Author: TechBrunch

You need to keep focused. You cannot open Tiktok, Instagram, or a small phone game you want to play. If it fails, the knitting project will rely on its ability to maintain focus, making anthropomorphic beans very sad. This is the premise of Focus Friend, a productivity app created by Honey B Games and Hank Green. This is a longtime online creator/entrepreneur/educator/sock salesman. The app was released last month, but Focus Friend is currently only gaining momentum on the App Store charts. With Green and his brother John Green posting more, it reaches fourth among all free apps and second…

Substack, the newsletter subscription platform, will begin taking advantage of the US app store options that allow users to purchase outside of Apple's in-app purchase system. This feature is permitted by a change to the App Store rules in May as a result of an anti-trust lawsuit against the tech giant by Epic Games. Since then, many top apps have been moving to provide in-app purchase links pointing to their own websites, such as Spotify, Patreon, and Amazon Kindle apps. In the case of Subscack, external payment support benefits both of the company. This means that there is no need…

Xai's Grok Chatbot website publishes several prompts for its AI persona, including “crazy conspiracyists” designed to hand over users to the belief that “secret global cobalts” control the world. TechCrunch has confirmed the system prompt exposure first reported by 404 media. They include the instructions of various AI personas, like Anni, “silly nerds, but a bit of a nerd.” [her] An edgy look. ” This revelation follows Glock's wild tangent on “Mechahitler,” followed by a planned partnership between Elon Musk's Zai and the US government to make Groke available to federal agencies. Also, following the uproar following the leaked guidelines…

Linktree, a popular link-in bio service used by millions of creators and businesses, was not accessible in India for several days. The sudden loss of failure from the Indian web remains a mystery to the Australian startup itself. Over the past week, Linktree is inaccessible in India, with several users raising the issue on X. First, TechCrunch noticed that it temporarily displayed a message suggesting that the site was blocked by the Indian government. This was then replaced by a common SSL protocol error. The Linktree app is also not accessible domestically. Founded in 2016, Linktree became a unicorn in…

Workday, one of the biggest providers of human resources technology, has confirmed a data breaches that allow hackers to steal personal information from one of their third-party customer relationship databases. In a blog post published late Friday, the HR Technology giant said the hackers had stole unspecified personal information from the database. Workday did not expressly rule out that customer information was retrieved in a data breach. This states that “there is no indication of access to the customer tenant or the data within it.” The company said stolen information could be used to promote social engineering fraud. Hackers said…

Grammarly has a new document-based interface built behind CODA, a productivity startup that we acquired last year. The interface also includes AI assistants and several AI tools for students and professionals, such as AI graders, proofreaders and quote finders. The new interface can adopt a block-first approach to insert tables, columns, separators, lists, and headers. You can also add rich text blocks to highlight information, add hints, and add alerts. The sidebar hosts the AI assistant. AI assistants can summarise texts, answer questions and provide writing suggestions. Image credit: Grammarly There are also many AI tools. Reader Reactions allows you…

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn was criticised loudly this year after declaring Duolingo to become “AI-First Company,” but he suggested in a new interview that the real problem was “did not give sufficient context.” “Internally, this was uncontroversial,” von Ann told The New York Times. “Externally, as a public company, some people think it's just for profit. Or we're trying to fire people. That wasn't the intention at all.” On the contrary, Von Ahn said the company “has never fired a full-time employee” and said it would not do so. And he did not deny that Duolingo had cut the…

Another crypto company heads to the open market. This time it's Gemini Space Station, a New York-based crypto exchange and custodian bank founded by billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The costumes that will be listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol Gemi were founded in 2014 and operate as exchange and custodians offering many products and services, including US dollar-backed Stablecoin and credit cards that offer rewards in Crypto. The company's S-1 document filed Friday after the market closed looks at its finances. Results: Gemini appears to be expanding its net loss. The company reported a…

James Schoruter explains a fairly specific scenario, if not a completely incredible nightmare scenario. Someone drives to your home, cracks your Wi-Fi password, then starts messing around with the solar inverter installed next to your garage. This modest gray box converts currents directly from the roof panels into alternating currents that run your home. “We need solar stalkers” for this scenario to unfold, Showalter says. It describes people who need to physically manifest themselves in their driveways, both with technical know-how and motivation to hack home energy systems. The CEO of EG4 Electronics, a Sulphur Springs, Texas-based company, does not…

Making friends as adults can be a challenge, especially after moving to a new city. Luckily, modern technology exists, and more people are turning to apps like Friends, Flocks, Bumble for Time Left and quickly forming new friendships. One app, called Les Amis, aims to stand out by targeting women, transgender and LGBTQ+ individuals, primarily in the demographics of their mid-20s to early 40s. Les Amis uses AI to pair users with similar interests and encourages them to participate in local events offered within the app, such as ceramic classes, book clubs, wine tastings, and Pilates. Anna Virich (formerly PayPal)…