Flipboard stops tweeting, launches new podcast about decentralized social apps
Social magazine app Flipboard had already committed to joining the “fediverse” — the decentralized social web, which includes apps like Mastodon. Now, it’s doubling down on those ambitions with an announcement that it will stop tweeting while also launching a new podcast dev
EU widens scope of food delivery cartel concerns probe
European Union antitrust regulators have carried out another series of raids on two online food delivery companies headquartered inside the bloc.
The Commission hasn’t named the companies involved but the move follows unannounced EU inspections back in July 2022 — which were reported to
Google admits Spotify pays no Play Store fees because of a secret deal
A Google executive said during testimony in the Epic versus Google trial that a deal with Spotify allows the audio company to bypass Play Store fees, as first reported by The Verge.
Don Harrison, Google’s head of partnership, said that Spotify pays no fees when it processes its own payments a
Instagram Threads missed a moment to shine, as OpenAI’s drama took place on X
Instagram Threads missed its moment to truly challenge X, this weekend’s OpenAI scandal indicates. Over the past few days, as news spread about the board’s decision to remove Sam Altman as OpenAI CEO, and the impacts of this wild and unexpected change rippled through Silicon Valley̵
Tinder redesigns profile pages with prompts, info tags and quiz
Tinder is revamping its profile pages to make them more informative and create easier starting points for conversations. The company is launching features like profile prompts as conversation starters, profile quizzes, basic info tags and dark mode.
Let’s look at these new features in detail.
Change in X’s terms indicate EU researchers will get API access
After taking over Twitter last year, Elon Musk famously yanked API access from third-party apps and changed API pricing tiers to make it difficult for researchers to access and study the platform’s data. Now the company he’s since renamed X has backtracked in the European Union where le
Instafest now lets you create a music festival poster through a playlist link
Instafest, the app which went viral last year before Spotify Wrapped was officially unveiled, now lets you create a music festival poster based on artists that you have in a particular playlist. The app’s developer, Anshay Saboo, has added more themes and customization options as well.
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X rival Bluesky hits 2M users, says federation coming ‘early next year’
Bluesky, the company building a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, announced today it has hit 2 million users — up by another million since September, despite remaining an invite-only app. It also revealed its time frame regarding other key goals, indicating that it planned to have a pub
Meta brings us a step closer to AI-generated movies
Like “Avengers” director Joe Russo, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that fully AI-generated movies and TV shows will be possible within our lifetimes.
A host of AI unveilings over the past few months, in particular OpenAI’s ultra-realistic-sounding text-to-speech engine,
Apple to finally bring RCS to iPhones
Apple plans to add support for the RCS standard on iOS next year, the iPhone-maker said Thursday in a major reversal that would resolve the widespread issue of compatibility in text messaging between iPhones and Android smartphones, but stopped short of eliminating what is known colloquially as th
A Quibi-like app called ReelShort hit record downloads and revenue this month
Was Quibi a failure or just before its time? This month, a short-video app and Quibi-like entertainment service called ReelShort found its way to the top of the App Store, which led to the app gaining 1.9 million downloads (so far) in the month of November alone. Last Saturday, the app also hit a d
Microsoft brings Copilot to Windows 10
Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot experience, is heading to Windows 10 in preview
Starting with Windows 10 version 22H2, which will be available soon to users participating in Microsoft’s Windows Insider program, Windows 10 will gain more or less the same Copilot capabilities as W
Threads rolls out hashtags…without the hash symbol
Instagram’s Threads app has been duping Twitter/X in a number of ways, and today it’s adding one more feature that’s been core to the Twitter experience for years: hashtags. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads will begin testing the ability to tag topics on Threads to
Ads watchdog files FTC complaint against X, formerly Twitter, over unlabeled ads
X, formerly Twitter, was caught running unlabeled ads on its platform in September. Now that issue, which has been ongoing, has been brought to the FTC’s attention. An independent nonprofit Check My Ads has filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission urging an investigatio