Thursday, June 20, 2024

Kenya ends a year-long investigation into Worldcoin with "no further police action" and says the startup must register its business, acquire licenses, and more (TechCrunch)

TechCrunch:
Kenya ends a year-long investigation into Worldcoin with “no further police action” and says the startup must register its business, acquire licenses, and more  —  Worldcoin — the crypto startup co-founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman — has been given the green light to resume iris-scanning …



Tests show Instagram continues to recommend sexual videos to accounts with ages listed as 13; Snapchat and TikTok did not produce the same sexualized content (Jeff Horwitz/Wall Street Journal)

Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Tests show Instagram continues to recommend sexual videos to accounts with ages listed as 13; Snapchat and TikTok did not produce the same sexualized content  —  Findings align with undisclosed internal research at Meta, which has pledged an ‘age-appropriate’ experience for teens …



Tencent removes hit game Dungeon & Fighter from select Android app stores after its contracts expired; local media says the app stores include Huawei and Oppo (Reuters)

Reuters:
Tencent removes hit game Dungeon & Fighter from select Android app stores after its contracts expired; local media says the app stores include Huawei and Oppo  —  Tencent (0700.HK) is removing from Thursday its hit mobile game “Dungeon & Fighter” (DnF Mobile) from selected Android app stores …



TikTok launches an in-app experience to celebrate Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, giving prizes to users who complete 11 weeks of tasks, following Instagram in April (Taylor Lorenz/Washington Post)

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post:
TikTok launches an in-app experience to celebrate Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, giving prizes to users who complete 11 weeks of tasks, following Instagram in April  —  The app is the latest social platform to build a custom experience for the star.  —  You already knew Taylor Swift …



Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Margrethe Vestager says Apple has a number of "very serious" issues under the EU's DMA, and the conclusions of an investigation will arrive "hopefully soon" (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Margrethe Vestager says Apple has a number of “very serious” issues under the EU's DMA, and the conclusions of an investigation will arrive “hopefully soon”  —  WATCH NOW  —  Apple has a number of “very serious” issues under the European Union's sweeping rules aimed …



Some Google users, frustrated by the results, turn to Reddit as a search alternative; a weeklong test finds Reddit is best for product recommendations and more (Ann-Marie Alcántara/Wall Street Journal)

Ann-Marie Alcántara / Wall Street Journal:
Some Google users, frustrated by the results, turn to Reddit as a search alternative; a weeklong test finds Reddit is best for product recommendations and more  —  Googling isn't what it used to be  —  Frustrated by their Google searches, people are funneling their queries to a site that isn't a search engine at all: Reddit.



Sources: Huawei is considering taking a cut of in-app purchases on its Harmony OS, and has discussed a ~20% fee with developers, below Apple and Google's 30% (Pei Li/Bloomberg)

Pei Li / Bloomberg:
Sources: Huawei is considering taking a cut of in-app purchases on its Harmony OS, and has discussed a ~20% fee with developers, below Apple and Google's 30%  —  - Chinese firm is looking at a lower fee structure than Apple  — Huawei's profit surged 564% as it reclaimed premium share



A look at Apple's upcoming CarPlay updates, which aim to be "a design toolkit for automakers", including feature "layers", "remote UI", and "punch-through UI" (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
A look at Apple's upcoming CarPlay updates, which aim to be “a design toolkit for automakers”, including feature “layers”, “remote UI”, and “punch-through UI”  —  Apple's been talking about its next generation of CarPlay for two years …



Monday, June 17, 2024

Kuo: the Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and its screen will grow from 41mm to 45mm and 45mm to 49mm; Apple will use 3D printing to make some components (Tim Hardwick/MacRumors)

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors:
Kuo: the Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and its screen will grow from 41mm to 45mm and 45mm to 49mm; Apple will use 3D printing to make some components  —  This year's Apple Watch Series 10 will be thinner and come in larger screen sizes than previous models, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.



Google begins rolling out a "Listen to this page" feature on Chrome for Android, letting the browser read text-heavy web pages (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google begins rolling out a “Listen to this page” feature on Chrome for Android, letting the browser read text-heavy web pages  —  Chrome for Android has been working on its own text-to-speech (TTS) capability for a few months now, and Google is now rolling out “Listen to this page.”



McDonald's ends its two-year IBM partnership to test automated Drive Thru order taking and plans to remove the tech from 100+ restaurants by July 26 (Jonathan Maze/Restaurant Business)

Jonathan Maze / Restaurant Business:
McDonald's ends its two-year IBM partnership to test automated Drive Thru order taking and plans to remove the tech from 100+ restaurants by July 26  —  The Chicago-based fast-food giant is ending its partnership with IBM on automated order-taking without an expansion.



MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia : MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's...