Author: TechBrunch

Spotify announced on Monday that Apple will approve a new app update, allowing US iPhone users to purchase individual audiobooks directly within the app. Users can also view the audiobook prices and easily purchase additional listening time for the first 15 hours or more. “The change will lower the barriers to accepting the first or tenth audiobook for more users, allowing publishers and authors to reach fans and seamlessly access to new audiences,” the company wrote in its announcement. The much-anticipated update follows a recent US court ruling that ordered Apple to suspend claims for purchases made outside the App…

Current economic uncertainty and geopolitical challenges have made it more difficult recently to secure funding for Asian startups. Venture capital companies have also been affected by the recession, leading to a decline in the number of funds that have been closed. The VC market is “passing” [one of its] Akio Tanaka, co-founder and partner of Headline Asia, a VC company based in Tokyo and Taipei, told TechCrunch in an interview. However, funds are still closed. Headline Asia said Tuesday it completed Headline Asia Fund V, one of its biggest funds to date. (The headline previously said it targets the fund's…

Google officially released the NotebookLM app for Android one day before Google I/O 2025 and one day before the company said it would be deployed. Since its launch in 2023, AI-based note-taking and research assistants are only accessible via the desktop. Google is currently making its services available on the go. The iOS app is scheduled to launch on Tuesday. NoteBookLM is designed to help people better understand complex information through features such as smart summaries and the ability to ask questions about documents and other materials. Image credit: Google The Android app gives you access to an overview of…

The trio's phone surveillance app, which won spy on millions of people's phones earlier this year, has gone offline. Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie are three almost identical but different branded stalkerwear apps that allow you to plant one of the apps in your personal data on your target phone. This is usually without the person's knowledge, such as messages, photos, call logs, real-time location data. Stalkerware apps such as Cocospy and its clones are designed to remain hidden from the device's home screen, making apps difficult for victims to detect, but they allow the apps to be continuously available to…

At the Build 2025 conference, Microsoft opened sourced many apps and tools, including a new command line text editor for Windows called Edit. Open source software may not be able to directly generate revenue from the company, but it acts as a form of market research and as a funnel to paid applications and services. By contributing to the open source community, Microsoft gains valuable knowledge and product suggestions, as well as ideas for future directions. Edits will be installed by default on Windows via the Windows Insider program starting this summer. Run the command “Edit” to allow developers to…

Microsoft launches a new API for Edge, a web browser, allowing developers to incorporate AI capabilities into their web apps using the built-in model in Edge. The AI ​​API announced at Build 2025 mirrors some of Google Chrome's features. It also offers “built-in AI” that allows developers to tap to power web applications. Microsoft's move suggests they are keen to offer competitors. Edge's new API provides website and Edge Browser extension access to the Phi 4 Mini, an AI model released by Microsoft in late February. Microsoft said the Phi 4 Mini is excellent at math problems and is therefore…

Microsoft is removing onboarding fees for developers in the Microsoft Store on Windows, the flagship operating system's digital distribution platform. Starting in June 2025, individual developers will be able to sign up and publish apps to the Microsoft Store without paying to register an account. Previously, Microsoft would charge around $19 for registration. The release fee exemption for Microsoft Store apps is due to the face of intense legal pressure to eliminate certain developer fees that Microsoft rival Apple charges in the App Store. These fees are fees. Apple charges an annual fee of $99 for developers to publish on…

As the playoffs intensify, Bluesky announced it is a beta version that will test new features during the NBA playoffs. An NBA game is in progress, but a red border with the “live” designation appears around posts from your NBA account. When a user clicks on their NBA profile picture, they will be redirected to the event they are advertising, even if it means moving them away from BlueSky. “We're not locking you in Bluesky,” Bluesky's COO Rose Wang wrote in a Sunday post. “We want you to use Blueski to discover what's going on.” Under previous ownership, Twitter had…

Pharmaceutical Maker Regeneron announced Monday that it will purchase genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million following its bankruptcy auction. Regeneron said it will retrieve personal and genetic data from 23andMe's Genomics Service and 15 million customers as part of the transaction. Pharma Giant plans to use 23andMe customer data to help with drug discovery, saying it will “prioritize privacy, security and ethical use of 23andme customer data.” 23AndMe filed for bankruptcy protection in March after data breaching private and genetic data of seven million customers throughout 2023. The company's stock price plunged near zero as consumer interest in the…

According to a Bloomberg report looking at Apple's uneven AI initiative, former Siri head John Giannandrea chose to select Google's Gemini Chatbot to Apple to choose Google's Gemini Chatbot and first chatbot integration with Siri. Giannandorea, a former Google executive who was demoted for a leadership reshuffle in March, thought Openai bots were not up to maintainability and would not protect sensitive personal data. Despite these concerns, Apple announced the integration of ChatGPT in WWDC in 2025, making this feature available to users in December. Apple's integration allows users to tap ChatGPT if Siri cannot answer the question. Last year,…