Author: TechBrunch
Mozilla announced on Thursday that it had closed its Pocket, a reading app that it acquired in 2017, on July 8th. The company is also shutting down Fakespot, a browser extension that helps identify unreliable reviews. “Pocket helped millions of people save articles and discover stories worth reading,” Mozilla said in a blog post. “But as the way people use the web has evolved, we are directing resources to projects tailored to browsing habits and online needs.” Users will continue to use the app and browser extensions for their pocket until July 8th. From that day onwards, your pocket will…
Surf is Surf, the new Flipboard app for browsing the Open Social Web, making it easier for people to create their own custom feeds that focus on their interests and discover them. Instead of getting stuck in an algorithmically generated timeline designed by social network owners, custom feeds allow you to build experiences that focus on what you actually care about, such as your favorite hobby, sports, community, or other topics. With the introduction of the starter set on Thursday, Surf simplifies the process of building, personalizing these custom feeds and publishing the platform off if selected. By making feed…
At the first developer meeting on Thursday, humanity launched two new AI models with the best startup claims in the industry, at least in terms of how they score on popular benchmarks. Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 are part of humanity's new Claude 4 family model, allowing you to analyze large datasets, perform long-term challenges, and perform complex actions. Both models were tuned to work well in programming tasks, and humanity states they are suitable for writing and editing code. Both users and users of the company's free chatbot app can access Sonnet 4, but only users can…
The story of how smart toilet startup Sloan landed the seed round was packed with coincidence and could be believed to have been organized by the hands of Fortuna, the Roman goddess of Providence. Throne is an Austin-based company that works on AI-powered toilet devices for consumers. Monitor your gut health using computer vision (a camera pointing to bowls and AI software). It raised $4 million in seed finance, led by Moxxie Ventures founder Katie Jacobs Stanton. The throne is not a toilet, but a device that can be attached to the bowl of a bowl. The device, combined with…
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The social fitness app Strava made two acquisitions last month and changed it. On Thursday, Strava's acquisition of cycling app The Breakay followed the acquisition of Runna last month. Incubated in Y Combinator's Summer 2021 class, this breakaway uses AI to create a personalized training plan for cyclists working towards specific goals. Runna, a UK-based Jamjar app, works similarly, but is built for runners rather than cyclists. Needless to say, Strava has shown a very strong interest in selling training planning tools to its users. STRAVA is one of the best-selling and most popular fitness apps, so users can track…
Signal said today it updated its Windows app to prevent the system from capturing screenshots, thereby protecting the content on display. The company said this new “screen security” setting is enabled by default on Windows 11. Signal said the new feature was designed to protect user privacy from Microsoft's recall feature announced last year. Recall continuously captures screenshots of the system and remembers all the activities, so you can scroll in time to remember what you're looking at. The company paused its deployment of features after a backlash last year, but Microsoft began testing again in April via the Windows…
Spotify says the ability to direct customers to external payment links in iOS apps has already had a positive impact on sales. In a newly filed Amicus Brief supporting Epic Games in its ongoing legal battle with Apple over external payments for the App Store, Spotify claims its internal data indicates that recent updates supporting web payments have resulted in a “significant increase in IOS users being upgraded to premium subscriptions.” Shortly after the US District Court in Northern California upheld Fortnite Maker Epic Games on the issue of external payments, Apple was ultimately forced to allow customers to point…
Sen. Ron Wyden wrote to fellow senators Wednesday to reveal that three major US mobile airlines do not have provisions to notify lawmakers of government surveillance requests despite contractual requirements to do so. In the letter, Wyden, a longtime Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Email Committee, said that investigations by his staff found that AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon had not notified senators from the White House of legal requests to monitor calls. The letter states that the companies “indicating that they are all providing such notices.” Politico first reported Wyden's letter. Wyden's letter was inspired by a report…
Spotify is launching a new hub dedicated to keeping users informed about upcoming albums, the company announced Wednesday. The hub, known as “future releases,” will feature personalized recommendations based on the user's listening history. Users can access it via the Mobile Search tab in the Browse All section. The hub also features the top 10 global countdowns, the most anticipated release based on the number of presaves. The hub allows users to pre-save future releases and view the countdown page. This will show you a track list for future albums and released singles. These pages also include artist products and…