If anything, it was the VisionOS 1.1 update that showed me that I still have the capacity to grow.
I can tell you agree from the fact that you’re carrying on a normal FaceTime call without stopping every few seconds to tell me how weird my Apple Vision Pro Persona looks.
The headset made me re-enroll my face to get this new persona – and frankly, it’s for the best.
I’m not saying my new face definitely won’t frighten children, but I don’t think they’re going to lose much sleep over it.
I should mention that even in its 1.1 iteration, the Persona feature is still technically in beta – albeit a beta open to anyone with a Vision Pro.
How DMA gatekeepers are responding to the EU’s new competition rules — in their own wordsThe compliance deadline for the six tech giants regulated under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) expired yesterday.
The first batch of gatekeeper compliance reports — aka the non-confidential versions — have been published on the Commission’s DMA website.
The length is at least justified: Reflecting the fact a full eight of its products are designated as core platform services.
For handy reference, we’ve rounded up links to the gatekeepers’ first batch of public-facing DMA compliance reports below.
If you’re looking for an analytic overview of the DMA, its aims and early impacts, check out our earlier explainer.
Reddit announced today that it’s launching a suite of tools, called Reddit Pro, to help businesses grow an organic presence on the platform.
With this new suite of free tools, Reddit is likely seeking to add more brands it to its platform and possibly convert them into paying advertisers.
Reddit Pro is currently in its beta testing phase and gives businesses access to an interface with multiple tools.
Reddit says more than 200 businesses have started using Reddit Pro, including Taco Bell, Wendy’s, the NFL, The Wall Street Journal, Kate Somerville and Atlas Headrest.
The company plans to launch additional Reddit Pro features this year, but didn’t share details about what they may look like.
What’s the Deel with Remofirst, and why are VCs playing musical chairs?
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, and welcome to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our Friday episode, in which we dig through the most critical stories and themes from the week.
Today on the pod, Mary Ann and Alex dug into a whole mess of news, including:We have an interview coming out tomorrow that we’re stoked about, and will be back on Monday.
A German subsidiary involved in Sam Altman’s controvercial crypto blockchain digital identity business, Worldcoin, was reported Friday to have filed a legal challenge against a suspension order from Spain’s data protection authority.
Here’s Worldcoin’s statement in full:Worldcoin is fully compliant with all laws and regulations governing biometric data collection and data transfer, including Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Nor to confirm whether Worldcoin and its operators in Spain have complied with the local order to stop scanning and processing data of people from the market.
If that happens, disputes over decisions are either resolved via majority votes or, if DPAs remain split, the European Data Protection Board gets a casting vote.
The article also notes that “several” EU authorities are currently investigating whether Worldcoin complies with the GDPR.
Sea is “still making changes” and has yet to launch its popular mobile game Free Fire in India, more than six months after announcing plans to do so.
Garena, the gaming unit of Sea, announced plans to relaunch Free Fire in India in August last year.
At the time, Garena said Free Fire India will be made available in the country on September 5.
India banned Free Fire and dozens of other Chinese apps in 2022.
Days later, Sea said it was shutting down Shopee’s operations in India, months into testing the social commerce service in the country.
India’s federal election commission has fixed flaws on its website that exposed data related to citizens’ requests for information related to their voting eligibility status, local political candidates and parties, and technical details about electronic voting machines.
The bugs allowed access to the RTI requests, download transaction receipts, and responses shared by the officials without properly authenticating user logins.
Some of the exposed data included the RTI filing date, the questions asked, the applicant’s name and mailing address, the applicant’s poverty line status, and RTI responses.
The bugs were fixed earlier this week following CERT-In’s intervention.
The Election Commission of India did not respond to a request for comment.
Where Loon relied on balloons, however, the newer project utilizes Zephyr solar-powered drones.
“[Loon] got really good customer engagement,” AALTO CEO Samer Halawi told TechCrunch in a sit-down interview last week at Mobile World Congress.
Airbus acquired the technology for the fixed-wing drones from U.K. Ministry of Defence and Space spinoff QinetiQ in 2022.
Every six months or so, the system will land for a battery swap, as these still have a limited shelf life.
Like Loon before it, the company is also exploring temporary deployment for downed cell towers following natural disasters.
When some American users opened TikTok on Thursday morning, they were met with a full-screen message encouraging them to call Congress and say no to a TikTok ban.
“Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.”Below the message, users can click a red “call now” button.
Last year, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress for five hours, addressing lawmakers’ concerns about Chinese authorities accessing American data (TikTok, an American company, is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company).
Chew has repeatedly stated that TikTok and ByteDance are not conduits for the Chinese government.
The bill’s sponsors are urging TikTok to sever its ties with ByteDance to avoid this fate, or else it could lose its 170 million American users.
PayPal launches Tap to Pay on iPhone for businesses using Venmo and Zettle in the USPayPal announced today that it’s launching “Tap to Pay” for merchants with an iPhone through the Venmo and Zettle apps in the U.S. PayPal, which owns both Venmo and Zettle, says the feature will allow businesses to accept contactless card and digital wallet payments directly on their iPhones with no additional cost or hardware.
In addition to being able to accept payments from cards or digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay, Tap to Pay allows merchants to add taxes, accept tips, send receipts and issue refunds without any additional hardware.
Funds from sales are quickly put into a business’s Venmo or PayPal Zettle account, the company says.
With Tap to Pay on iPhone, Venmo business profile users will be able to reach for customers by accepting payments from buyers even if they don’t have a Venmo account.
A year later, Strip enabled businesses to carry out Tap to Pay transactions on NFC-equipped Android devices, as well.
