Author: TechBrunch

As part of its Q1 2024 earnings release, Snap revealed that total watch time on TikTok competitor Spotlight increased by more than 125% year-over-year. Snapchat launched a TikTok-like feed in late 2020 as a way to compete with the growing popularity of TikTok. The company is touting the success of its short video feed, a day after President Biden signed legislation that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to sell it within a year. According to Snap, overall time spent watching content increased year-over-year worldwide, primarily due to an increase in total time spent watching Spotlight…

Meta's move toward the open social web, also known as the Fediverse, is puzzling. Do the owners of Facebook think that open protocols are the future? Just accept the Fediverse, shut it down, send people back to its own platform, and destroy the startups that are building in this space. I wonder? Will that ad empire be brought to the Fediverse, where clients like Mastodon currently don't see ads? One possible answer comes from a conversation between two Meta employees working on Threads and Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. Mike McCue's company has joined the Fediverse with support for his ActivityPub,…

US medical conglomerate Kaiser has hit millions of current and former members with a data breach after confirming it shared patient information with third-party advertisers including Google, Microsoft and X (formerly Twitter) reported. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, Kaiser said its investigation revealed that “certain online technologies previously installed on websites and mobile applications may have transmitted personal information to third-party vendors.” He said it was found that. Kaiser said the data shared with advertisers includes a member's name and IP address, as well as whether the member is signed in to a Kaiser Permanente account or service, whether…

Sanctuary AI isn't often talked about in the same breath as humanoid robot companies like Boston Dynamics, Agility, Figure, and 1X, but the Canadian company has been active in this space for some time. In fact, the new robot introduced Thursday is actually the seventh generation of the Phoenix product line. Although recent iterations have introduced legs to the line, Sanctuary is most interested in what's happening from the waist up. Apparently, the new video of the latest robot focuses on the system's torso. The Canadian company emphasizes the system's human-like behavior in sorting products and the speed with which…

As a ban on TikTok approaches reality in the U.S., it may be time to start thinking about other platforms being early adopters in case they end up filling the popular app's void at some point in the future. unknown. President Biden on Wednesday signed legislation that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to sell the app within a year, moving the possibility of a TikTok ban closer than ever. However, given the one-year timeline, TikTok won't disappear anytime soon. Especially since the company has vowed to fight the bill in court. Since transferring the app's…

Quickly! The content submission ends tomorrow, April 26th at 11:59pm PT. If you're a startup professional and want to lead a session at TechCrunch Disrupt, October 28-30, apply now. Submit your proposal to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 by the deadline. Your topic should enable startup founders, builders, and entrepreneurs to drive their businesses forward. Choose the format (or both!) that best suits your subject matter. Breakout sessions: 30 minutes of talk followed by 20 minutes of Q&A for up to 100 participants. Roundtable Discussions: Lead her 30-minute interactive conversations with up to 25 participants and foster organic dialogue. Our…

Social media platform TikTok said a bill banning the app in the United States is “unconstitutional” and it will challenge the latest attempt to restrict its use in court. The bill in question, signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, gives Chinese parent company ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok or face a ban on app stores distributing the app in the United States. The bill received strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and a majority in the Senate. This is part of a broader bill that includes military aid to Israel and Ukraine. “Make no mistake about…

Rubrik stock debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday at $38 per share. The cybersecurity company raised $752 million Wednesday night at a price of $32 per share, slightly above its original target range of $29 to $31. The share price gives Rubrik a fully diluted valuation of $6.6 billion, an 88% increase from its previous underlying valuation of $3.5 billion in 2019. Rubrik sells cloud-based security software to enterprise customers and has 1,700 customers with commitments of $100,000 or more and 100 customers who pay the company more than $1 million annually. The Silicon Valley startup was…

Social networks Bluesky and Mastodon may soon be accessible from within one app. At least, that's what Bluesky hopes. This new decentralized social network was originally founded within Twitter, run by Jack Dorsey, and will connect, or “bridge”, Mastodon's requests with Bluesky's, allowing consumer-facing apps like Ivory to connect with him as well. We are supporting the project to make it compatible with Bluesky. The project, dubbed SkyBridge, received a small grant from Bluesky of $4,800 to be distributed throughout the project. SkyBridge was his second largest recipient in this current cohort, receiving his $800 of the total. Bluesky announced…

Adam Mosseri, head of Threads and Instagram, today announced that Threads is launching a new feature that lets you filter out words and phrases from your feed and mentions. The “Hidden Words” feature automatically mutes common words, phrases, and emojis that may be offensive to users. In addition to these preset filters, users can add their own custom words and phrases to the settings. Users can turn off these settings at any time. Earlier this week, dating app Hinge launched its own “Hidden Words” feature (yes, it's the same name) that blocks requests with comments containing unwanted words. Image credit:…