Less than a week after The Wall St. Journal reported on how a Snapchat feature dubbed “solar system” was adding to teens’ anxiety, the company has responded by adjusting how the feature works.
The ranking system for paid subscribers today shows you how close you are to your Snapchat friends by displaying your position in their solar system.
However, instead of removing the feature, as it did with the dangerous and controversial speed filter, which it was sued over for “negligent design,” Snap is simply turning the Solar System feature off by default.
A more relevant stat would be how many Snapchat+ users have used Solar System or viewed the feature.
The Solar System feature was only one of Snapchat’s friend ranking systems.
Spotify’s live audio app is no longer active, but the company has been using the tech to connect fans and artists better with the “Listening Party” feature.
A Listening Party is listed under the events section of an artist’s profile.
Spotify said that while typically top fans of a band receive a specific invitation, any Spotify Premium user can join the Listening Party through the listing.
Plus, each listening party has a live chat room during the event.
Now it is trying to bring parts of group listening and live audio interactions together with the Listening Party feature.
It’s a flexible way to share photos with your favorite people and create visual records of whatever matters in your life.
Retro’s main feature is a way to share your most important photos of the past week with your favorite people.
Retro’s answer to this use-case is journals: A new flexible way to share photos as a group.
You can also have a journal with your partner to share important moments you’ve spent together without spamming all your friends on Retro.
Building a social consumer app involves many experimentations — and journals are one of those experimentations.
Five months ago, Rooms, a 3D design platform made by ex-Google employees, launched its beta version on the App Store.
Rooms is an interior decorating app that falls under the cozy game category.
Players can build and code intricate 3D rooms and mini-games using a library of over 7,500 digital items.
The majority of the updates are on the iOS app, but Rooms is adding the new categories and speed improvements to its web version.
However, in the future, Rooms may offer a premium subscription offering but the company is waiting until the app gets more traction.
Google is rolling out the April update to ChromeOS users with features like the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts and mouse button actions.
The update also brings improved offline text-to-speech voice support.
The ChromeOS M123 update is rolling out to users over the next few days.
The main new feature is a way to assign custom keyboard shortcuts to actions.
The company said that the keyboard customization shortcut will be enabled by default with the next ChromeOS update M124.
Take, for example, the company’s latest foray into mobile artificial intelligence, the AI Eraser.
Nope, OnePlus went ahead and built its own version in a bid to show the world that it has AI ambitions of its own.
From the sound of its press material, the company went and built this thing ground-up, starting with its own first-party large language models.
“AI Eraser is the result of a substantial R&D investment from OnePlus,” the company notes in its press material.
AI is rolling out to OnePlus devices this month, starting with OnePlus 12, OnePlus 12R, OnePlus 11, OnePlus Open and OnePlus Nord CE 4.
Web browser company Opera announced today it will now allow users to download and use Large Language Models (LLMs) locally on their computer.
This feature is first rolling out to Opera One users who get developer stream updates and will allow users to select from over 150 models from more than 50 families.
The feature will be available to users as part of Opera’s AI Feature Drops Program to let users have early access to some of the AI features.
Notably, Opera is not doing any work to save storage while downloading a model.
“Opera has now for the first time ever provided access to a large selection of 3rd party local LLMs directly in the browser.
A subsequent update has made them more palatable and truer to life, and Apple says it’s continuing to work on the 3D captures.
The company on Tuesday debuted “spatial” Personas for Vision Pro headsets running visionOS 1.1 or later.
From there, users can select the spatial persona option, which utilizes the Vision Pro’s on-board sensors to place the Persona in the room with them.
Spatial audio, meanwhile, further places them at a specific point in space relative to the Vision Pro user.
Vision Pro users will continue doing business in the uncanny valley for the foreseeable future.
Instagram is developing a “Blend” feature that creates a private feed of Reels recommended for you and a friend.
According to a screenshot posted on X by Paluzzi, a Blend would include “Reels recommendations based on Reels you’ve shared with each other and your Reels interests.”In other words, if you invited a friend to a “Blend,” Instagram would generate a personalized feed of Reels that it believes the two of you would be interested in.
#Instagram is working on Blend: #Reels recommendations based on reels you've shared each other and your reels interests 👀 ℹ️ Private between the two of you.
Since people already send each other Reels via DMs, Instagram would now be using that data to proactively recommend and display Reels that it believes a pair of users would enjoy.
If released, Blend would give Instagram Reels users access to a fun and collaborative feature that isn’t available on its rival platform, TikTok.
The platform, formerly Twitter, is working on an addition to its Communities feature that would let X users create groups for X-rated material, according to app researchers.
pic.twitter.com/Sou18ze7Va — Nima Owji (@nima_owji) February 28, 2024Twitter introduced its Communities feature in 2021.
So, the platform’s more-lenient policy on adult content is critical for online sex workers to grow their businesses.
Adult creators are allowed to post explicit content on X, though they can’t monetize it on the platform.
Even though X seems to be working on this NSFW Communities feature, that doesn’t mean it’ll come to fruition.
