What is Apple Intelligence, when is it coming and who will get it?

After months of speculation, Apple Intelligence took center stage at WWDC 2024 in June. The platform was announced in the wake of a torrent of generative AI news from companies like Google and Open AI, causing concern that the famously tight-lipped tech giant had missed the boat on the latest tech

Not all startups mourn IPOs, but liquidity still must flow

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Several startups announced new rounds this week without disclosing their valuation. This doesn’t mean that these were down rounds, b

Rental car startup Kyte slashes staff and shrinks to two markets in bid for survival

Rental car startup Kyte, which bills itself as the “best alternative to Hertz,” is pulling out of almost all of its major markets in the United States and has cut its workforce roughly in half in a bid to survive after exploring a sale earlier this year. The company is shrinking its op

Prominent crypto critic says someone offered bribes to take down a blog post

In August, the crypto news website Web3 Is Going Just Great published a post about the arrest of Roman Ziemian, the founder of crypto trading platform FutureNet, which is alleged to have defrauded victims out of a combined $21 million.  For the news site’s administrator, Molly White, a

The fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor called Loops

Similar to how Mastodon offers an open source, distributed version of X, the fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor. This week, an app called Loops began accepting signups on its new platform for sharing short, looping videos. Still in the early stages, Loops is not yet open sourced, nor ha

OpenAI says it won’t release a model called Orion this year

OpenAI says that it doesn’t intend to release an AI model code-named Orion this year, countering recent reporting on the company’s product roadmap. “We don’t have plans to release a model code-named Orion this year,” a spokesperson told technewss via email. “We do

YC startup Pharos lands a $5M seed led by Felicis to bring AI to hospital quality reporting

Medical and administrative staff are increasingly overwhelmed with piles of paperwork they have to fill out every day. Dozens, if not hundreds, of startups, are seeing opportunities to make those bureaucratic processes less burdensome with the help of generative AI. These companies are building AI

Apple upgrades TestFlight with redesigned invites, testing criteria, and more

Alongside the Apple Intelligence-powered iOS 18 updates for consumers and developers, Apple is rolling out a sizable refresh to its app testing platform for developers, TestFlight. Developers will have more control over who can join their beta and how an app’s new features are shared with tes

Apple adds a menu in iOS 18.2 to change default apps including messages and calls

Apple released iOS 18.2 as a developer beta users earlier this week. While there was a bunch of AI goodie shipped with this version — including Gemmoji, Image Playground, and ChatGPT integration — the company also shipped a new default menu to change your default apps. And it’s not just l

Screenable’s app turns any iPhone into a starter phone for kids

A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages.  For starters, the app's “Dumb Phone” mo

Airdog’s founders are back with a precision-strike drone meant for modern warfare

The war in Ukraine has shown that warfare changes by the day. It’s also clear that the tech used to make war today is costly: While larger countries can afford legions of tanks, helicopters, and precision-strike systems, smaller nations find themselves scrambling for cheaper ways to defend t

YouTube brings its affilate program to India, partners with Flipkart

Just ahead of the local festive season, YouTube has brought its affiliate program to India, letting uploaders tag products in their videos and earn referrals. The company is partnering with Walmart-owned e-commerce service Flipkart and fashion retailer Myntra to open up their product catalogs to up

Google Calendar gets a design refresh, dark mode

Google is revamping Google Calendar’s web interface in line with its Material Design 3 guidelines, and adding support for dark mode. The update applies to controls like buttons, dialogs and sidebars that are more “modern and accessible,” the company said. Screenshots on the Googl

VW spinoff Scout reveals its EV vision and it includes a model with a gas-powered generator

Scout Motors, the Volkswagen Group spinoff, unveiled Thursday two EVs it hopes will hook American customers with modern-meets-rugged styling that downplays digital and embraces the mechanical. The catch? The company will also offer variants to its all-electric Scout Traveler SUV and Scout Terra T