Amazon’s top music plan will now include one audiobook per month

Amazon said on Tuesday that it will let Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers access one audiobook per month from Audible’s catalog for free. This move aims to counter Spotify’s growth in the audiobook space and also nudge some Amazon Music subscribers to purchase Audible books or plans.

Instagram will soon let you reset your recommendation algorithm

Instagram is testing the ability for users to reset their recommendations, the company announced on Tuesday. By resetting your recommendations, you would be starting fresh and retraining the app's algorithm about the content you enjoy across your Explore page, home feed, and Reels tab. The fea

Yuka, the app that rates food and makeup, now lets users complain to companies directly

Yuka is a popular health app that allows users to scan the barcodes of food items to quickly see a health ranking based on additives, sugar, saturated fat, and fiber. It also scans cosmetic products, highlighting any harmful substances like endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, allergens, and irritant

DoorDash’s app can now import your grocery list for faster shopping

While online grocery shopping is generally convenient, manually adding items to your cart one by one can become a bit of a chore. To address this, food and grocery shopping app DoorDash has launched a new feature that allows you to sync your grocery list to the app. The app will then suggest what t

Mastodon sees a boost from the ‘X exodus,’ too, founder says

Decentralized social network Mastodon is also seeing some uplift from the X “exodus,” founder Eugen Rochko shared on the platform just ahead of the weekend. While the Twitter-like startup Bluesky has been capturing headlines and attention for its rapid adoption among former X users, a s

India orders Meta to curb WhatsApp data sharing, levies $25M fine

India’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other Meta units for advertising purposes for five years and also levied a fine of $25.4 million for antitrust violations related to WhatsApp’s controversial 2021 privacy policy. The Competition Commission

Xiaomi taps PhonePe’s app store for India smartphones

Xiaomi will replace its app store with fintech PhonePe’s offering for customers in India starting in January. The move is a major win for the Indian startup, as well as a sign of further recalibration for the Chinese hardware giant in one of its biggest markets outside its home country. Xiao

As Bluesky surges, Threads begins testing custom feeds

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday announced the company’s X competitor, Threads, would begin testing custom feeds for specific topics and profiles, making it easier for users to find communities and conversations that interest them. The news follows the rapid growth of the social networking

‘Hawk Tuah’ girl launches Pookie Tools, an AI-powered dating advice app, and it’s fine?

Haliey Welch, the 22-year-old who went viral for her “Hawk Tuah” video, has managed to turn her brief moment of fame into a full-fledged career. In just a few months, Welch has rapidly risen to fame, amassing around 5 million followers across various social media platforms.  After recentl

Google launches Gemini app for iOS worldwide

On Thursday Google launched a dedicated app for its AI-powered assistant, Gemini, on iOS globally. Until now, iOS users either had to use the Google app or mobile web to chat with the AI technology. The new Gemini iOS app supports text-based prompts in 35 languages. Plus, users can have a conversa

Snapchat will soon be able to alert parents when their teen leaves or arrives at certain locations

Snapchat is bringing enhanced location sharing to Family Center, its parental controls hub, the company announced Thursday. Users have been able to share their location with others on Snapchat for quite some time now, but the new addition allows parents to get an alert from within the app’s

PayPal once again lets you pool money from others to pay for things together

PayPal is launching a few features that let users in groups pool money with friends or family, to collectively pay for trips, travels, gifts, and anything else. The company is launching this feature in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain ahead of the holiday season. “Re-launching&#

Apple faces UK ‘iCloud monopoly’ compensation claim worth $3.8B

U.K. consumer rights group ‘Which?’ is filing a legal claim against Apple under competition law on behalf of some 40 million users of iCloud, its cloud storage service. The collective proceeding lawsuit, which is seeking £3 billion in compensation damages (around $3.8 billion at curre

Spotify teases a ‘super premium’ tier for superfans and upcoming video expansion in Q3 earnings call

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has once again teased the company’s long-delayed HiFi or “super premium” tier, a higher-qualify subscription offering the streaming service first announced in 2021 and then failed to roll out. In the company’s third-quarter earnings call with investor