A look at the underwhelming state of augmentative and alternative communication tech including a handful of iPad apps for speech and language impaired users (Julie Kim/MIT Technology Review)

Julie Kim / MIT Technology Review:
A look at the underwhelming state of augmentative and alternative communication tech, including a handful of iPad apps, for speech and language impaired users  —  For people who can't speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.

The Twitter-to-Mastodon migration started in November 2022 failed because of Mastodon's exclusionary culture decentralization making the UX worse and more (Bloonface/Café Lob-On)

Bloonface / Café Lob-On:
The Twitter-to-Mastodon migration started in November 2022 failed because of Mastodon's exclusionary culture, decentralization making the UX worse, and more  —  I've been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey - I'm just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here …

Hermes wins permanent ban on 'MetaBirkin' NFT sales

Luxury brand Hermes has won a legal case in the US to permanently block artist Mason Rothschild's sale of MetaBirkin non-fungible tokens (NFTs). A US district judge agreed that the NFT violated the French luxury house's trademark rights. Rothschild's defence that the works were an absurdist statement on luxury goods and immune from the lawsuit was countered by the judge. The verdict means that Rothschild must stop marketing the NFTs and hand over remaining tokens and profits. https://ift.tt/luvQSBL

Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the "tech bros" captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the “tech bros” captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics  —  Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to appear more relevant among the tech elite

Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for $5B; Vista acquired Apptio for $2B in 2019 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for ~$5B; Vista acquired Apptio for ~$2B in 2019  —  Purchase of Apptio, owned by private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners, could be finalized over the weekend

Research: 81% of tech companies with under 5K employees allow remote work or have only remote options while just 26% with 25K employees are fully flexible (Rani Molla/Vox)

Rani Molla / Vox:
Research: 81% of tech companies with under 5K employees allow remote work or have only remote options, while just 26% with 25K+ employees are fully flexible  —  How small tech companies are using remote work to compete with the big guys.  —  It used to be that Big Tech companies like Google …

Watch: PM Modi meets Apple Google Microsoft CEOs

US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with top US and Indian tech executives, including Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella among others in Washington. Biden hailed technological cooperation between India and the US and expressed optimism about their joint partnership. Pichai announced that Google is investing $10 billion in India's digitisation fund and thanked Modi for his vision, which he said serves as a blueprint for other countries. Nadella and Modi discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to enhance the lives of Indians. https://ift.tt/WfR7adF

How YouTube updating its policy for fan accounts will help users

YouTube is making it mandatory for fan channels on the platform to make it "obvious in their channel name or handle that the channel doesn't represent the original creator, artist or entity." For viewers, this is a welcoming change because it will ensure that they are not misled by the channels they interact with and follow. This update will take effect from August 21. https://ift.tt/EDq1zro

The US broadens eligibility for federal subsidies under the Chips Act to include companies providing tools chemicals and other semiconductor supplies (Yuka Hayashi/Wall Street Journal)

Yuka Hayashi / Wall Street Journal:
The US broadens eligibility for federal subsidies under the Chips Act to include companies providing tools, chemicals, and other semiconductor supplies  —  Biden administration expands eligibility for federal subsidies to semiconductor factory suppliers  —  WASHINGTON—The Biden administration …

Internal records undercut claims that Twitter censored pro-Trump content before the Capitol riot and show a reluctance to suspend Trump's account until Jan. 8 (Drew Harwell/Washington Post)

Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Internal records undercut claims that Twitter censored pro-Trump content before the Capitol riot and show a reluctance to suspend Trump's account until Jan. 8  —  In the internal video call from Jan. 5, 2021, workers were told not to take tougher action against a growing wave of tweets they feared were veiled incitements to violence.

JPMorgan expands its JPM Coin launched in 2019 for USD transactions to euro payments; the digital token has been used to process $300B in transactions so far (Anna Irrera/Bloomberg)

Anna Irrera / Bloomberg:
JPMorgan expands its JPM Coin, launched in 2019 for USD transactions, to euro payments; the digital token has been used to process ~$300B in transactions so far  —  JPMorgan Chase & Co. expanded one of the most high-profile projects to bring blockchain technology to traditional banking …

Lithuania announces Tech Zity a €100M tech campus touted as Europe's largest at 592K sq. ft. with facilities for 5000 workers co-living spaces and more (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch:
Lithuania announces Tech Zity, a €100M tech campus touted as Europe's largest at ~592K sq. ft., with facilities for 5,000 workers, co-living spaces, and more  —  Lithuania is vying to become one of the major European tech hubs, bolstered by a growing number of so-called “unicorn” …

A look at Apple Vision Pro features based on the visionOS SDK including a "Moving at Unsafe Speed" alert a "Travel Mode" for airplanes and a "Guest Mode" (Filipe Espósito/9to5Mac)

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
A look at Apple Vision Pro features based on the visionOS SDK, including a “Moving at Unsafe Speed” alert, a “Travel Mode” for airplanes, and a “Guest Mode”  —  Apple announced Vision Pro at WWDC 2023.  But even so, there are still a lot of details …

Realme to launch next Narzo phone in India on June 26

Realme is soon going to launch a new smartphone in the market. The Chinese tech company has begun teasing the smartphone on its Twitter handle. As per the teaser, the company will launch the smartphone under its Narzo segment. While the company is yet to reveal the name of the smartphone, it expected that it would be Realme Narzo 60. If rumours turn out to be true, the smartphone will arrive as a successor to the Realme Narzo 50 5G, launched in India last year. The smartphone will be launched in India on June 26. https://ift.tt/oUWw6Ze

How to silence calls from unknown numbers on WhatsApp

Are you also tired of calls from unknown numbers on Whatsapp spamming you all day? Well, WhatsApp has recently introduced a new feature that automatically mutes calls from unknown numbers, known as “Silence unknown callers.” This feature comes after complaints from WhatsApp users in India who reported an increase in spam calls in recent months. https://ift.tt/NEHfCIc