A new sports tech startup, Volley, aims to revolutionize the way racquet sports players (platform tennis, padel, and pickleball) train with its AI-enabled sports training machine.
You can also digitally control the machine by tapping on your phone to select where you want the ball to land.
As an avid platform tennis player, John came up with the idea for Volley when he decided to put a tennis ball machine up on painter sticks to mimic certain shots.
“Volley is in a category on its own because the ball trainers of yesterday are no longer meeting the needs of players and pros.
On the long-term roadmap, the company says it wants to start leasing trainers to individual players who have at-home courts.
Google announced a bunch of new features for Google Play listings for games including AI-powered FAQs, displaying the latest YouTube videos, new immersive ad formats, and support for native PC game publishing.
These announcements were made at the Google Games Developer Summit held at San Fransisco.
Play Pass and Play PointsTo drive more in-app purchases, Google is now allowing developers to set discounts for users who have the company’s Play Pass subscription.
Support for PC gamesIn the last few years, Google has made its Play Games for PC program available in more than 120 countries.
Now, the company is set to allow publishers to put native PC games on the Play Store.
Instagram has quietly added a secret emoji game that you can access in your DMs.
To access the hidden game, all you have to do is open up a DM chat, send an emoji, and then click on it.
The game saves your high score, so you can come back to it at any time to try to beat your previous high score.
Your high score is saved across your DMs, so you don’t have to go back to the first emoji that you sent when activating the game.
An Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email that the company is always working on new ways to make “Instagram feel more fun,” which is why it rolled out the game.
It has heavily invested in its supply chain infrastructure over the years, with a particular focus on reducing delivery times for grocery items.
Quick-commerce accounts for about 40% of the online grocery delivery category, the analysts said.
“Quick commerce with a potential TAM of ~$45 billion (~7% of the grocery market of $620 billion),” they wrote.
We estimate quick-commerce GMV to grow to $6.2 billion by 2025.”Indian news outlet Entrackr first reported some of the details of Flipkart’s instant commerce play Thursday.
We constantly work towards delivering a wide range of products to customers with speed,” a Flipkart spokesperson said.
Notably, the experience is free for Sling TV and Sling Freestream customers, and they can play games while simultaneously watching live TV content — providing entertainment during commercial breaks.
Sling TV also allows users to expand the Arcade row on the home screen to have a more immersive playing experience.
Sling TV says that 10 games will be available at launch, with new titles to be added regularly.
Sling didn’t say if it would partner with other gaming companies to expand its gaming library, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
Dish, which recently merged with EchoStar, reported a loss of 65,000 Sling TV subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2023, bringing the total to 2.06 million.
This new program allows Play Store developers to lead their users in the EEA outside their app, including to promote offers.
Google says this fee represents the value that Play provided in facilitating the initial user acquisition through the Play Store.
Google says this fee represents the value that Play provided in facilitating the initial user acquisition through the Play Store.
Developers, however, will still be responsible for reporting transactions involving those users who are continuing to receive Play Store services.
Separately from the External Offers program, Google also this week launched two other programs to allow alternative billing systems for in-app purchases.
Indian firms whose apps were delisted by Google last week have begrudgingly started to comply with Play Store billing rules to get their apps back on the store.
A lot of protesting developers have opted for a consumption-only model for now, while others have opted for the Google Play billing.
And what about alternate app stores like the recently launched Indus app store from PhonePe?” Janakiraman told the publication.
Google also noted that the company has given developers three years to comply with Play Store rules.
Firms seeking regulatory actionThe firms that are protesting against Google’s move are looking for regulatory intervention.
Google said on Friday it will start removing apps from its Play Store in India if developers fail to comply with its payment policy, taking a definitive stand weeks after the top Indian court granted the Android-maker with relief.
Without naming them, Google said 10 companies in India, including “many well-established ones,” have not paid Google Play’s fee despite being provided with three years to prepare.
“After giving these developers more than three years to prepare, including three weeks after the Supreme Court’s order, we are taking necessary steps to ensure our policies are applied consistently across the ecosystem, as we do for any form of policy violation globally,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“Enforcement of our policy, when necessary, can include removal of non-compliant apps from Google Play.”This is a developing story.
More to come.
Consolidation is afoot in the world of HR services, with larger players snapping up interesting, smaller startups en route to more robust unit economics and providing one-stop shops for customers looking to cut down on suppliers.
In the latest development, Deel — the $12 billion HR business out of Paris — is scooping up Zavvy, a Munich-based AI-based “people development” startup building tools for personalized career progression, training, and performance management.
Finally, Deel will also make its existing Deel HR tool, which was free for organizations of up to 200 users, now “free” for existing customers regardless of their size.
Originally Deel approached Zavvy with a partnership proposal before making an offer to buy it outright.
By Zavvy’s and Deel’s accounts, the former company has not found it hard to build its business in a tighter market.
For example, on February 25, 2024, Threads saw 486,803 installs on Google Play and 342,228 on iOS.
X, by comparison, saw 225,408 Google Play downloads and 112,625 on iOS, Appfigures data shows.
That’s nearly triple the downloads on iOS for Threads and more than double the downloads on Google Play.
Then, Threads had 382,999 daily installs on iOS versus just 113,649 installs of X on the same platform — or more than triple.
Threads’ Google Play downloads were 660,882 at this time, versus just 210,475 for X on the Play Store — also more than triple.
