Author: TechBrunch
Epic Games is preparing to return to iOS in Europe as a result of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), the company has confirmed. The Fortnite maker said it will offer both the game and a mobile version of the Epic Games Store in Europe, and shared a look back at this year and what's coming in 2024 in a blog post. With DMA, Epic Games will be able to: The mobile game store operator's developer account has been banned from both the App Store and Google Play for intentionally violating the company's rules regarding in-app purchases, ahead of…
Google is testing a new feature that calls businesses on your behalf, puts them on hold, and then calls you when a representative is available, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. A new feature called “Talk to a Live Rep” means users no longer have to listen to music and wait countless hours, even hours, to connect with a customer service agent. The company said the feature is now available in English for people in the U.S. who have joined Search Labs, a program that allows users to experiment with the early Google search experience, and have opted in to the…
NFTs aren't always taken seriously, especially now that AI and content creators are hogging the spotlight, but not everyone is so quick to dismiss the often-derided little brother of cryptocurrencies. According to Yat Siu, chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, artificial intelligence and the growing influence of content are the reasons why the need for NFTs is increasing around the world. Yes, I know that's a bold claim, but before you roll your eyes, hear him out. Animoca has its own collection of NFTs, blockchain products, and wildly popular games. The company has also worked with other famous brands and…
The European Union’s rebooted ecommerce rules start to apply in full from tomorrow — setting new legal obligations on the likely thousands of platforms and digital businesses that fall in scope. The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a massive endeavour by the EU to set an online governance framework for platforms and use transparency obligations as a tool to squeeze illegal content and products off the regional internet. If something is illegal to say or sell in a particular Member State it should not be possible to workaround the law by taking to the Internet is the basic idea. So…
It's a rare startup that destroys companies. Own Pitch deck, but that's exactly what Equals did after raising $16 million in a Series A round. Equals' mission is not to replace spreadsheets, but to ensure that whatever you throw at them, it runs. As an avid spreadsheet user, this is an approach I can support. I built an entire software solution using a very complex spreadsheet as the backend. Additionally, as a pitch deck enthusiast, I can also appreciate the bright and bold design of Equals' decks. What I particularly liked was that it split the deck into two different…
The former founder of a to-do list app that sold for as much as $200 million is back nine years later with another app that does the same thing. Really? It's a hard story to make up, but it's a reality. I don't think you can hold back talented founders. After selling his first startup, his Wunderlist of To Do List apps, to Microsoft in 2015, Christian Reber (pictured above) could have fought back with angel investment (for example, he is an investor in his Notion). Instead, he started a new company called Pitch, where he had to find a…
After Apple confirmed yesterday that it was suspending web apps for customers in the EU due to compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said: states. Suggest in X post There's another reason behind Apple's decision. iPhone web apps don't make any money for Apple. Sweeney's company is suing Apple over antitrust concerns related to App Store fees, an obviously biased source on the subject, but it raises questions on everyone's minds. are doing. Was Apple breaking his iPhone web app to protect customers from security risks posed by third-party browser engines, as Apple…
Karen Serfati and Giannina Rossi, engineers from Argentina, have been working for US-based companies for the past 10 years and are faced with the same problem of how to manage their taxes while working as contractors in another country. It was always surfacing. Working with San Francisco-based Josefina Van Seenen, who was building strategic partnerships with AI-focused technology companies at Microsoft, they looked more deeply into this question and realized how companies around the world I discovered that taxes are not the only issue if you want to get hired in . “If you're working from Europe, Asia or Latin…
Clubhouse, the once popular live audio app, announced today that users can now send text messages to friends and hear those texts in the sender's custom voice. To stay relevant amid user churn, Clubhouse debuted group audio chats. Group audio chat allows members to send asynchronous audio messages to each other, and the messages appear in a format similar to Instagram Stories. With today's announcement, the company acknowledges that users may not be able to send voice messages to each other. So, when you train your custom voice and send a text, your friends will be able to hear your…
Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, Anthropic, a well-funded AI startup, detects when users of its GenAI chatbot ask questions about political topics and turns them into a “trusted” source of voting information. We are testing technology to redirect. The technology, called “Prompt Shield,” relies on a combination of AI detection models and rules to display a pop-up when U.S.-based users of Anthropic's chatbot, Claude, request voting information. The pop-up offers to redirect users to TurboVote, a resource from the nonpartisan organization Democracy Works, where they can find up-to-date, accurate voting information. According to Antropic, Prompt Shield was necessitated…