Apple is looking to team up with Google for a mega-deal to leverage the Gemini AI model for features on iPhone, Bloomberg reported.
There is surmounting pressure on Apple to catch up with competitors in the AI field such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and even Google.
Later, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Gemini’s responses were “completely unacceptable”.
Earlier this year, the company partnered with Samsung to introduce Gemini-powered AI features on the Galaxy S24 series of devices.
We have reached out to Apple and Google for a comment, and we will update the story if we hear back from them.
Apple has added another AI startup to its acquisition list with Canada-based DarwinAI, which specializes in vision-based tech to observe components during manufacturing to improve efficiency, Bloomberg reported.
DarwinAI had raised over $15 million in funding across various rounds from investors including BDC Capital’s Deep Tech Venture Fund, Honeywell Ventures, Obvious Ventures, and Inovia Capital.
BDC Capital and Obvious Venture didn’t comment on the story at the time of writing.
As Bloomberg noted in its report, apart from helping with manufacturing efficiency, DarwinAI uses techniques to make AI models smaller and faster.
This could be useful for on-device generative AI features Apple hopes to introduce in iOS 18 this year.
Stashpad, a developer-focused “DM to yourself”-styled notebook app, is now pivoting to a docs app that you can use without logging in.
The company will still maintain its original notes app and call it “Stashpad Lists.”StashPad Docs is the company’s new offering that doesn’t require any login and supports Markdown formatting.
The product is browser first and document history is stored locally, so users can search for docs without querying the server.
They might do so even without fully acknowledging that Google Docs remains a big part of their workflow.”With this new product, Stashpad aims to attract both technical and non-technical users.
Plus, it sees a venture-sized opportunity for the docs product.
Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky is adding to its ranks by scooping up a member of its developer community.
London-based software engineer Samuel Newman, who built the well-received third-party Bluesky client, Graysky, is joining the startup, where he will now help develop Bluesky’s official app along with the rest of the frontend team.
Given his change in position, the future of the Graysky app is uncertain.
Late last year, Graysky also added Trending Topics and a Pro subscription to help the app monetize.
With Newman now joining Bluesky, the hope is that the official client will also gain support for more features.
Threads, the Twitter-like app from Instagram, is rolling out the ability for users to save a draft and take photos within the app.
The new features shape Threads into more of a competitor to X (formerly Twitter), which has had drafts and a camera shortcut for as long as we can remember.
However, Threads only lets you save one draft at a time, whereas X lets you save multiple.
Threads users can now start writing out a post that they may want to share later, and then swipe down to save it as a draft.
The launch of the camera shortcut comes as app researcher Nima Owji indicated that X might be looking to adopt Threads’ carousel format for displaying images.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee.
Some of the other features for business accounts involve organizing chats with color labels, using automatic greetings or away messages, and shortcuts for quick replies.
On his channel, Durov said that Telegram plans to launch more business features this month including a way to integrate AI-powered chatbots for customer service.
“Telegram Business accounts will be able to seamlessly add chatbots as their invisible secretaries to respond to all or certain chats.
Telegram is trying to compete with WhatsApp Business, which crossed the mark of 200 million monthly active users last year, with these new features.
That’s why software developer Adam Whitcroft built a dead simple to-do app called Twodos that doesn’t remind you of your pending tasks.
Whitcroft, who has worked at a16z-backed Rewind and Shopify, wanted to have a non-noisy app for his tasks.
You can add tasks, mark them as done using a swipe gesture, and check the archive to clear all tasks.
Last decade’s simple to-do hit Clear, launched a new version called Clear 2 last month.
Clear’s developer Phill Ryu said that the app still follows simple gestures for navigation and task management without overloading the app with features.
SeatGeek’s latest product release, which it calls “Next Fan Up,” gives sports and music fans access to tools used by venues, organizations, and licensed sellers alike.
The feature gives you three selling options to choose from—sell faster at a lower price, sell slower at a higher price or sell at a more balanced pace and rate.
However, SeatGeek will still recommend the best price in a separate box below.
Regardless, resellers are nowhere near as bad as sleazy scalpers who drastically overprice tickets for desperate fans to cough up their hard-earned cash.
Now fans can quickly list, price and sell their tickets for another fan to enjoy.”
The TechCrunch team is in Barcelona this week to bring you all the action going on at Mobile World Congress 2024.
So far, we’ve seen some big announcements from companies, including new Android features from Google, Lenovo’s new laptop concept and rollable phone concept and Xiaomi’s robotic dog.
Motorola’s rollable concept phoneWhat’s the maximum size of a device that you will wear on your wrist?
The company has designed what it’s calling a “rollable concept phone” for Motorola that folds around your wrist.
In addition to design, Xiaomi has developed the five core EV technologies: E-Motor, CTB Integrated Battery, Xiaomi Die Casting, Xiaomi Pilot Autonomous Driving, and Smart Cabin.
The Displace wireless TV, that sticks to walls, plans new models and new AI featuresAt CES 2023 a startup hardware company called Displace launched the 55-inch ‘Display Flex’, a “wireless” $3,000 4K OLED TV which sticks to walls without a traditional mounting.
To begin with, the new ‘Display Mini’ will be a smaller 27 inch TV and designed for a kitchen or bathroom space.
The Displace devices will also have a Thermal camera built-in that has potential health applications (like reading your body heat maps to detect inflammation etc.
While most consumers are fine with a traditional TV setup, it’s businesses that need to be able to mount a TV on a wall, or even a window, as Displace is capable of doing.
And should that fail, the screen will gradually lower itself using a zipline – like a spider walking down a web – from the wall.
