Russia has closed a loophole that allowed its citizens to pay for Apple digital services. "As of April 1, 2026, payment processing is no longer available for purchases made on the App Store or other Apple Media Services in Russia," the company wrote in a support document (via 9to5Mac).The change affects all Apple services. However, the company says iCloud+ subscribers' data will remain available after their subscriptions end, even after losing premium cloud storage. Customers' previous purchases will still be accessible, as will existing Apple Account funds until they run out.Why is Russia doing this? Well, the (state-aligned) Russian news outlet RBC reported that government officials said it was to prevent users from paying for VPN apps. Earlier this week, Reuters repo [...]
Block today announced Managerbot, a new AI agent embedded in the Square platform that proactively monitors a seller's business, identifies emerging problems, and proposes actionable solutions — [...]
It’s no secret that Russia has been slowly working towards eschewing as much Western technology as it can and developing its own, and its latest effort seems to be related to video games. On Decembe [...]