News
Emirates Airline To Roll Out Free Starlink Wi-Fi This Month
The airline’s two-year program begins November 2025, and will put Gulf rivals in a fast race for high-speed inflight access.
Emirates has begun a push to upgrade its entire in-service fleet with SpaceX’s Starlink, a move that shifts inflight connectivity from a perk to a standard feature on Gulf long-haul routes. The first modified Boeing 777-300ER, A6-EPF, is on display at the Dubai Airshow and will operate the airline’s first commercial flight with the service once the show closes.
The rollout starts on Boeing 777s this month. A380 installations follow from February 2026. Emirates plans to work through about 14 aircraft a month, aiming to cover all 232 active jets by mid-2027.
Access will be free across all cabins, without logins or loyalty requirements. The carrier says bandwidth should support streaming, gaming, video calls and work apps on personal devices and seatback screens.
Sir Tim Clark, Emirates’ president, cast the tie-up as part of a wider cabin refresh. “Partnering with Starlink is another defining moment in our continuous commitment to ensuring our customers fly better,” he said, pointing to refurbishments across First, Business and Premium Economy.
The region’s airline sector is moving quickly with hi-speed Wi-Fi. Qatar Airways says more than 100 of its widebodies now carry Starlink. Several Saudi operators are following suit. With Gulf hubs stitching together long east-west networks, fast internet is becoming a differentiator — especially in sectors where travelers expect to stay online.
For Emirates, the connectivity upgrade lands alongside one of the largest cabin projects in commercial aviation, tightening the airline’s pitch as Dubai grows its role as a global transit stop.
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SpaceX framed the scale of the deal as a stress test of Starlink’s capacity on dense, long-haul fleets. “With Starlink onboard your Emirates flight, you’ll be able to stream, game, and have seamless video calls, just as you can do on the ground,” said Chad Gibbs, vice-president of Starlink Business Operations.
As the Middle Eastern carriers compete to anchor next-generation passenger experience standards, Emirates’ two-year timetable signals that high-bandwidth connectivity is shifting from a premium option to a baseline expectation across the region’s long-haul fleets.
News
Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
Instagram’s first wordmark refresh in a decade arrives with new fonts, a restrained gradient — and a Reddit verdict of sidegrade.
Although Instagram’s famous camera icon hasn’t changed, the company has refreshed the handwritten wordmark at the top of its app. This is the first redesign we’ve seen in ten years, and one the internet promptly set about renaming.
“The wordmark at the top of the app hasn’t changed in 10 years, so it was time for a refresh,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on August 13, describing the new version as “cleaner and more modern” while keeping references to the original design.
Instagram says its team explored hundreds of options — all-caps lettering, camera-inspired concepts, even literal handwriting — before returning to script. “Script reflects individuality, so referencing that felt right,” Instagram director of product design Jasmine Probst said in Meta’s announcement. “The new wordmark is bolder and simpler, with touches of unexpectedness. It cues individual expression, a personal voice, both of which have always been core to Instagram”.
The wordmark is part of a broader brand overhaul: an updated Instagram Sans typeface, two new fonts — the hand-drawn Instagram Pen and Instagram Mono — plus refreshed motion and layouts, and more restrained use of the signature gradient. The wordmark is rolling out globally now, with the rest arriving throughout 2026 and beyond.
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The design mixes cursive and print lettering, some characters connected and others floating free. That hybrid approach, combined with unusually shaped “s” and “r” characters, led some users to conclude the logo actually reads “Instagzam”. On the r/logodesign subreddit, one user said the wordmark looked “fan-made,” like something built in Canva; another called it “an unsettling mix of manuscript and cursive”; a third summarized it as a “sidegrade” — or, inevitably, a “zidegrade”.
Not everyone was hostile to the new look. Some found the half-cursive design stylish and surprisingly readable, while others called it an improvement on its predecessor, and one commenter argued Instagram was simply adopting minimalist branding later than everyone else. Either way, the platform now has a refreshed identity, three updated fonts, and an unofficial new pronunciation.
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