Author: TechBrunch
Fortnite developer Epic Games announced Friday that it has officially launched a rival iOS app store in the European Union, with the Epic Games Store also launching on Android worldwide. The app store will feature games like Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe and Fall Guys, and the company said it is working with developers to release games on the Epic Games Store in the future. Epic Games will also be offering its games on independent mobile store AltStore PAL, which announced yesterday that its app store will be available for free thanks to a grant from Epic Games. The company said…
Following the launch of AI Overview in the U.S., Google is expanding AI-powered search overviews to six more countries: India, Brazil, Japan, the U.K., Indonesia, and Mexico. These markets will also receive local language support for AI Overview. The search giant is also overhauling how it displays links to source material. On both desktop and mobile, it's adding a view in the top right that displays site icons above the AI summary. Users can tap on these icons to go to links cited in the AI summary to read more about that topic. Image credit: Google Additionally, the company is…
Over the past few months, we have seen a rise in the user base eager to try out new and old social networks alternatives to Twitter. Mastodon, Bluesky, Spill, T2 etc are some of the social media platforms people are trying out. Now, Meta is entering the game with a major launch in partnership with Instagram. What is Threads and how do I create an account? Threads is a text-based Twitter rival to Meta, and it's tied to your Instagram account, so you can create an account by logging in with your Instagram credentials. How is it different from Twitter?…
A social media spat between billionaire tech investors has called into question the journalistic independence of 3-year-old news outlet SF Standard after a reporter there contacted sources for a story about venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and his wife, Felicia. Standard's only backer is another longtime venture capitalist, Michael Moritz, who, in a blistering rebuke on the X platform Thursday night, called the “coming soon” article a “cheap smear campaign” orchestrated by Moritz, accusing him of “enlisting a disinformation 'newspaper' to fabricate a smear campaign against me, a business rival.” Horowitz's business partner, Marc Andreessen, later joined in, repeating the accusation…
Update: California's Appropriations Committee passed SB 1047 on Thursday, August 15, with significant amendments that change the bill. Read more here. Outside of science fiction movies, there's no precedent for AI systems being used to kill people or launch large-scale cyberattacks, but some lawmakers want to put in place safeguards before bad actors make that dystopian future a reality. California's bill, SB 1047, aims to prevent real-world disasters caused by AI systems, and is due for a final vote in the state legislature in late August. While this seems like a goal we can all agree on, SB 1047 has…
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…
Hipost Capital, the private equity firm run by Jeff Bezos' brother Mark Bezos and private equity veteran David Moross, has launched a new venture capital arm called HIPstr, which will generate new capital to invest in startups. The new firm announced it was raising $100 million for its first venture capital fund. Hipost Capital focuses on consumer-facing companies, while HIPstr is targeting the dramatic decline in startup valuations over the past few years, according to Bloomberg. The fund has already invested in six early-stage startups, including Kylie Jenner's alcohol distribution company Wild Common and cremation services provider After.com, which raised…
California residents will soon be able to store their driver's licenses and state-issued IDs in the Apple Wallet and Google Wallet apps, with support for digital IDs set to roll out in the coming weeks, the state government announced Thursday. Californians who have registered their ID with the Apple Wallet or Google Wallet app will be able to use their mobile device to present their ID in person at certain TSA security checkpoints and businesses, and they can also use the app to verify their age and identity in certain apps. Other states that already support digital driver's licenses and…
Social networking startup Bluesky has benefited from a surge in new users from the UK following Elon Musk's controversial comments about the UK riots in recent weeks. While X's biggest rival, Instagram Threads, has yet to show any defections from X in its app install or usage data, Bluesky said earlier this week that it has seen an increase in sign-ups and a 60% increase in activity from UK-based accounts. The company reiterated the claim on Wednesday, showing a chart showing that UK activity on its network now outpaces all other countries on Bluesky. Image credit: Bluesky The company also…
Benchmarking giant Primate Labs released Geekbench AI 1.0 on Thursday. Currently available for Android, Linux, MacOS, and Windows, the app applies Geekbench principles to machine learning, deep learning, and other AI workloads, aiming to standardize performance evaluation across platforms. It's the successor to Geekbench ML (machine learning), which was announced in 2021 and is currently at version 0.6. “[I]”In recent years, companies have become more united in using the term 'AI' for these types of workloads (and their associated marketing),” Primate Labs said about the name change. “We felt it was time to update it to help everyone, from engineers…