BigTech Google Acquires AI Avatar Startup Alter for $100 Million TechCrunch reported that Google paid about $100 million to acquire Alter. The acquisition took place about two months ago without a public announcement, but the tech giant has already confirmed the purchase.
BigTech Meta Now Lets Users Share Their NFTs on Both Facebook and Instagram In May, Meta announced that it would test the NFT sharing feature on a small number of users in the US. Now the company has officially introduced the option to all of its social media users from the United States.
News Google Expands Eco-Friendly Routing Across European Countries Last year, this feature was available for residents of the United States and Canada, offering routes with the least energy consumption. Eco-friendly routing is now available across most European countries.
News Facebook Parent Meta Reports Its First-Ever Quarterly Revenue Decline Outgoing Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg blamed this decline on the decreasing value of the Euro. Had it not been for the decreasing value of the Euro, the company's revenue would have been up 3 percent year over year, she said.
News Apple Showed Off Its AR Headset to the Company's Board of Directors Apple has already shown its AR headset to board members, which means that it is almost ready for release. Most likely, the novelty will be presented to the public later this year, and it will go on sale in 2023.
News Google Will Make Search Dark Theme Fully Black The black search background color could potentially help save battery life on smartphones and laptops. However, it won't make any big difference since users do not spend much time in Search.
News Mark Zuckerberg Announced Meta's Updated Values The head of Meta noted that the current values were defined back in 2007. And while they have proven remarkably durable, the time has come to update them since the company is now heading towards developing a metaverse.
News Facebook Is Losing Daily Active Users for the First Time in History In the third quarter of 2021, Facebook had 1.93 billion daily active users, while in the last three months of 2021, this number decreased to 1.929 billion, the quarterly earnings report of Meta revealed.
News Google Is Working on an AR Headset Codenamed Project Iris Like upcoming headsets from Meta and Apple, Google's headset uses outward-facing cameras to bring computer graphics into the real world, creating a more immersive mixed reality experience.
News Google Abandons FLoC and Replaces Third-Party Cookies With Topics With Topics, the new concept will assign users five interests per week based on their web activity. These interests will be stored for up to three weeks. To do this, Google created a list of about 350 topics available in its advertising taxonomy.
News Apple Pays $100K to a Student Who Revealed a Mac Webcam Bug Pickren explained that this hack could ultimately allow the attacked to access the entire filesystem of the device by exploiting Safari's webarchive files, the system used to save local copies of websites. A user has to download such a file and then open it.
News Indian Regulator Ordered an Antitrust Probe Against Google The Competition Commission of India (CCI) suspects Google is violating the country's antitrust laws. The investigation should help determine whether Google imposes any discriminatory conditions or price on digital news publishers.
News Google's Year in Search 2021 Reveals Popular Search Trends The company also named the main trends, events, and heroes of 2021. The rating was compiled based on users' search queries over the past year.
News Meta Launches a New Tool to Stop the Spread of Revenge Porn This platform is the first global initiative to help people concerned that their intimate photos might have been shared or may be shared on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook without their consent.
News Apple Will Let Mac and iPhone Owners Repair Their Own Devices Apple announced the launch of the Self Service Repair program for iPhone and Mac owners. It will initially launch in the United States in early 2022 and will first only be available for iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups and Macs with M1 chips.
News Meta's AI Team Is Working on a Thin Robot Skin and Touch Sensors The metaverse the company is working on should provide a close imitation of reality in the virtual world. That is why Meta is developing new sensors to simulate one of the human sensations – the touch.
News Microsoft Introduces Mesh for Teams to Collaborate in the Metaverse Microsoft plans to combine its software products into a single metaverse where people can interact with each other using augmented and virtual reality. In Mesh for Teams, users can create their own virtual 3D avatar and use it during meetings.
News Apple Will Soon Let Your Family Access Your iCloud Data When You Die With the Digital Legacy feature, you can choose up to five people who will gain access to your iCloud data after you die. Heirs will need to provide a death certificate of the account holder and a special access key to log into their account.
News Facebook Changed Its Company Name to Meta The name Meta should reflect the new direction the company plans to take – creating the so-called metaverse. The main goal of the metaverse is to connect people and help them communicate easily even if they are far away from each other.
News Apple Unveiled New MacBook Pro, Next-Gen AirPods, and HomePod Mini The new laptops have no Touch Bar but feature the return of MagSafe, an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and an improved headphone jack. According to the Cupertino company, the MacBook Pro supports fast charging.
News Google Will Make 2-Factor Authentication on by Default Together with millions of Google users, more than two million content creators on YouTube will also switch to two-factor authentication by the end of this year. Google states that users will also be able to use security keys for authorization.
News Apple Now Lets Users Rate Its Own Apps on the App Store After the release of iOS 15, where Apple added the ability to let users rate its own apps in the App Store, users began to express their dissatisfaction with the apps they use by giving low ratings and leaving negative reviews.
BigTech Epic Games Appeals Ruling in the Lawsuit Against Apple Epic Games failed to convince the court that Apple holds a monopoly position. The court also concluded that Epic Games violated the contract it had with Apple when it added an alternative payment method to Fortnite.
News Apple California Streaming Event: iPhone 13, Apple Watch 7, New iPads The iPhone 13 lineup includes four models: iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max. The display diagonals are 5.4", 6.1", 6.1", and 6.7", respectively. New iPhones feature a smaller notch for Face ID sensors.
News Apple Warns That Motorcycle Vibrations Can Destroy iPhone Cameras Certain intense high-amplitude vibrations generated by high-volume or high-power motorcycle engines can degrade the cameras of an iPhone. Such vibrations are usually transmitted through handlebars or the chassis.
