One way to know for sure that you’re at a developer conference: The crowd gets really excited when you announce a new Calculator app.
The addition of the app got (by far) the biggest applause pop at WWDC 2024 so far.
The biggest arrival here is the addition of Math Notes.
The addition feature effect does the math for you.
At once, the feature makes iPad an even more interesting option is the academic segment, though plenty of teachers will no doubt balk at an app that does all of the work for users.
TechCrunch has kept readers informed regarding Fearless Fund’s courtroom battle to provide business grants to Black women.
Today, we are happy to announce that Fearless Fund CEO and co-founder Arian Simone will speak at the Disrupt 2024 Builders Stage in a fireside chat discussing her organization’s fight for racial equity.
This June, an appeals court ruled that Fearless Fund’s business grant likely violates Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and has banned the grant’s deployment indefinitely.
Fearless Fund is one of many organizations facing the heat for having programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Register for your Disrupt pass today and join 10,000 tech leaders for 3 days of startup innovation this October.
Prominent generative AI startups in healthcare include Ambience Healthcare, which is developing a generative AI app for clinicians; Nabla, an ambient AI assistant for practitioners; and Abridge, which creates analytics tools for medical documentation.
The broad enthusiasm for generative AI is reflected in the investments in generative AI efforts targeting healthcare.
Collectively, generative AI in healthcare startups have raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital to date, and the vast majority of health investors say that generative AI has significantly influenced their investment strategies.
But both professionals and patients are mixed as to whether healthcare-focused generative AI is ready for prime time.
Generative AI might not be what people wantIn a recent Deloitte survey, only about half (53%) of U.S. consumers said that they thought generative AI could improve healthcare — for example, by making it more accessible or shortening appointment wait times.
“Our goal over time is to make a Llama-powered Meta AI be the most useful assistant in the world,” said Joelle Pineau, Vice President AI Research.
Most notably, Meta’s Llama families, built as open-source products, represent a different philosophical approach to how AI should develop as a wider technology.
But Meta is also playing it more cautiously, it seems, especially when it comes to other generative AI beyond text generation.
Ironically — or perhaps predictably (heh) — even as Meta works to launch Llama 3, it does have some significant generative AI skeptics in the house.
It’s not generative AI,” he said.
As a result, we’re beginning to see what an app store ecosystem could look like when other developers are allowed to compete with the default iPhone App Store.
One notable case in point is the AltStore, an alternative app store that’s preparing to take advantage of the DMA to launch an updated version of its app marketplace in the EU, with plans to support Patreon-backed apps.
To comply with the new European law, Apple is introducing APIs and frameworks that allow developers to distribute apps independently of the App Store.
“It all works virtually the same as the App Store now,” Testut says.
In the screenshots he shared, the AltStore looks much like a modern-day app store, with categories like Games, Lifestyle and Utilities, as well as buttons to download its free apps, as on Apple’s App Store.
After terminating Epic Games’ developer account on Wednesday, Apple said it will reinstate the Fortnite maker’s access to publish iOS apps in Europe.
This means that Epic can move forward with its plans for an Epic Games Store, and it can bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
Last month, Epic announced it would be able to bring Fortnite and the Epic Games Store back because of Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
But under the new DMA law, third-party marketplaces like the Epic Games Store can come to iOS, lessening Apple’s control over apps in Europe.
Four years after leaving iOS, Fortnite is coming back — but only European players will be dropping in this time.
The endless beef between Epic Games and Apple over the company’s App Store fees took its most recent surprise turn on Thursday when the iPhone maker announced changes coming to iOS in the EU.
The plan to offer Fortnite for iOS dovetails with Epic’s news that it will launch a version of the Epic Games Store on the platform in the EU.
Beyond developing Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, Epic also runs the Epic Game Store, a digital storefront for PC games that’s also available on Macs.
That vision is increasingly coming into focus on Fortnite, which has evolved from being a few third-person shooter game modes into a full-fledged Roblox-like portal for digital games.
After laying off over 1,000 workers across divisions last week and cutting 100 jobs at YouTube, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to its staff warning more layoffs are expected this year.
Pichai’s memo said the company will have to make “tough choices” to meet its ambitious goals, as reported by The Verge.
But I know it’s very difficult to see colleagues and teams impacted,” he said in an email to staffers.
At the time, the company also confirmed to TechCrunch that Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman were leaving the organisation.
On Wednesday, Google laid off 100 YouTube staffers as part of reorganisation.
Interoperability could also be imposed on designated tech giants, the CMA suggested, as well as mandates that they trade on fairer terms.
Algorithmic transparency could be another demand made of them by the new digital markets regulator.
As a consequence the UK has slipped behind peers like the European Union — which adopted its own flagship digital competition reform last year.
The deadline for in-scope tech giants’ compliance with that regime is looming in early March.
A German ex ante digital competition reform has also been operating since early 2021.
Google announced today that it will pay $700 million as a part of a settlement with the U.S. Attorney General for a lawsuit over Google Play Store.
Third-party app stores and side-loadingFor at least seven years, Google will support app installs on Android outside of Google Play through different ways including third-party app stores.
Google won’t force developers to launch their apps at the same time or earlier on the Google Play for at least four years.
Plus, Google can’t stop them from displaying fees linked with Google Play or Google Play’s billing system.
OEM clausesGoogle can’t enter a deal with phone makers to have Google Play as the exclusive app store on devices to place Google Play on the home screen for at least five years.
