Media

Discord announces a big funding round, Google gets European approval to acquire Fitbit and Twitter launches a new voice-based feature. This is your Daily Crunch for December 17, 2020. Discord raises $100M The popular gaming chat platform confirmed today that it has raised $100 milli

If you’ve ever used a Snapchat or Instagram filter, you know that one of the popular use cases for AR (augmented reality) is to change up your appearance with virtual makeup — like a different shade of lipstick or eyeshadow, for example. Today, Google is moving into this space, as well,

Royalties aside, songwriters are often unsung heroes of music making. Sure, some — like Carole King and Jimmy Webb — become well-known in their own right, but more often than not, names are relegated to the liner notes. A new feature in Spotify seeks to correct that — or at least

Adobe is launching an update to its Spark social media design tool today that will bring more than 20,000 new design assets to the service. This update, which follows the launch of animations in Spark in September, also brings a small UI change with it to accommodate this new feature, but for the m

There are more than 600 million internet users in India, but only a fraction of this population is fluent in English. Most online services and much of the content on the web currently, however, are available exclusively in English. This language barrier continues to contribute to a digital divide i

It took an unusually long time, but HBO Max is set to launch on Roku devices tomorrow. Roku users make up a massive chunk of the cord-cutting market, so the absence of an HBO Max app for Roku nearly seven months after the service launched was pretty glaring. We’d been wondering where the Max

Facebook already made it clear that it isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming restrictions on app tracking and ad targeting, but the publicity battle entered a new phase today. Over the summer, Apple announced that beginning in iOS 14, developers will have to ask users for permission in ord

A few weeks after announcing that iOS support was on the way, Google's cloud gaming service now supports the iPhone and iPad. As expected, the company is using a web app to access the service. Google also says that you need to update to iOS 14.3, the latest iOS update that was released earlier

The super popular chat app Discord is getting a much-requested feature starting today: mobile screen sharing. As the name suggests, mobile screen sharing lets users capture and broadcast everything on their phone's display and stream it to a group of friends. The company tells me they've be

A group of major U.S. news publishers have joined the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), the advocacy group pushing for increased regulation over app stores and fair treatment for all developers. The publisher trade association now joining CAF is Digital Content Next (DCN), a representative for the

Yet more trouble brewing for Facebook: Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing the tech giant over its use, in 2016 and 2017, of the Onavo VPN app to spy on users for commercial purposes. The ACCC’s case accuses Facebook of false, misleading or deceptive conduct

Facebook is working to bring back the Instagram Lite app, months after it shut down the light version offering worldwide. The social conglomerate said on Wednesday that it is testing the revamped Instagram Lite app in India, where it hopes to “gain valuable insights” about the new offering befo

Periscope is shutting down, Samsung has plans for more foldable devices and Airbnb sets new diversity goals. This is your Daily Crunch for December 15, 2020. The big story: Goodbye, Periscope It’s official: Twitter-owned live-streaming app Periscope is shutting down by March o

Nine months into the pandemic, one of the first states to institute a shut down is back at square one. Following a major spike in COVID-19 cases, California governor Gavin Newsom reinstituted major closures across the state, leaving many residents in search of new avenues to acquire essentials with