the EU.

The probe on Google focuses on whether the company is pushing its services, such as Google Shopping, Flights, and Hotels, over competitors.

Regulators are concerned that by giving these in-house services a leg up, Google could be stifling competition.

Failure to adhere to the DMA rules could cost a company up to 10% of its global annual revenue, which shows how significant the potential penalties could be.

Google’s Response

In response to regulatory pressure, Google has gradually changed its European search results.

These adjustments address complaints from price-comparison sites, airlines, hotels, and small retailers.

Google details the changes it’s made in response to the DMA in a blog post. Key changes include:

• Greater Visibility for Comparison Sites: Google says it’s made over 20 changes to increase the visibility of comparison sites for flights, hotels, and shopping.
• Balanced Search Options: Google has introduced new units that let users choose between results that lead to comparison sites or those that go directly to supplier websites.
• New Ad Options for Competitors: Google has launched new ad formats for comparison sites. These allow them to directly show more detailed information, like prices and images, in search results.
• Testing Simpler Search Formats: Google tested simpler search formats in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia. They removed features like hotel location maps and returned to a basic list of ten links to see how users reacted.

However, these measures have been criticized as not going far enough to level the playing field.

Google’s EMEA competition director, Oliver Bethell, has stated that the company is working toward a balanced solution with the Commission. However, he warned that further changes might negatively impact the search experience.

This investigation isn’t only targeting Google. The EU is casting a wide net over major tech companies, with similar DMA probes against companies like Apple and Meta.

Broader Context

These potential charges come amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Europe, adding another layer to the situation.

U.S. President Donald Trump has openly supported American tech giants, arguing that fines imposed by the EU are essentially a disguised tariff. This political pressure has raised concerns about how external influences might impact regulatory decisions.

The upcoming months will be crucial for Google and other tech companies under the EU’s scrutiny. Stay tuned as we monitor this evolving story and its implications for the SEO community.

Featured Image: Ivan Marc/Shutterstock

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-faces-eu-charges-over-alleged-dma-breaches/540341/

High-revving naturally aspirated engines and their associated screaming soundtracks might be on their way back to Formula 1. Not with next year’s rule changes—that will see even bigger lithium-ion batteries and an even more powerful electric motor, paired with a turbocharged V6. But the sport is starting to think more seriously about the technical rules that will go into effect in 2030, and in an Instagram post yesterday, the man in charge of those rules signaled that he’s open to cars that might be louder, lighter, and less complicated.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s tenure as president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile has been packed with controversy. The former rally driver has alienated many F1 drivers with clampdowns on jewelry and, most recently, swearing, as well as a refusal to explain what happens to the money the FIA collects as fines.

He also ruffled feathers when the FIA opened up the entry process for new teams into the sport and then approved an entry by Andretti Global. While the FIA said yes, the commercial side (which is owned by Liberty Media) and the teams wanted nothing to do with an 11th team—at least until the $200 million anti-dilution fee was more than doubled and Michael Andretti stepped aside.

This time, Ben Sulayem is saying all the right things, to this author at least. “While we look forward to the introduction of the 2026 regulations on chassis and power unit, we must lead the way on future technological motorsport trends. We should consider a range of directions including the roaring sound of the V10 running on sustainable fuel,” he wrote.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/02/bring-the-noise-f1-considering-the-return-of-the-v10s/

https://www.theverge.com/news/617456/apple-news-plus-food-recipies-ios-app

Image: Compulsion Games

Image: Compulsion Games

https://www.theverge.com/games/617373/south-of-midnight-preview-interview-ahmed-best