Adding usernames to a messaging app may seem like a standard feature, but for Signal, such identifiers were anathema to its mission of total privacy and security — until now.
The new feature sounds simple: you register a username and that appears instead of your phone number.
But why do this at all when everyone already has contact names, and Signal is totally private anyway?
That is not just happening in India, we’re seeing a number of jurisdictions where to obtain a phone number, you are required to provide more and more personal information.
But it replaces the phone number when you go to initiate contact.” (Signal does append numbers to chosen usernames to ensure they are unique.)
The London-based phone company’s media push largely relies on trickling out information about devices bit by bit.
Nothing Phone (2a) certainly fits the bill.
While it’s actually the company’s third handset, it’s the aimed squarely at a different demographic than the flagship Phone (1) and Phone (2).
After various teases and a handful of official image releases, the Phone (2a) finally saw the light of day (well, the warm glow of a Barcelona night) at MWC 2024.
Phone (2a) keeps the Phone (2)’s dual-camera set up, though it’s been moved to the center.
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.
Lapse has been been gaining some traction in the market — claiming millions of users, 100 million photos captured each month and a coveted, consistent top-10 ranking in the U.S. app store for photographic apps.
Now it’s announcing a new round of funding of $30 million to take its ambitions to the next level.
The company’s ethos may have an old school feel to it, but some of the mechanics of how the app operates are anything but.
Lapse has come under some scrutiny — see our story here — for how it has used growth-hacking and forced invites to expand the number of installs of its app.
(“Buh-bye, Lapse!” one of my more cranky and frustrated friends told me when I asked her to download the app to connect with me.)
More specifically, it’s a foldable concept device from Lenovo/Motorola showcased on the floor at this year’s MWC.
The company walked us through a demo of a device that’s another terrific example of its ability to get weird with design.
ItHighlights that there’s absolutely zero guarantee the device will ever become a product and Points to why the company is being a bit stingy with demos.
Lenovo says rollable has multiple batteries – though it won’t disclose how many.
Compared to the competition, the Chinese company is fearless when it comes to getting weird with product design – something I’m fully in favor of.
The back of your phone is useless.
Sure, the cameras are back that, but what about all of that blank real estate monopolizing 90% of the surface area?
The Infinix E-Color Shift improves upon Yota’s phone somewhat, by adding color to the mix.
Like e-ink, however, the back panel does have the advantage of holding a static image even when the battery isn’t putting in the work.
It remains to be seen whether this gets licensed by a third party or simply shows up on an Infinix device.
TikTok’s latest viral superstar is Reesa Teesa, a Georgia woman who posted 50 videos — just under 10 minutes long apiece — chronicling her tumultuous relationship with her ex-husband.
But Reesa’s videos marked the first time that I went for a walk while listening to TikToks, my phone tucked away in my pocket.
“The series, ‘who the f— did I marry,’ is not something that you have to sit down and hold your phone and watch,” Reesa said in a TikTok on Wednesday.
But Reesa is taking advantage of TikTok’s playlist feature, which transitions from one video to the next in order.
When we watch Reesa do mundane things in her TikTok “audiobook,” she subtly signals to us that no matter how bad things got with her ex-husband, she’s still standing.
Up until now, you have had to give someone your phone number to chat with them on Signal.
Signal still requires a phone number when registering for the app.
Instead, they’re just a quick way to connect with someone on the app without sharing your phone number.
However, if you still want people to see your phone number when you message them, you can change the default setting in your “Phone Number” settings.
Signal is also introducing a new privacy setting that will let you control who can find you on the app with your phone number.
For example, the MTA transit system in New York collected more than 18,000 lost items from 2018 to 2023 — and that time includes when people were sheltering in place for the pandemic.
Boomerang thinks AI can fix lost and found.
The Miami-based startup built software that uses machine learning to match pictures and descriptions of lost items.
Customers, which can range from gyms to theme parks, upload pictures and descriptions of their lost and found while consumers do the same for the item they’ve lost.
If there is a match, consumers can choose to pick up their items or have them shipped.
Solana Mobile still has a long way to go until it hits breakeven Solana Labs co-founder teases possibility of third mobile deviceLast month, Solana Mobile’s flagship web3 smartphone, the Saga, sold out.
Last week the Solana Labs’ subsidiary launched its second phone and got over 40,000 preorders in less than a week.
“After Saga sold out, it felt like there’s an opportunity and the timing in the market was right,” Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, said on TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast.
“The timing [for the new phone] worked out right around that moment.”And if the second device is a success, there will be a third phone launched later on, Yakovenko hinted.
“I think crypto was going through a hard bear market, and the Solana ecosystem was feeling the worst of it,” Yakovenko said.
